8/15/11

Comedy Week at Deadspin has posts on Hedberg, Woody, Kaufman, Norm, and more

Sports blog Deadspin just wrapped up its Comedy Week 2011 and it was curated excellently by F.O.S.S. (friend of Sandpaper Suit) Luke Cunningham. Luke profiled a bunch of below-the-radar comedians and put together a bunch of other interesting comedy stories too.

In I Never Want To Work On A Goddamn TV Show Again: A Week In LA With Norm Macdonald, A.J. Daulerio talks about watching Norm rant:

He also went into this bizarre rant about a conversation he'd had with a guy about time travel and the concept of altering history and how this individual said he would go back in time and if not kill Hitler, he'd at least punch him in the face. Norm began to build on this notion: "Everyone uses Hitler as an example. They always say they'd go back and attack Hitler. But this was one of the most charismatic and convincing people in history and you're telling me that if you're standing two feet away from Hitler, you'd try to fight him? I doubt that. You'd probably try to blow him. That's what the end result would be. You'd go up to him to try to punch him and then Hitler would turn on the Hitler charm and instead of punching him, you'd most likely end up blowing him. I'd probably blow Hitler if I were in that situation. Why not? It's Hitler!" He went on for about two minutes and explored every subtle nuance of the joke's potential and context and weaved in both cerebral observations and mundane filth to perfection. The room was awestruck. He may have been testing out material or just showing off, but it was a pure joy to watch, as if he'd just opened up his head and pulled his brain out to tap-dance on the table for everyone there in a one-time-only performance.


Some other notable pieces: Profiles of Andy Kaufman and Mitch Hedberg. Five For Fighting: Comics Vs. Hecklers offers videos of comics taking down loudmouth crowd members. And SportsFeat’s Guide To Funny People (And Chris Farley) has excerpts from longform profiles of Richard Pryor, Woody Allen, and Tina Fey.

Related: Luke talked about writing on Norm MacDonald's new sports-themed show here a while back.

No comments:

Moving on/Subscribe to my newsletter

I only post on rare occasions here now. Subscribe to my Rubesletter  (it's at  mattruby.substack.com ) to get jokes, videos, essays, etc...