via Funmbi Omotayo, John Bishop Show s01e02 – Sand & Glass.
Tag Archives: comedy
“The Daily Show” has a new host: Correspondent Trevor Noah will take over for Jon Stewart – Salon.com
MONDAY, MAR 30, 2015
The South African comedian joined “The Daily Show” in December VIDEO
ERIN KEANE
After nearly two months of speculation, Comedy Central has named a new host for “The Daily Show.” The New York Times reports that freshly-minted correspondent Noah Trevor will take over one of the most influential late-night desks on TV when host Jon Stewart leaves the post (the actual hand-off date has yet to be announced).
Trevor, who spoke to the Times from Dubai, where he’s on a comedy tour, said that he didn’t quite believe the news when he learned he landed the gig. “You need a stiff drink, and then unfortunately you’re in a place where you can’t really get alcohol.”
In a statement, Stewart said he is “thrilled for the show and for Trevor”: “He’s a tremendous comic and talent that we’ve loved working with.” Mr. Stewart added that he “may rejoin as a correspondent just to be a part of it!!!”
Trevor joined “The Daily Show” in December:
Alex Edelman Stand-Up — Running Late with Scott Rogowsky – YouTube
via Alex Edelman Stand-Up — Running Late with Scott Rogowsky – YouTube.
RunningLateShow
Published on 11 Oct 2014** SUBSCRIBE http://goo.gl/rtR3f **
Comedian Alex Edelman returns to New York from his summer spent in the UK where he took home the Best Newcomer Award at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe.
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Top 10 the IT Crowd Moments – YouTube
via Top 10 the IT Crowd Moments – YouTube.
Matt Herbert
Published on 1 Nov 2012My personal top 10 IT Crowd moments. Pop some of your faves in the comments
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Jon Stewart became our opiate: Time to confront Tea Party, 1 percent — without punchlines – Salon.com
WEDNESDAY, FEB 11, 2015
That a comedian became the most trusted man in America says something dangerous about our system. That must change
STEVE ALMOND
Stephen Colbert, Jon Stewart (Credit: Comedy Central)
Now that Jon Stewart has announced he’ll be leaving “The Daily Show” sometime this year, we can expect a steady diet of eulogies for, oh, the next 11 months. In essence, the nation (or at least a nation of pundits) will sit Shiva for him.These pieces will commemorate the comedian as a secular prophet who used humor to expose the perpetual corruptions of our civic institutions.
Stewart deserves every bit of praise he’ll receive. His central innovation as a cultural critic has been to apply a standard of basic decency to our depraved media and political classes. He and his brilliant staff provided a lot of comic relief to a lot of distressed citizens.
But these mash notes won’t answer the larger question, which is what Jon Stewart meant. How is it that the host of a fake news show became both “the most trusted man in America,” and the most revered figure in our popular culture?
Of course, Stewart is hardly the first humorist to claim that mantle. Mark Twain had us howling at poisonous truths 150 years ago, and Will Rogers was probably better loved than any president he mocked.
But Stewart’s meteoric rise clearly reflects America’s escalating anxieties: our pervasive cynicism about institutions of power, the corrosive excesses of capitalism, and, above all, our regression from citizens capable of enacting reform to passive consumers who regard civic decay as a source of entertainment.
In other words, his influence says a lot more about us than it does about him.
Consider the Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear, which Stewart and his evil twin, Stephen Colbert, held four days before the 2010 mid-term elections. More than 200,000 people swarmed the National Mall and millions more tuned in, hoping to witness a watershed event. What they got was a variety show. Stewart’s closing statement was anodyne to the point of anti-activism. “If you want to know why I’m here and what I want from you,” he announced, “I can only assure you this: you have already given it to me. Your presence was what I wanted.”
Many progressives felt deeply betrayed, as if the hosts were actually to blame for the results of the subsequent election, in which Tea Party candidates stormed the House of Representatives. If only Stewart had roused voters, we wouldn’t be facing perpetual gridlock, gerrymandering of congressional districts, and so on.
But Stewart has always been forthright about his motives, which are therapeutic. His job is to lacerate famous hypocrites and thereby divert rage into laughter. In an interview with Rachel Maddow, Stewart described his approach this way: “It’s idealistic but it’s impotent.”
The description might be applied just as accurately to those of us (guilty as charged!) who honestly expected a televised comedian to vanquish a sustained, lavishly funded, and highly coordinated electoral effort.
For years, our desperation to endow Stewart with messianic powers has led us to indulge in this sort of magical thinking. No matter how hard I try not to delude myself, some part of me honestly believes that watching Stewart make mincemeat out of Tucker Carlson or Jim Cramer or the Koch Brothers constitutes political action rather than passive consumption.
The evidence of my delusion is abundant: our free press remains devoted to for-profit stimulation. The bubble of free-market evangelism continues to inflate. Corporations go right on amassing political power.
With a few notable exceptions, the only thing Stewart changes most nights is my mood.
