The 25 (sort of but not really) Funniest People In America
May 29, 2008 · Print This Article
Someone once said the whole reason people rank things is to spur debate. Yeah, well mission accomplished. Entertainment Weekly released it’s list of the 25 funniest people and….Yeah, not really.
Topics on the day include Brian charming the pants off the ladies, why it’s never ok for your mom to be on the pill, Last Comic Standing rants a plenty, did Kid Chris get off easy, and kissin’ cousins. Maam, your children are fucking eachother.
Email: brianmcomedy@gmail.com and give us a call on 206-203-4692
The 25 (sort of but not really) Funniest People In America [39:09m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download
Great show, Brian.
Can I just express my disappointment that EW only features intentionally funny people? None of the talk show hosts on the list give me as many belly laughs as Tyra Banks.
Also– Apatow crew? All he does is make romantic comedies for dudes, and I thought the best thing about being a dude was NOT having romantic comedies.*
Thank you for giving us something new to trash, and keep watching LCS. I was in a commercial and a montage last week, so I think I have a pretty good chance of making the sucky comics reel!
*Patriarchal privilege and writing your name in the snow is probably nice, too.
As far as apatow goes Margaret is right his biggest sucess has been in rom-coms made for guys. its a perfect scam for dates, if you wanna take a girl to go see a movie and she wants to see one you give her the girl synopsis for his movies. ex:
Knocked Up:
girl: its about a guy and a girld who accidently get pregnant and they have to come togethor to have the baby. with hilarious results!
guy: its about a dude who smokes alot of weed and and bangs a hot chick but he knocks her up. With hilarious results!
EW: I put zero stock in rankings of any kind, but you’re right Brian, it’s something to bitch about.
Sarah Silverman: good writer, can’t take her act for very long.
Demetri Martin: He writes well, but without the guitar and the whole hip alt-comedy vibe, I dunno.
-Brian, I know you have this crush on Letterman, but how can claim other shows are ‘unwatchable’ when his show is beyond horrendous? He’s a rich old kurmugdeon who gets on this list because of 1986 letterman, and it really irritates me. How can letterman be top 15 on a list that jimmy kimmel’s absent from?
-Just don’t watch last comic standing, its not that hard. I’ve seen 0 episodes since bill bellamy took over. Barry Katz is the worst person in comedy by far, and if you really need another reason, go to Punchline Magazine, and read Jon Reep’s interview where he claims that winning last comic standing has earned him the title of “best comic in america” ranking ahead of “seinfeld and chris rock.” thats a true story.
Letterman still makes me laugh today and I stand by the fact that he is the best late night host (and one of the best interviewers ever). Conan and kimmel are a close 2/3 in my opinion.
I couldn’t agree more about Barry Katz. He’s destroying comedy and completely taking advantage of young talented comics.
Lastly, relax Ben. You’re like my one of my good friends who is bi-polar. You are either really calm and contributing to the discussion, or shot out of a canon and ready to battle. Even out bro!
I’m back guys. well, i’ve been keeping up with the boards, just haven’t been posting because i havent had that much to say.
question- did anyone see the new harold and kumar movie? and if so how was it?
my thoughts on LCS- basically it hasn’t been that great. i’ve been watching so you think you can dance instead. because watching girls in skin tight clothing=awesome. but some of the trannies dancing makes me wish for more horrible LCS reels.
I tell you another unfunny thing about Ellen……the fact that she’s marrying Portia DeRossi. Lucky bitch!
Hey Brian, you’re not the Messiah, you’re a ver naughty boy!
That would have been funny if this show was recorded live, and I could have said that just as you claimed to be the fruit of a virgin birth. But hey I thought it was funny.
