When you think of how exactly a second date could go from a somewhat nice time to horribly awry, Will Weldon went through a gauntlet of many things you were probably thinking up.
Of course, as he’s telling this story after the fact on This Is Not Happening, he didn’t get murdered or kidnapped or anything of that nature, but a second date like this one is still spectacularly awful.
For part of a TV show that Bert Kreischer used to star in, he was once forced to fight a bear.
Kreischer tells the whole story, which is actually kind of a love story, for This Is Not Happening with Ari Shaffir.
This Is Not Happening starts tonight at 12:30! We started it as a live show for 12 people with Maron & Diaz 5 years ago. Tonight it’s on TV!
— Ari Shaffir (@AriShaffir) January 22, 2015
Like the host Ari Shaffir tweeted out, This Is Not Happening had humble beginnings here in LA and has built up to one of the best storytelling shows around to a fantastic web series to, now, Comedy Central’s latest show.
Watch the premiere tonight at 12:30AM on Comedy Central.
Much of America was first introduced to Bobby Lee through a show known as Mad TV.
Some of you might not know that he got fired from that show for a time and there’s a pretty funny, but harrowing story behind that.
Lee tells that story for This Is Not Happening with Ari Shaffir and you can watch it here.
Like we said earlier this week, This Is Not Happening with Ari Shaffir is set to premiere on Comedy Central Jan. 22nd at 12:30AM.
To give you a little taste of what the stories from Bert Kreischer, Marc Maron, Cy Amundson, Bobby Lee, Keegan Michael-Key, Steve Rannazzisi, Cristela Alonzo, Ali Saddiq, Sean O’Connor, Rob Corddry, Will Weldon, Tom Segura, Paul Scheer, Big Jay Oakerson, Barry Rothbart, Jay Larson, Iliza Shlesinger, and more might be like, here’s a trailer.
Also, you get to see how crazy the opening sequence for the show is as well.
The amazing comedian storytelling series This Is Not Happening with Ari Shaffir is having its TV series premiere on Thurs. Jan. 22nd 12:30AM on Comedy Central.
Shaffir, Keegan Michael-Key, and Bobby Lee are set for the first episode focusing on drug stories, so the premiere should be really good.
Be sure to mark this on your calendars and kick off your weekend next week with this.
We’re all excited for the return of Broad City, Kroll Show, and the premiere of Larry Wilmore as host of The Nightly Show on Comedy Central.
However, Comedy Central has more up its sleeve, as it announced today, including the premiere of two brand new series, high concept comedy about “the biz" Big Time in Hollywood, FL and the great storytelling series This Is Not Happening Hosted by Ari Shaffir.
This Is Not Happening will make its series premiere with a bunch of the most out there experiences as told by comedians on Thurs. Jan. 22nd at 12:30AM. Big Time in Hollywood, FL will premiere a few months after on Wed. Mar. 25th at 10:30PM.
Set reminders on your mobile devices accordingly.
The return of The Riot LA Comedy Festival is just around the corner on Jan. 16th-18th, 2015 and with a good portion of the line-up announced, it’s something to definitely look forward to after this whole holiday season.
Norm MacDonald, Hari Kondabolu, Nick Turner, Michelle Wolf, Sean Patton, Karen Kilgariff, Roast Battle, Matt Braunger, Brendon Walsh, Billy Wayne Davis, Dave Hill, Dan Soder, Sam Simmons, Kurt Braunohler, God Damn Comedy Jam, Chris Fairbanks, Baron Vaughn, Brew Haha, Al Madrigal, With Special Guest Lauren Lapkus, Jamie Lee, Beth Stelling, Andy Kindler, Sean O’Connor, This Is Not Happening with Ari Shaffir, Nate Bargatze, Drennon Davis, Comedy Living Room, Dave Anthony, Happy Contest TIme, The Indoor Kids, Randy Liedtke, Jim Hamilton, Ashley Barnhill, Marilyn Bamford Collective, Ahmed Bharoocha, Barry Rothbart, and more are coming to a few blocks on Main St., in Downtown LA.
So, get your festival passes now for $90 while you can.
The latest tapings of Comedy Central’s are indeed set for next month on Sept 9th, 15th, and 16th at Cheetah’s Club and now, their line-ups have just been announced (and it’s going to be pretty damn good).