Which is his job. After all, the very purpose of comedy, as a bio-evolutionary adaptation, is to alleviate distress. As Stewart once explained, “It’s a wonderful feeling to have this toxin in your body in the morning, that little cup of sadness, and feel by 7 or 7:30 that night, you’ve released it in sweat equity and can move on to the next day.” A Marxist would have a hard time resisting the notion that comedy, and “The Daily Show” in particular, has become the chosen opiate of the Left.
The cultural critic Neil Postman traces this mindset even further back, to the dawn of our mass media, in which telegraphs first gave Americans access to “news” events we could talk about, but that could not lead to meaningful action. (Anticipating Stewart, he referred to this paradigm as a “great loop of impotence.”)
Postman, as it turns out, was the one cultural critic who saw the rise of comic moralists, and the paradoxical limits of their power, coming three decades ago.
In his 1985 book “Amusing Ourselves to Death,” he warned that our growing dependence on television had created a society whose standard of value was “whether or not something can grab and then hold the public’s attention. It is a society in which those things that do not conform—for example, serious literature, serious political debate, serious ideas, serious anything—are more likely to be compromised or marginalized than ever before.” In such a world, morality becomes yet another form of entertainment.
Postman predicted the eventual appearance of parodic programs such as “The Daily Show” that would illustrate “how television recreates and degrades our conceptions of news, political debate, religious thought, etc … The parodists would become celebrities, would star in movies, and would end up making television commercials.”
Sound familiar?
“To whom do we complain,” Postman demanded, “and when, and in what tone of voice, when serious discourse dissolves into giggles? What is the antidote to a culture’s being drained by laughter?”
This is the question we should be asking as Jon Stewart prepares to take his months-long victory lap. Is it possible that losing two comic giants, first Colbert and now Stewart, might actually be good for America? That the time has come for us to confront the decay of our civic institutions and the vacuum of leadership in our democratic systems—without pacifying punch lines?
After all, in the past our collective agitation led to moral progress. Abolitionists helped stoke a war against the slave states. The Crash of 1929 brought us the egalitarian policies of the New Deal. Citizen activism brought us the Civil Rights Act and an end to the Vietnam War. The iniquities of Watergate led to campaign finance reform.
Today, a clear majority of our citizens—of every ideological persuasion—share the same haunting suspicion: that we are somehow powerless to fix our broken systems, and adrift in a fog of frantic material distraction that has led us astray from lives of deeper civic engagement.
For some, religion remains the fount of salvation. Others place their trust in the bluster of conservative demagogues, whose lucrative ravings frame our crises as the result of liberal enlightenment run amok.
For those of us who loyally watched Stewart over the past 15 years, perhaps the time has come for us to feel the anguish he and his staff dependably converted into laughter. How else might we begin to confront the very real existential threats to our country and planet?
There’s no doubt that life without Jon Stewart won’t be as much fun. It’s inconvenient and frightening to confront the true nature of our predicaments without some form of comic relief.
It’s also what might save us.
Blackadder – The Cavalier Years – YouTube
via Blackadder – The Cavalier Years – YouTube.
Dave Mason
Published on 15 Oct 2012
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Death Becomes Her 1992 all in 5 minutes – YouTube
via Death Becomes Her 1992 all in 5 minutes – YouTube.
My thanks to Mark Liddell (liddellmark.wordpress.com) for reminding me of this classic…
Uploaded on 12 Mar 2009Death.Becomes.Her.(1992).
Running the Gammatar on Vimeo
via Running the Gammatar on Vimeo.
…and now for something completely different.
from Joe Kramer
‘Running the Gammatar’ is an award-winning indie comedy about a group of self-centered 20-somethings trying to navigate their way through relationships in a city that’s under constant attack from a giant, fire-breathing Japanese monster.
“Pure fun” – Ain’t It Cool News
“Wry, funny [and] perceptive” – Kuriositas
“A pitch-perfect hybrid of horror and comedy” – Philebrity
“[A] comedy in the best indie-style: fast dialogue, loud colors, and some hip indie pop-songs on the soundtrack.” – Die Zeit Online
Video of the Week – The Awardeo CompanyWritten and Directed by Joe Kramer
Director of Photography – Pat Murray
Assistant Director – Aaron Biscoe
Sound – Shawn D. Caple
Assistant Camera Operators – Pam Mayer, Christina Rose
Special Make-Up Effects – Delia De Cock, Alyssa Catalano, Sonja Century Zeigler
Hair and Make-Up – Jessica Bernard
Editor – Joe Kramer
Production Assistant – Alessandra Ameen
Gammatar costume – Tony DeBartolis
Gammatar painting – Adam LaMonaca
Poster art – Elizabeth PetersonJoe Kramer – Stan
Jessica Bernard – June
Richard Thomas Everill III – Frank
Katie Daunoras – Joanie
Andrew James McManus – Mel
Roberto Lombardi – Newscaster
Matt Nicholas – Meteor and monsterologist
Sarah Ruggieri – Screaming woman
Pam Mayer – WaitressWith
Scott Altizio, Bill Bernard, Aaron Biscoe, Bob Campolongo, Ka Long Chan, Ka Yan Chan, Sean Cockerill, Jacqueline DeAmor, Delia De Cock, Whitney Evans, George Ross Fisher, Michael Geleff, Renee Geleff, Tristan Gosnell, Jeremy Heaton, Rachel Heaton, Michele Kramer, Keyon Lau, Daniel Loeb, Tim McDaniel, Pat Murray, Emily Novak, Dimitri Papadopoulos, Amanda Powers, Brigette Reichart, Jake Richter, Christina Rose, George Rother, Dean Rys, Erica Santiago, Dallas S. Simpson, Scott Strader, Chelcy Strain, Aliya Strychnine, Edmund Wang, Brendan Whelan, and Melissa YanefskiMusic
“Dream Come True”
Written and Performed by Bill Bernard“On My Own”
Written and Performed by The Okmoniks“Cheap Perfume”
Written by Matthew Melton
Performed by Bare Wires“Someone For You”
Written by Matthew Melton
Performed by Warm SodaSpecial thanks to Angelo’s Diner, Arch Enemy Arts, Black ’n Brew, Chestnut Ridge Middle School, Essene Market & Cafe, Midtown III Restaurant, North of No South Laundromat, Parlour Hair & Skin, Popolino, and Sazz Vintage Clothing
Contact – kramervideo@gmail.com
PlayTime: Anatomy of a Gag on Vimeo
Stephen Colbert looks at the Sarah Palin Channel
via Stephen Colbert looks at the Sarah Palin Channel.
