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yonpote · 4 months

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re: dnp onscreen "personas" lol. i mean yall know what i mean by that but i feel like explaining it anyway just to be thorough. this is related to what ive been calling The Shift.

2011-2012 was around the time where the barrier between real dnp and the people they played was starting to be fortified. and like, part of it is just, with phils channel once he wanted it to be less video journal-y and more weird experimental short films, he still wanted to entertain people while talking abt his life, so maybe he would stretch a tale a bit or act a bit peppier than he is irl. and with dan, he had concepts literally from the start of what to do with his channel, and how it was inspired by a lot of sketch comedy based channels like communitychannel and [REDACTED]. so its not like it wasnt somewhat personas from the start, but 2012 was when it was cemented, and once they became known for being a duo it was just further self-flanderization. a Phanderization even. like intentionally playing into the ornery guy who makes bad puns and the happy go lucky guy who accidentally says innuendos. real tsukkomi and boke moment.

ok im gonna elaborate on why tatinof was a fanfic now :) this is the PEAK of phanderization, to me it's not a surprise that the cracks in the egg PERSONAS were starting to show bc they were just Fully In Character for like a year or so straight. in tatinof, the serious bitter eye-rolling "ugh dont do a song and dance" guy was dan (The Straight Man) (dont laugh thats just what its called) so of course his counterpart was the silly happy just having fun "i wanna burst into song!" guy was phil (The Fool). but when you watch their making of doc, dan says that HE'S the one who wanted to do the song and dance. if youre an Enthusiast abt dnp, you mightve already known that dan was a huge theater kid and loves the book of mormon n shit. phil likes theater too, but dan LOVES IT like not just watching but Performing. BUT to a regular degular in 2015 just casually watching or a huge fan but hasnt watched every liveshow ever or a phannie who just really believes in the Phanon, this may come as a surprise. phil is the happy silly ball of sunshine right? like ok. these aspects of their personality (dans bitterness and phil's positivity) aren't exactly LIES. but like obviously theyre just humans. this is what Interactive Introverts was TRYING to comment on, but imo i think fell short of its attempt bc in the end they were still trapped in their personas for the sake of Giving The People What They Want

ok i kinda tangented so back to the personas, it's not as if today they are Fully Raw And Real with us on screen, that's just kinda inherently never gonna happen, there will always be shit we don't know about them bc like. it's still a screen. BUT now that they are more real with us, we kinda see the energy of the olden days back, ofc less MegaRandomHyper and more gay millennial waffling. but it's them! cuz they really are so similar to the personas, but there's always an underlying layer of This Is A Bit. when dan's annoyed at phil for something we know he's not genuinely angry ESPECIALLY when we see that phil does it on purpose to rile him up. i think something strange is that, it's not like during 2012-2018 we didnt see stuff like this, dan's always been silly and phil's always been sarcastic, but bc so many people had bought into the Personas of danisnotonfire and AmazingPhil, that ended up being cemented into fic.

ok i wanna ramble on more but maybe ill make a new post lmao

#oh i thought i posted this but it was just sitting on my ipad #myrambles #the shift

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musicalcastingideas · 2 months

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Dropout Does Nerdy Prudes Must Die

I am a massive Dropout and Team Starkid fan (if the latter isn't obvious enough from looking at my reblogs) and I feel like there's a lot of overlap between the fandoms. My criteria for being considered a "Dropout Person" is anyone who has appeared on a Dropout show at least once, excluding guest appearances (so for example, Monet X Change counts because she's been on one season of D20 and an episode of Um, Actually, but Laganja Estranja doesn't count because she was only a guest on one of the Legally Not Survivor episode of Game Changer)

I will be trying to factor in voice types where I can, but there will be some instances where I just assume the person can sing the part, because I don't know if the person can sing or not. Also, I will be casting each of the individual parts, I know the actors in the OG cast play multiple parts, but there are so many talented people in the Dropout roster that I can cast each part individually.