Set to tell a story of something absolutely insane happening will be:
Cristela Alonzo
Rob Corddry
DL Hughley
Keegan-Michael Key
Bobby Lee
Starlee Kine
Marc Maron
Joe Rogan
Paul Scheer
Ms. Pat Williams
Bert Kreischer
Jay Larson
Ralphie May
Iliza Shlesinger
Cy Amundson
Jay Oakerson
Tom Papa
Steve Rannazzisi
Rory Scovel
Sean O’Connor
Ali Siddiq
Duncan Trussell
Will Weldon
Kevin Christy
Joey Diaz
Barry Rothbart
Giulia Rozzi
So, get your tickets here.
Earlier this year, we all got the great news that CC:Studios’ This Is Not Happening with Ari Shaffir web series graduated to an actual TV series to air on Comedy Central.
Well, the TV series is going to tape starting next month here in LA and you can free tickets to the taping so long as you get them as soon as you can. There will be six shows total: Tues. Sept. 9th (6:30PM/9PM), Mon. Sept. 15th (6:30PM/9PM), and Tues. Sept. 16th (6:30PM/9PM).
We highly recommend not missing out on this so you can catch story like this, this, or this live.
Comedy Central Picks Up This Is Not Happening with Ari Shaffir to TV Series
Here’s another great case of where a great web series that has cultivated quite a following gets picked up to air on actual TV. The darkly humorous storytelling show This Is Not Happening with Ari Shaffir has done two great seasons at CC:Studios and now will be a full fledged TV show.
Not only are we looking forward to when this premieres on TV, but we’re excited on how Comedy Central has been expanding their branding over the last couple of years.
Like many of us, Kumail Nanjiani wanted so badly to be cool and it would devastate him any set back he encountered from being considered cool.
Watch his story of “cool betrayal” in this latest episode of CC:Studios’ This Is Not Happening with Ari Shaffir.
The latest episode of This Is Not Happening with Ari Shaffir involves four comedians that all are in the room when this was taped and all subsequently took the stage: Steve Rannazzisi, Ari Shaffir, Bobby Lee, and Natasha Leggero.
The story follows a crazy fight that broke out at The Comedy Store, which isn’t that unusual for The Comedy Store, but they all have amazingly made up and agreed on what happened.
Watch and see what the hell happened here.
The Most Intentionally Funny Videos of 2013 Part 2
This is part 2 of me going through my favorites of my favorites in 2013 as far as videos that made me fall into stuff laughing during our column at Nerdist, The Most Intentionally Funny Videos.
Included are Maron in Space, Sean Patton’s story about being gaybashed as a straight guy, Matt Damon vs. Jimmy Kimmel, and more.
Moshe Kasher is featured in this latest episode of CC:Studios This It Not Happening with Ari Shaffir and tells the story of he had to deal with an anti-semitic audience member. Spoiler alert (as you can see from Moshe telling the story): the anti-semite lost.
Watch to see the whole story here.
If the hilarious Kurt Braunohler had to get in one bar fight, it might be with a DJ that’s provoked by Kurt scream spelling and ending up in something much weirder than traditional fighting.
Oh wait, he did get one such bar fight and it’s the only one he’s ever been in. See what exactly happened on this episode of This Is Not Happening with Ari Shaffir.
CC:Studios’ This Is Not Happening with Ari Shaffir is finally back and in this latest batch of episodes, they have fight stories, which brings Big Jay Oakerson to share the story of one of the biggest fights he’s ever seen.
By big, we do not mean a title fight or two rivals gangs fighting each other, but rather something more literal. Watch it here.
This Is Not Happening with Ari Shaffir Season 2 Premieres Next Week
One of the best storytelling web series, This Is Not Happening with Ari Shaffir, returns for a second season starting next Tues. Nov. 5th and releasing episodes on Tuesdays after that at CC:Studios. There will be almost unbelievable stories (almost because they actually happened) from Kurt Braunohler, Fortune Feimster, Kumail Nanjiani, Trevor Moore, Moshe Kasher, Steve Rannazzisi, and more.
If you have no idea what we’re talking about, please familiarize yourself with season 1 that includes stories of TJ Miller almost dying from a brain hemorrhage and Sean Patton getting gay bashed as a straight man.
CC:Studios Giving This Is Not Happening with Ari Shaffir a Second Season
The amazing storytelling web series “This Is Not Happening w/Ari Shaffir” is thankfully getting another season from Comedy Central’s CC:Studios and you can catch the taping of it if you’re in LA on Oct. 1st.
If you happened to watch any of the stories or even one like Sean Patton getting gay bashed as a straight man, you’ll know that you shouldn’t miss it.