WED JUL 30, 2014
by BruinKid
Last night, Stephen Colbert took aim at the Sarah Palin Channel.
I have always been a huge fan of Sarah Palin. She’s a strong leader with a proven history of selflessness. I mean, in the midst of her 2008 campaign, she took the time to help out a struggling senior with severely impaired judgment. (audience laughter)
….
And remember, Sarah Palin’s channel is SarahPalinChannel.com. Not thesarahpalinchannel.com, because we bought that one today. (wild audience cheering and applause) And, it’s free!
That’s enough death and destruction, I think. Let’s turn to something that evidently will never die and cannot be destroyed—Sarah Palin. (audience cheering and applause)
I have always been a huge fan of Sarah Palin. She’s a strong leader with a proven history of selflessness. I mean, in the midst of her 2008 campaign, she took the time to help out a struggling senior with severely impaired judgment.
(audience laughter)
And this week, in her continuing quest to remind America of her existence, Palin announced an exciting new project.
SARAH PALIN: Hello, and welcome to a new project. This is a news channel that really is a lot more than news. … Are you tired of the media filters? Well, I am. I always have been. So we’re going to do something about it. … We’re going to make this easy too. You can watch our channel right here on your computer, your tablet, or even on your smart phone. … We’ll talk about the issues that the mainstream media won’t talk about, and we’ll look at the ideas that—mm—I think Washington doesn’t want you to hear.
Yes, the All Sarah Palin Channel. It’s exactly what she’s always done, only—mm—nothing else. (audience laughter) ‘Cause folks, it is 24/7 Palin-tainment streamed right to your phone, with the help of Tapp. Which, it turns out, is a media company, and not, as I first assumed, the name of one of her children. (audience laughter)
And like the woman herself, the Sarah Palin Channel is all about Sarah Palin.
SARAH PALIN: We’ll also share some of the fun that goes on in the Palin household, and a lot of our adventures in the great outdoors trying to just get us from point A to point B. And believe me, it is fun. Because it’s real life.
Yeah, it’s fun because it’s real life. That’s why I always TiVo that exciting staring contest on The Mirror Channel.
That show is amazing! How is it always a tie? He is good!
This is all part of Sarah’s continuing mission to protect our freedoms at any cost—specifically, $9.95 a month. Sure, that’s more than Netflix, but it’s just as good as House of Cards, with even more threatening monologues in the camera.
This channel offers you something more, by offering you less. As the site notes:
We… feel that the community would feel more secure knowing everyone watching, uploading videos, and participating in the discussions and video chats was a contributing member.
That’s right. It’s a safe space where like-minded folks can hear things they already agree with from someone whose opinion they already know. A place where we Palin-heads can gather and ask the important questions. Among the most popular, apparently is, “What is your cancellation policy?”
(audience cheering and applause)
Because we Palin fans want to be just like her, and quit halfway through our commitment. (audience laughter) But, if $9.95 sounds too rich for your blood, just sign up for my new premium web channel: Stephen Colbert’s Angry Echo Chamber.
For just $9.94, it’s a community of people just like you, if you have a valid credit card. We’ll discuss the Washington issues of the day, and the issues of the night. Like, where did the sun go? Plus, Stephen Colbert’s Angry Echo Chamber gives you a 24/7 access to everything I do. Like footage of me making and eating a BLT.
Is that what I spent your $10 bucks on? The answer may surprise you. And you might even see your name on my channel when I deposit your checks in an ATM.
And Sarah Palin’s channel only takes you from point A to point B. But you can follow me all the way to point C, point D, and then back to point B when I realize I left my sunglasses there.
That’s real life fun. And remember, Sarah Palin’s channel is SarahPalinChannel.com. Not thesarahpalinchannel.com, because we bought that one today. (wild audience cheering and applause) And, it’s free! We’ll be right back.
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