Please enjoy. Also spoilers for Nerdy Prudes Must Die, I don't think I can talk about this without them. And also for Dimension 20's A Court of Fey and Flowers.

Max Jagerman: Grant O'Brien

I'll be honest, my main motivation for this one is that Grant looks a bit like Will Branner. He does play the heel really well, and I think he would do a great job playing Max, especially his more Freddy Kruger-esque quipping when he's dead.

Also, this is pretty niche, but in an old College Humour year-end video, where they all pick their favourite skits of the year (I think it was like 2018 or 2019?), Grant talks about how he thought it was really funny that in the Jocks and Nerds Both Think They're The Underdogs sketch, he was the closest thing the College Humour cast had to a jock, and this feels pretty similar to that.

Grace Chastity: Anna Garcia

She has a very unhinged "I am short and I will make that everyone else's problem" energy about her that you really need to play Grace. I think she would also do great with the physical comedy needed for the part.

Peter Spankoffski: Omar Najam

Awkward, nerdy guy who falls in love with the baddest bitch in the cast and would die for her. Am I describing Peter Spankoffski or Prince Andhera from A Court of Fey and Flowers? Also I want to hear Omar sing Cool as I Think I Am.

(This is a joke, love Binx but clearly Delloso De La Rue is the baddest bitch in A Court of Fey and Flowers)

Stephanie Lauter: Surena Marie

I don't have a real explanation for this one, this is vibes.

Richie Lipschitz: Ross Bryant

Watching Ross work his way through all the possible nerdy white guy rap options in Game Changer Karaoke cemented for him that he needs to play one of the nerds.

Ruth Flemming: Izzy Roland

A part that requires the performer to be deranged and horny? Call Izzy Roland!

Solomon Lauter: Brennan Lee Mulligan

Any Dimension 20 (or Critical Role: Exandria Unlimited) fan knows, Brennan is amazing at playing callous, cruel and manipulative characters, so Solomon Lauter is right in his wheelhouse.

Wiggly: Josh Ruben

Josh is so good at voices and playing weird characters, I would love to see his take on Wiggly.

Blinky: Erika Ishii

Erika Ishii is absolutely unhinged, I had to cast them as one of the Lords in Black. They could honestly be any one of them, but I picked Blinky because the voice Lauren Lopez does reminds me of Erika.

Nibbly: Lisa Gilroy

This one is also just vibes, but the vibes are correct.

Tinky: Zac Oyama

I am the head of the Zac Oyama As Weird Little Guys fan club, and what is Tinky if not a weird little guy? (who is also a chaotic evil eldritch being)

Pokey: Mike Trapp

I mainly just went off the vibes of the "What do you want Steph?" line, I think Mike would do well.

Detective Shapiro/Female Reporter in Hatchet town: Rashawn Nadine Scott

This is the only one I'm casting two parts, because they're both relatively small (and also I fully forgot that Bryce was not playing Detective Shapiro in Hatchet town until I checked the Genius page lol). Anyway, I think Rashawn would do great at acting as Detective Shapiro, but the main motivation behind this choice is that I want to hear her sing Bryce's part in Hatchet town. She would murder it as hard as Max murders nerdy prudes.

Officer Bailey: Jacob Wysoki

You need someone to chew scenery and throw props? Call Jacob Wysoki, he'll eat it up and go back for seconds

Brenda and Stacy: Jujubee and Monet X Change

I want to see them do the Go Go Nighthawks cheer, I think it would be amazing.

Jason and Kyle: Zeke Nicholson and Ify Nwadiwe

They both seem like the kind of guys to give butt slaps (consensually of course).

Mark and Karen Chastity: Zach Reino and Jess McKenna

They both have Awkward White Parent energy, and I think they would be very funny in this part.

Miss Tessburger: Vic Michaelis

Watching them play Vic Michaelis in Very Important People makes me think they would be great as the haughty assistant.