You definitely did not misread that headline. The hilarious Tom Segura had more than just a crazy weekend for his high school reunion where he ended up in critical care at a hospital and was still cracking jokes.
Watch him tell the full story at This Is Not Happening with Ari Shaffir over at CC:Studios.
Of the comedians that can even articulate death in a comedic way, one of the best is Kyle Kinane.
Just check out this story at CC:Studios’ This Is Not Happening of him almost dying while Depeche Mode was playing in the background as the perfect example.
There has always been a “universal” quality about storytelling, especially the kind that is live, done in person. Any story has the potential to be captivating through unflinching honesty and keen craftsmanship even if its told behind a high school cafeteria.
The stand-up/storytelling series “This Is Not Happening” magnifies how amazingly hilarious stories can be when already tried-and-true comedians shed the veil of their act and spin quite the yarn in front of a packed house at the Hollywood Improv Main Room.
Whether it be Eddie Pepitone yelling about working for a legally blind man, Kyle Kinane working for a charming racist, or even Tig Notaro calling herself out on an intentionally drawn-out, bland story, each one of the comedians, who are already hilarious just telling jokes (i.e. former Simpsons writer Dana Gould), maintained a sense of being around a campfire telling stories as if we were all friends except there was around 200 of us, which made every twist and turn even bigger and subsequently more gratifying.
Many comics fear delving into storytelling as the long bouts of silence that can potentially come with doing so, but I would argue that many of those tense expectations that the audience has for someone to be funny and the performer has for the audience to laugh melt away as they’re just purely honest. Kevin Christy, with his hysterical story of how faithful he is to his wife, did this by being wonderfully unapologetic for how much of a “straight edge” he is and, as a result, left the audience laughing heartily between every turn.
Hosted efficiently and very enjoyably by Ari Shaffir and finely produced by Eric Abrams, This Is Not Happening takes the model of a storytelling show and betters it with a very sizable crowd and a theme, tying every comedian’s stories nice and neat into a package manifested in the image, on this particular show, (on the flyer above designed by aforementioned comic Kevin Christy) of a pile of feces in a hard hat. The delightful theme to inspire such an image was: Take This Job and Shove It. Feces in a hard hat is sort of revolting as an idea, but one that really is universal to the human experience, at least since construction jobs were developed, and hilarious in story form with dozens of people listening, making This Is Not Happening something that I’m quite glad “actually happens” and I have the privilege to see.
This is Not Happening frequently takes places at the Hollywood Improv. Check back at the Comedy Bureau for details on the next one.
1) Yesterday, as I said, I went did the Marty’s Marathon, meaning I went up at the same open mic from 5PM to 11PM. Instead of reviewing the whole experience, I’m going to just list all the tweets I had through the duration of the open mic as a “stream of consciousness” primary document to impart what exactly what I went through:
“At Marty’s for comedy open mic march of death. #thisisgoingtobefun #convincinghashtag.”
“Audience/comics that may not listen of 3.”
“Host redoing opening joke”
“I love to hear homeless men fart.” #openmicgenius"
“Host running time by when he finishes his burger”
“People are looking at me while performing like I’m the only audience member because that’s kind of the case.”
“Finished first set at marty’s and I’m thinking already "I’m still here”
“There’s a crowd…. of five….. two of which are actually listening”
“Apparently, I’m not the first one to do Marty’s from 5pm to 11pm. DAMN IT!!!”
“To do material or to depress the shit out of people #openmichamlet”
“You know what happens when I play hard to get? I DON’T GET GOT!” #openmicgenius"
“Sad dick dead dick ad dick dead dick dead dick dead dick happy dick sad dick happy dick dead dick sad dick happy dick”
“People keep think I’m texting. If only they knew what I was really doing.”
“Got set number 2 in and got three awwwwws. #imstillhere”
“Almost 8pm and have not gotten up 3 times at Marty’s or had more than 3 "audience members”.
“Oh, and looks like I went with ”…to depress the shit out of people" #openmichamlet #reallythoughigotsomelaughs"
“I’m addicted to cleaning my ears… It’s ear sex.” #openmicgenius"
“3hr 38 min mark, still waiting to go up third time.”
“What do you want from me?!?!??!?!??!??!??!??!??!??!??????????”
“Hour 4, still waiting for set number 3”
“3 people and the remnants of a person on stage left here at Marty’s”
“13 minutes for third set at marty’s for three people”
“10 min. conversation with host on stage in between comics.”