The Kilkenny Cat Laughs Comedy festival started last night, I will keep you all posted about how it’s going. Went to one show last night, Dom Irrera with Adam Hills, Glen Wool and Ed Byrne. Dom as MC was good, he spoke about how this is his 13th year in a row to come to Kilkenny and his familiarity with the place. He couldn’t use his usual material as everyone there would have heard it already, but he still managed to get a good few laughs out of the local newspaper and other local references. Adam Hills was just off the airplane from Australia, and looked shattered. Yet he was still on top form, raising the energy of the crowd with his mix of mostly new stuff and some Adam Hills classics. I realised that I may be going to too many Adam Hills shows when he spoke of something that happened at a show of his in November, and I was at that show! Glen Wool I believe would have went down better had he gone on before Hills. The crowd was buzzing after Adam’s set, and Wool’s storytelling style did not provide enough quick fire punchlines to keep the attention of the crowd. He had some good material that I believe would have fared better had he just gotten to the punchline quicker. Finally was London based but Dublin native Ed Byrne who had to compete with some noisy staff for our attention. Once he got going, we were entertained with his stories of planning a wedding and his DVD not selling as much as a DVD called “WAGS get fit”. A lot of people don’t like him but I believe that he is one of the best at what he does, whimsical anecdotes. All in all he won the crowd over, with a very enjoyable set.
Had to come back into work today so I’m only going to one show tonight, featuring Adam Hills (again), Andy Parsons, Arj Barker and Karl Spain, I’ll post a review when I get the chance.
Hey Margaret i think i saw you for a fraction of a second last night on LCS. I amy or may not watch it this season but i think Mikes right about the dance show. at least you have girls in hot pants. although last night there was a girl on LCS with huge boobs. she didnt do an act i think but as soon as she took off her raincoat my brain stoped working. oh also i changed my blog server so people can comment
I just wanted to mention the passing of one of the all-time best sketch comics, Harvey Korman. I probably am one of the only BTBers old enough to have enjoyed his work on The Carol Burnett Show, and you may remember him from Blazing Saddles. As a kid I always looked forward to the night The Carol Burnett Show was on and my parents let me stay up later to watch it. I suppose by today’s standards it would be perceived as corny, but my parents and I really did “laugh until we cried” at the performances by Harvey, Tim Conway, and Carol. The show was taped in front of a live crowd and always had that SNL feel that the show could derail at any moment. Tim Conway was notorious for straying from the script and taking the cast by surprise onto totally unrelated tangents. Anyhow, he will always be one of my favorites.
sorry brian, my comment on the board probably seemed a little more aggressive than my thoughts were. It might be that I’m too young to know the old letterman you grew up on, but the one i see now has really kind of an outdated show. He has the guests leave the couch on commercial breaks, he makes all his guy guest (including every single comic he has one i’ve heard) wear a suit, he is the richest of the hosts and was able to buy back his writers during the strike, and he still didnt have the chops to be very funny.
Good eyes, Patrick Aka Smiley!
I was visible on the last two episodes of LCS. I haven’t seen the latest yet, but apparently I walk up the stairs. I guess I have to take that out of my act now that it’s been on TV.
I’m trying to stay grounded, which is why I’m still posting on the board, with all you unwashed unfamous types.
Agree with Leonardo about the sad passing of Harvey Korman - we never got the Carol Burnett show in the UK, but they recently showed a clip on a 100 Funniest Comedy Sketches compilation of a Burnett sketch with Korman playing the patient to an incompetent dentist whose accidentally injected himself with his own anaesthetic - I thought it one of the funniest things i’d ever seen - Korman keeps corpsing with laughter, which makes the sketch all the funnier.
From punchlinemagazine, Adam Sandler to star in movie about stand up.
http://punchlinemagazine.com/blog/?p=1065
Sure it will be awesome(!)
Hey missed posting my update from the Kilkenny festival yesterday, so we have a super duper review post today.
OK, Friday evening’s show was Karl Spain as MC, with Andy Parsons, Arj Barker and Adam Hills. It was good to see Karl again, as he was one of the guys I performed with a lot back when I did comedy regularly. Was speaking to him after the gig and he told me that I was one of those people who came up in a “where are they now” conversation which worried me, as I still perform semi-regularly. His material was great, self-deprecating but in a positive way, and he really warmed up the crowd. Andy Parsons was on first, familiar in this country from his appearances on Mock the Week, and was very well received. Most of his humour was UK based, but unlike a lot of British comics he had the decency of saying “the British prime minister” instead of “the prime minister” so he endeared himself to the crowd. I certainly enjoyed his set, and would definitely check out this guy again.