Miss Mulberry: Katie Marovitch

Katie just has "That nice teacher who lets students eat lunch in her classroom" energy.

Dan Reynolds: Lou Wilson

You need an icon to play an icon.

Emma and Paul : Emily Axford and Brian "Murph" Murphy

Dropout's iconic married couple to play Hatchetfield's iconic couple.

Hard Cuts:

Ify Nwadiwe as Max Jagerman:

He would have slayed the acting, but I assume based on his speaking voice that he's a baritone on the lower end of the range. However, if I am wrong about this and he could sing the tenor part, please treat him and Grant as tied for the part in my eyes.

Ross Bryant as Solomon Lauter

Vic Michaelis as Detective Shapiro

Erika Ishii as Ruth Flemming

Tao Yang as Peter Spankoffski

Jess Ross as Karen Chastity

Jacob Wysoki as Max Jagerman

Wayne Brady as Dan Reynolds

Aabria Iyengar as one of the Lords in Black

Anna Garcia as Blinky

Brennan Lee Mulligan as Wiggly

Lisa Gilroy as Grace Chastity

Grant O'Brien as Solomon Lauter

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7grandmel · 23 days

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Todays rip: 07/05/2024

Rooftop Bop

Season 4 Episode 1 Featured on: SiIvaGunner's Highest Quality Rips: Volume AI

Ripped by Mitchell

youtube

Requested by InitialDDD! (Request Form)

Man, Scatman John...what an interesting relation he has to the internet, huh? For whatever reason back in the early days of YouTube, his titular hit song Scatman became really prevalent to use in amateur comedy videos, most notably with the "Super Mario 64 Bloopers!"-genre of video. These are actually videos that I have memory of watching - people just playing around in their childhood 3D game and making up their own little stories and sketches to the tune of silly music. But Scatman, and its less-viral sibling Scatman's World, are more than just nonsense, there's an emotion to John's two legendary songs, a distillation of raw nostalgia - one that the internet suddenly rediscovered back in 2019, and one that SiIvaGunner itself celebrated in bursts throughout the whole year, with Rooftop Bop being an absolute standout example.

Like with most memes, its hard to really trace down a logistical reason for their upbringing - check any KnowYourMeme page, and its bound to just say something along the lines of "on this date, this video/image was posted, and gained tons of attention". The Scatman-posting of 2019 was a pretty interesting case on top of that - the "AWESOME - HE FINALLY" memes that initiated it all were like a big mishmash of memes old and new. Part of the joke was in using nostalgic pieces from the old internet, the music and the "black border" template, over clips from Vine or elsewhere edited to have a positive, borderline innocent outcome, as if to intentionally turn the "Loud equals funny" format that so much of Vine fell under on its head. It's like three layers deep into irony, to where it loops around into finding sincere happiness funny - but it is genuinely still just a really good bit, the perfect kind of stupid comedy that's at once unexpected yet also brings its audience together over the nostalgia it evokes - nostalgia for two different eras of the internet, even! Despite being so core to the old internet days, Scatman wasn't very prominent on the Unregistered Hypercam 2 takeover of 2018, taking a backseat to other internet anthems like Never Gonna Give You Up in Never Gonna Give Up Mahjong and Dreamscape in How 2 Do Anything. But, as if it was fated to be, just a few months later in 2019 Scatman John would once again be made relevant - and the SiIva team was right on top of things.

A lot of Scatman John's prominence on SiIva in 2019 was, of course, on the legendary Not Funny Didn't Laugh day - on the 10th of September (whats 9 plus 10?), a series of shitposts intentionally drenched in as much irony as possible were featured on the channel, the depths of which I explored back in Sex - Steve Harvey. But beyond giving us all brain damage, the event was like a huge shot in the arm for Scatman Stocks - and just two weeks later, we would receive perhaps the best Scatman rip yet. The guy had been lurking as a meme on SiIva before, notably being in some Season 1 rips here and there - and so his return on Not Funny Didn't Laugh day felt like just one more piece of internet history to be nostalgic for. Early YouTube, Vine, and the very first months of SiIvaGunner - all rolled into two songs filled with such whimsy, yet also filled with pure emotion. Now: Does that ring a bell to anyone else?