“In hour 5, still here with three other people”
“Just did 4 sets at Marty’s and it’s 11. FUCK.”
“6 hours for 35 min. of stage time, though still feel empty. #maybethatsjustme”
2) While waiting to see how long the Laugh Factory Comicthon will last or the judgment on Wikileaks founder Julian Assange you should probably go on tonight’s COMEDY CRAWL because it’ll be better for your life in general. Start off with Sataristas Live @ Actor’s Gang 7PM Pay-what-you-can, then Ballgame’s Laugh Lounge @ Red Rock 8PM FREE, then This is Not Happening Presents: This Year in Review @ Hollywood Improv Lab $5/2 drink min., then Comedy Death Ray @ UCB Theatre 8:30PM $5 (stand by only), then Holy Fuck! @ Downtown Independent Theater 9PM FREE, then Three’s Comedy 5 Year Anniversary @ Three of Clubs 9PM FREE, then Hot Toddy @ iO West 11PM $5, then finish with Chatroulette LIVE! @ UCB Theatre 11PM $5.
3) OPEN MIC RUN: PALMS 8572 Santa Monica Blvd., West Hollywood, CA/Sign-up 4:30PM/Starts 5PM, then BACK HOME IN LAHAINA 519 Carson St., Carson, CA #A/Sign-up 6PM/Starts 7PM, BIG TROUBLE IN LITTLE TOKYO @ SEÑOR FISH 422 E. 1st, Los Angeles, CA (downtown)/Sign-up 6:30PM/Starts 7PM, COFFEE GALLERY 2029 Lake Ave., Altadena, CA/Starts 8PM, WESTWOOD BREWCO 1097 Glendon Ave., Westwood, CA/Sign-up (lottery) 7:30PM/Starts 8PM, MARTY’S/THE OPEN MIC 7351 W. Sunset Blvd., Hollywood, CA (walk up Martel past Big Mama’s and Big Papa’s)/5PM to 11PM/$5/multiple sets allowed.
4) BIG TROUBLE IN LITTLE TOKYO!!! ABBEY LONDER!!! $2 FISH TACOS!!! SURPRISE RAFFLES!!! $3 DOMESTIC/$4 IMPORTED BEER!!! Oh yeah, you can literally walk to Holy Fuck after this. (details above)
5) The Hollywood Laugh Factory has already set out to gain the world record of longest running continuous live comedy show, which is apparently 50 hours, with COMICTHON while simultaneously accepting toy donations for the Children’s Hospital and will run for a few days this week. It has been advertised that Dave Chappelle will go up at some point, but there’s no indication as to when he will perform or when Dane Cook will go up. Check 8001 W. Sunset Blvd., Hollywood, CA at your own pleasure/peril.
6) “Special Case Mention” from friend of the Comedy Bureau’s Hasan Minhaj-If you’ve ever considered doing standup comedy understand that you’ll have to be able to follow this. This is real: http://yfrog.us/nfnu8z
7) Maria Bamford has already played one living room earlier this year. Make the next living room she plays YOURS!!! Auction for a private performance from Maria Bamford here. All proceeds go the Los Angeles Regional Food Bank.
8) The Comedy Bureau “Tip Its Hat” today to LIZZY COOPERMAN-“@lizzycooperman "Peaks and valleys, man. It’s all about peaks and valleys.” – a depressed person summing up life, or the book “Let’s Go Afghanistan”. Yet another repeat “Tip of the Hat” winner, Lizzy is quite simply a privilege to watch with her furiously smart and swift jokes and should never be missed. Don’t miss Lizzy tomorrow at Riot @ El Cid $10 4212 W. Sunset Blvd., Los Angeles, CA, The Josh and Josh Show @ Bar Lubitsch FREE 7702 Santa Monica Blvd., West Hollywood, CA, and with her fabulous sketch group Birds of Prey at Please, Thank You, You’re Welcome @ Bar Lubitsch FREE 8:30PM. Also, be sure to check out Lizzy’s website and absolutely follow her on Twitter.
9) From the “You Should Have Been There” Lagoon: “Hello There” A film by Louis CK
10) Forget about whether it ‘tis the season or not… The Comedy Bureau needs your support. Please donate here, if you are willing and able/decent person.
11) RT @Kabelion Based on comedy centrals 10 best comics of 2010, this year was the weakest year in comedy since Gallagher 1 was the biggest thing going.
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