Arj Barker was up next, and is perhaps not that well known as Flight of the Conchords was only on BBC 4 a channel not many people have. He came across as somebody who lives in a different world to us all, but it is a world that he understands perfectly. How I wish I could see the world through Arj Barker’s eyes. The crowd appreciated his set, and were on fire by the time Adam Hills came on stage. Round about now is the best time to explain the makeup of the front few rows in the venue. At one end of the front row were two couples, on the other ender were two girls. The next 8 seats were empty except for one man, an open miker from Dublin. Adam Hills on seeing on person on his own, decided the try to set him up with one (or both of the girls) sitting in the front row. The girls were eager to please, until Adam noticed a wedding ring on our open miker’s finger. Well that changed everything, the girls went back to their seats and our friend was forced to sit on the stage in shame. But that was not enough punishment, so Adam decided to ring our open miker’s wife at home minding the kids, and tell her what her husband had been up to. Much hilarity ensued which ended with the wife giving her husband permission to have a threesome! After all that Adam remembered that he still had a prepared set, and got permission to run over time to complete it. All in all my face hurt so much from laughing, and it was great to catch up with some acts I have seen in so long.
OK, stay tuned for part two; Saturday!
Saturday!
We went to two shows Saturday, first up was Josie Long’s Invitation only show. A couple of weeks back I filled out a form to apply for tickets to this show, a form that included such questions as:
Which of the following would you prefer to wake up as?
A. A bear
B. An olympic athlete
C. A combination of both.
Only the people who Josie thought were interesting (and their other halves) could come to this show. Obviously I am interesting (yay!). Her show began by her giving me a bag of Jelly Snakes from the Natural Confectionery Company (because I answered the question “What would you like to happen at the show?” by saying “I’d like for you to get me some Jelly Snakes from the Natural Confectionery Company). After that she could have gone on to read from the Gospel according to Luke and I still would give her a good review as I spent the rest of the show munching on jelly snakes. But even so we were treated to an hour of graphs (charts for those of you who speak American), tea, helium filled balloons, and body art. Also, some punchlines. We left the show feeling positive all over, this girl has got a future. I do love jelly snakes.
The other show we went to had Fred McCauley as MC, Karl Spain, Mike Wilmot and Colin Murphy. Fred did a bit of crowd banter which was a little hit and miss, and he did try to pick on me for wearing a rugby shirt but realised that it was a comedy cul de sac as he knew nothing about rugby. When he got down to his prepared stuff he was much better. Karl we had seen the previous day so knew his material, but he was still funny the second time around. The crowd loved him. Mike Wilmot the Canadian I had only ever seen on tv, and didn’t realise just how foul a mouth that man has. I enjoyed the set but my girlfriend was not too much of a fan of him. Colin Murphy is well known in Ireland as sometimes host of “The Panel” and got a great reaction from the crowd. I was full of jelly snakes, pizza, Dr Pepper and Guinness at that stage and cannot for the life of me remember what he spoke about. I did enjoy it though.
All in all a great day, did not quite reach the euphoria of Adam Hills on Friday night but worth every cent of the admission fee and the petrol (gas) used to get to Kilkenny, which has now reached €1.30 a litre (US $7.65 a gallon). You people and your complaining about $4 a gallon.
Tonight after another fill of the tank we are off to see the Godfather’s of Irish comedy, Ardal O’Hanlon (Father Dougal), Barry Murphy and Kevin Gildea performing together as Mr. Trellis for the first time since the early 90’s. Tomorrow we have an afternoon show before heading back to Dublin, featuring Adam Hills (of course), Colin Murphy, Shappi Khorsandi, Reginald D. Hunter and Tim Nutt. I’ll post a review tomorrow evening.
Josie Long is awesome…..she walked over to me to give me free tickets for her show three years ago at the Edinburgh Fringe…..she said she was attracted by the blue plaster I had on….that it reminded her of a chef she fancied! What a crazy, cool chick!
Kilenny sounds cool too….it’s where Stanhope got in trouble a few years ago?