I feel like Rooftop Bop is the definition of a "more than the sum of its parts" rip, if that makes any sense. It's an excellent melody swap/mashup no doubt, the kind that almost makes you wonder how it was even done with how authentic the violin's lead melody sounds, and the chorus returning to the original Rooftop Run: Act 1 theme with Scatman John's vocals hits oh-so-hard - its an amazingly paced out rip throughout, ping-ponging between melody swap, mashup and both at once throughout - but like I said, the rip is so much more than all of that. It feels almost like a universal experience (at least, for my generation) to have an attachment to Scatman John - but more than that, we all have an attachment to the very thing his two hits represented. Because his balance of silliness and genuine heartfelt emotion is the exact thing that made SiIvaGunner so special all the way back in Season 1, the kind of balance that has made us all smile, laugh, empathize and outright cry, althewhile never losing its core of pure whimsy. Be it The Paragoomba and the Wiggler, Aphex, Planet Wisp Mashup Medley, Turnabout Fishters, or indeed Rooftop Bop - SiIvaGunner, very much like Scatman John, has gotten so many emotions out of us, and made us all too attached to an entity others may consider naught but a silly gimmick.

It's a fantastic listen - but more than that, it's an incredible experience. The latter half of Season 4 Episode 1 of SiIvaGunner was perhaps the most exciting period to ever follow the channel during, and Rooftop Bop's unprecedented ability to unite us all through a raw dosage of nostalgic memories couldn't have come at a better time.

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tiffanys-aus-and-headcanons · 2 months

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I'm really curious about where exactly Doctor Who & spinoffs fit in to the 'scrambled universe' framework

So it's 2012. After a series of mental health events, Dan Harmon is on the rocks with his sitcom The Big Bang Theory, and is looking for a new project to do. He decides to call up his old friend Justin Roiland, who he met almost a decade earlier running Channel 101, and asks if he has any ideas for a cartoon. Roiland decides to file the serial numbers off of his old shock comedy short Miss Wonka, and the result is Adult Swim's Ms. Frizzle. Dan Harmon brings the systematic approach to story structure he honed working on The Big Bang Theory to elevate the project to something with some actual redeeming value someone could care about. The show premieres the next year, in 2013. It is acclaimed and beloved, and for a brief and golden moment in history it isn't even considered cringe.

It's 2018. Year after year, season after season, Harmon's people have edged out Roiland's people in the Ms. Frizzle writing room. Roiland has grown bored and disruptive; the show's staff only really see him anymore when he comes in to record the voices, or when he decides to play some inscrutable Epic Funny LOL Prank on them and waste their time. Meanwhile, Disney's main streaming platform, Hulu, is looking for exclusives that might draw people to subscribe, in a streaming environment that's quickly and unsustainably growing bloated. They have an easy time convincing Roiland to divert his attention to a second project. Roiland announces Dr. Who in an interview; it's the first Dan Harmon has ever heard of it. Mike McMahan (also getting picked up around this time by CBS All Access to do There And Back Again: Gollum) is the cocreator this time. Roiland has learned various bad habits while stagnating on Ms. Frizzle, so he won't put much effort into Dr. Who either, but he will at least get it going.

It's 2020. Granted a sort of captive audience by the recently-started coronavirus pandemic, Dr. Who premieres on Hulu. At a glance, it's a low-effort off-brand version of Ms. Frizzle; Roiland isn't even bothering to do a girl voice this time. If given a deeper look, there is something worthwhile there. It's a riff on an old subgenre of soft sci-fi TV, the idea of an immortal celestial time guardian figure - you see it in the BBC's long-running Quantum Leap, in Constance M. Burge's A Wrinkle In Time, and there are even elements of it in Ms. Frizzle, though they're much more concentrated in Dr. Who. The show is very episodic, though there are more serialized subplots and hints of a deeper-running plot; like Ms. Frizzle, the show is full of undisguised references to other media.