Yeah Stanhope got in trouble with the tabloids a couple of years ago due to a paedophilia joke in Kilkenny. Seems a regular thing, this year Tommy Tiernan is l over the tabloids for a Madeline McCann joke. Blown way out of proportion. I was talking to folks who were at the Tommy Tiernan gig, and they said his McCann joke was just a tag onto a very funny bit. I think the “News” of the World sends out a crack team every year to print some huge scandal at the Kilkenny festival, it sells papers.
OK, the last few shows are happening as I write this, but I am back in Dublin and have to go to work tomorrow, so Kilkenny will have to finish without me. This is therefore my last update from the festival.
Sunday night meant “Messing with Mr. Trellis”. Mr. Trellis were a sketch group made up of Barry Murphy, Ardal O’Hanlon and Kevin Gildea, who in the late 80’s were three students who wanted to do something that had yet to be attempted in Ireland, they wanted an alternative comedy scene similar to New York, LA or London. They started up their own club called “The Comedy Cellar” upstairs in the International Bar, and put on a show each week. At first it was just them doing sketches and stand-up, but over time the Comedy Cellar evolved into the best known club in Ireland, spawning pretty much every single comedian to come out of the country since. It is by no means an exaggeration to say that the Dublin comedy scene would not be in the great state it is in today if not for these guys. All three have them have since gone on to have successful solo careers,Ardal O’Hanlon perhaps being t he most well known due to his role as Dougal in the sit-com “Father Ted”. This year marks the 20th anniversary of their founding, so to celebrate they have reformed for some special shows to relive the early days of their comedy. Sunday night in Kilkenny was the big one. I could write pages on this show, but I am afraid that it would pass over the heads of people not familiar with the Dublin scene. To me, someone who learned everything I know about stand-up in the International Bar, this show was priceless.
A lot of people will have left Kilkenny and gone back to the real world this evening, but before then we had the chance of a final hurrah. The prospect of a 2:15pm show would scare most comedians, but a few of the least hungover acts were gathered together to provide one last laugh for us this afternoon. This show took place without an MC, each act just introducing the next one and so on. First up was Adam Hills, for my third time this festival. Three times and something new each show. Today he discussed the lack of fashion sense Irish men show in the summer, and to prove his point invited three Irish men and one Aussie on stage for a “Fashion Parade”. Following that we got a classic Adam Hills set, and after seeing him three times this weekend i will be singing “Always” by Bon Jovi for the rest of my life.
Following Hills was Canadian comedian (I love saying that, Canadian comedian) Tim Nutt. I had never seen this man before, and it was a treat. Material on punishment for being stupid left us rolling in the aisles, and I will seriously have to bite my lip if I ever meet anyone from Michigan, to stop myself asking where exactly in Michigan they are from. Following Tim was British-Iranian comedian Shappi Khorsandi, only the second female comic we had seen this weekend. Shappi was heavily pregnant for her last trip to Kilkenny, and to prove to us that she wasn’t faking it had brought her son Cassius to the festival this year. Shappi had some excellent observations about the latent racism of the world, including in the Lonely Planet guidebook to Iran. It’s a mystery why there were so few female comics at this festival, however both Shappi and Josie Long really set the bar high for those who follow. The penultimate act was Colin Murphy who fit more words into a minute than any of the other acts did into their entire sets. We were entertained with stories of how Irish people are the only people who clash with their countryside, big green fields and giant red heads. Argh. To round out the show, and for me the festival, was American comedian Reginald D. Hunter. Not one to shy away from paedophilia jokes despite Tommy Tiernan being the talk of the town, Reg told us of how friends he made before a show refused to talk to him after seeing his act. He then proceeded to show us why they refused to talk to him, and in my opinion they were lunatics. This man had a couple of hundred of us so called “don’t talk about paedophilia” Kilkenny Cat Laughs audience members in stitches about why we should admire Austrian Parent of the Year Josef Fritzl for his ingenuity.