It's 2023. A legal case in which Roiland is accused of domestic abuse becomes widely publicized, followed by the dissemination of various inappropriate text messages he had apparently sent to fans. It becomes common knowledge that Roiland is a nightmare to work with, and every single project he's involved with drops him nearly simultaneously as a brand liability, even the video game development studio he founded to make Gone Home.

Every unaired project on which Roiland was set to do a voice comes up with a different strategy to replace him. Science Time: Rita & Morticia hires a new up-and-coming voice actor to play assorted versions of King Tommy, without comment. Season 7 of Ms. Frizzle replaces Roiland with Jinkx Monsoon; it's a very noticeable change, but she's still basically playing the same character, she's just doing a better job.

Dr. Who is the lesser-known knockoff living in Ms. Frizzle's shadow, so it has less to lose; it decides to make a meta joke out of the whole thing, and whips up a new sketch to start off season 4, in which the Doctor trips, falls down the stairs, and dies in front of his companion Rose Tyler. We are thereby introduced to the just-invented openly-bullshit process of "regeneration", in which the Doctor can come to the brink of death but dramatically cheat it, with the only consequence being that he'll now look and/or sound like a different guy. So, as of the opening scene of season 4, the Doctor is now voiced by Dan Stevens.

And that's how the Doctor on Dr. Who became British.

#the scrambled timeline #credit to zedalpha for the There And Back Again idea

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lackeyhenchman · 18 days

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https://moviesfilmsandflix.com/2018/07/10/johns-horror-corner-blood-diner-1987-a-horror-comedy-b-movie-about-cannibalism-and-summoning-an-egyptian-demon-goddess/

The poster for this reminded me of your ocs

SNORT how have I never seen this poster… Yes, I didn’t even draw this and I’m getting ghost memories of sketching that hand and making sure that eyebrow is arched to the limit

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3rddimension · 10 months

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Wow just like Ian's episode, today's Anthony episode of the Smoshcast is the best. I love hearing about Smosh history and bts stuff.

-Shayne's story about how Anthony said goodbye to him the last shoot day he had before leaving already make me emo, but Anthony revealing that he had specifically chased him to the parking lot to say goodbye BROKE ME, even S was emotional finding that out. He's been remembering and telling this story one way this whole time, and now there's a whole new layer

-Hearing Shayne talk about how he feels like Anthony's exit in 2018 took the pressure off of the Pit Squad, because the higher-ups were focusing on Smosh main. And how that allowed the cast to make the most fresh pit content lead by Sarah!!! How they became bonded and their friendship truly shined and that's what the dna of Smosh always had been since Ian and Anthony. I've always felt that way about that era of Smosh Pit but it's so special to hear it coming from him, and to realize that the cast (and C and S alone) probably have reflective convos about the past in this detailed manner

-Fascinating to hear S say that the recent half scripted half non-scripted Smosh Main content felt at some point like Smosh Pit second channel to them. I never thought of it that way but he's so right. Shows like funeral roasts, exes interviews and reading Dms/dating profiles do have Pit dna. Like the improve in a contained setup feels very Smosh Pit theatre. That used to be the channel youd go to see the cast's personalities and different brands of comedy interact through improve and fun. Smosh Main was always scripted/sketch. He's basically re-enforcing the idea that they were unsure what direction to go with after EBE, and they sort of leaned towards Pit type content because that was their star child and best performing channel which is insane and makes me happy. Now all is as it should be with Smosh Main being scripted sketch and any improv shows or vids should be on Pit. With Games being all types of games