So that was the Kilkenny Cat Laughs, I am so wound up from five evenings of comedy, that I have been checking the listings for local live show to keep the buzz going all week. There were many acts I didn’t get to see such as Russell Howard, Greg Fleet and of course David O’Doherty, but after all that entertainment I can’t complain. Hope you all enjoyed my review, next up for me is the Comedy Carnival in Dublin at the end of July. I have booked tickets to Louis CK’s show so I’m sure I will be posting a review. Until then…
Brian C
Steve from Chortle can say it better than me, so for a real “Messin’ with Mr Trellis” review check this out:
http://www.chortle.co.uk/shows/misc_live_shows/m/16481/messin_with_mr_trellis/review/
Steve, your job is safe.
haha…I remember that. Stanhope’s quote made the newspaper headlines. “Irish Women Too Ugly to Rape”
I’m sure he had some hard shows ahead of him.
BTW did anyone catch Bill Bellamy on Adam Corolla? It was a pretty interesting chat about LCS but his main point was that the show and it’s entrants were getting better?!?
Maybe I didn’t catch it right but hey……
Also, what does everyone think about corolla’s show in terms of the comics he has on/or in general? I get the podcast here in the Uk so no adverts or anything so it’s pretty good my end I think.
To me he gets it right; he doesn’t feed comics shitty, lame lines to hit them out of the park….he just hangs out and chats with them naturally, i think you can tell comics like being there. Schimmel was on recently…..have you ever played him B-mo, I can;t remember. This dude has been to the brink of death with cancer and back….what a guy!
This is in response to Brian’s comment in the show about comedians not really being able to joke about certain topics, such as AIDS or cancer.
I spend a lot of time in comedy clubs, especially on open mike nights, because of the class I teach. I had forgotten about an act until Brian made that comment. However, this past semester, a woman at an open mike night got up on stage and immediately took off her wig to reveal a bald head. She then proceeded to make joke after joke about being a cancer patient. It was, actually, incredibly funny. But, as I reflect on that, I can’t help but wonder if a bald cancer patient hadn’t been telling the jokes if I would have found them funny or have been offended.
Brian’s comment got me to thinking about all kinds of humor that can often be offensive, rather than funny. We tend to give a pass to racial, ethnic and other groups who joke about themselves. For example, Carlos Mencia gets away with his humor because people think he’s Hispanic, even though that’s another aspect of his act that’s a lie. Dave Chappelle got away with his N***** jokes because he’s black. Ralphie May gets away with fat jokes because he’s fat. When someone pokes fun at themselves, it’s a completely different animal than when someone else does it.
Just my observation. Keep up the good work, Brian.
An afterthought to my previous comment:
I guess some people can’t get away with that humor, no matter what. If a child molester were to tell jokes about pedophilia, I doubt I would find that funny no matter what…..
BIG NEWS, sort of. Dana Carvey is coming out of retirement and doing a special on HBO in the next couple of weeks. ive only seen bits and pieces of his stand up and im very familiar with his sketch work so it will be nice to see his stand up in an hour long setting.
Yeah, I heard that too Nick. I don’t know what he’s talking about but he definitely sounded like he was trying to sell something.
Although so far they have been doing fairly well. I like the idea of having different judges in every town. That way you won’t have burned out judges from traveling around.
Sina.
B-Mo,
I’m not two-timing you or anything, but there is another comedy podcast in my life. It means nothing to me, I swear, and I wouldn’t mention it butcept Norm Macdonald was on last week. It’s also got Todd Glass and Jimmy Dore, but it was the Norm appearance that made me think of you.
Here it is:
http://www.comedyandeverythingelse.libsyn.com/
Wow, I just need to be alone for a while…
Funny. I came to the site to ask about other comedycasts. Nothing against you B-Mo, I just need more than you’re able to provide.
On the plus side, you appearance on LCS last week automatically makes you the most famous BTB listener. So I guess I don’t mind sharing.
Good show, B-mo
And I heart the new site (been back and forth for a while, and listening, just not commenting much.
I decided not to watch LCS this year, and instead give my time to “The Next Food Network Star” and to my surprise, one of the contestants this year… Cory Kahaney.
OMG comics, they are everywhere.
I saw Kahaney’s appearance on The Next Food Network Star. She was horrible, and deserved to get cut immediately.
GN - agree with you, completely.
I have never really found her compelling. I did, however, enjoy her failing at two shows. What show is next? Big Brother?
A different category of comedian entirely but the guy who runs vegasrex.com is usually pretty good for laughs.