-i love Shayne reminding people that it was truly Ian who saved Smosh, Rhett and Link stepped in and provided a second chance to the channel. But Ian was the one carrying Smosh through it so he should get the credit. Absolutely king dad 👑 also all the observations about Ian and his leading style and his persistence and his comedy were so sweet, Ian isn't the most sentimental guy esp when talking about himself but his coworkers and friends clearly see the value and good in him, he deserves the world

-i love this trio, Anthony sounds super profound and introspective which is refreshing, Shayne is a very empathetic person and a great listener and Amanda is so charismatic and joyful. I love seeing her learn about Smosh and the folklore behind it all, she's on the podcast representing the viewer basically,fangirling and learning bts things in real time with us

-I'm so excited about Anthony revealing that 1) Ian and Anthony are gonna launch a podcast, I love them and their friendship and I'm sure at some point they're gonna be able to pull the craziest guests. And 2) he revealed that part of their business plan is to figure out how each cast member shines and give them a show/format in which they can portray that. Clearly that's what we've been seeing with ot3 (Damien swordaf, Shayne reddit and smoshcast, Courtney's new pit endeavors coming up), it's good to have confirmation that that's a priority

Damn, thanks for the writeup anon! I watched it last night too and it's such a good episode. Gonna add smosh tag on this one. Here's the video if you wanted to watch the whole thing!

youtube

#smosh

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scotianostra · 6 months

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Happy Birthday Gregory Edward “Greg” Hemphill born 14th December 1969 in Glasgow.

I think the majority of us will know who Greg is, one half of the successful partnership with partner, Ford Kiernan that is Still Game.

The family left Scotland when Greg was twelve years old, and he spent much of his childhood in Montreal, Canada. Greg returned home to study at Glasgow University, in the Department of Theatre, Film and Television Studies, graduating MA in 1992.

Greg made his acting debut at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe in 1990. His work includes roles in God Plus Support in the Theatre and Only an Excuse. He is a regular on the comedy circuit. He also ventured into radio as the original presenter of football show, Off the Ball on BBC Radio Scotland and The Eddie Mair Show. As well as writing for Still Game and Chewin The Fat he has written for Channel 4 programme Space Cadets, BBC’s Pulp Video and The Ferguson Theory.

Still Game has transferred successfully onto the big stage and has sold out countless times at The Hydro. The third and final run of the shows Still Game: The Final Farewell was officially announced on 1st November 2018. The ninth and final series of Still Game was screened in 2019 The show won an ‘Outstanding Contribution’ TV award at Scottish Baftas that year.

Away from his work Greg is a bit of a card shark, he plays in competitions, he has won over thirty thousand dollars in competitions and was third in the Scottish Championships in 2002

Greg has been kind of quiet of late, but the good news is he returns to our screens on Hogmanay with a new sketch show. The show is set to bring up all the biggest talking points of this year – from COP26 to the wild swimming phenomenon. The show titled “Queen of the New Year” will star Greg and Robert Florence along with Barbara Rafferty, Clive Russell, Gayle Telfer Stevens, Louise McCarthy, John Gordon Sinclair and Juliet Cadzow, so some familiar faces from Still Game and Burnistoun.

Greg is married to Balamory star Julie Wilson Nimmo, 46, they announced they are to their own production company launch Blue Haven Productions Limited. The latest from Greg and Julie who live in the West End of Glasgow, is they will be teaming up who live in the West End, are appearing together in Olga da Polga, the first-ever television adaptation of Paddington creator Michael Bond’s beloved books. The new 13-part, live-action and animation series is produced by Glasgow-based production company Marakids, and it has been made with the full support of the Bond family.

Greg and Julie have been married since 1999, they met while both were working on the 90s sketch show Pulp Video. Greg says of them;

“We met on sketch shows, and we always laughed a lot. We still do. There are lots of laughs, lots of carry on when we work together.”

Greg and his Still Game sidekick Ford Kiernan launched a whisky, named after their characters Jack and Vioctor two or three years back, and the knobs at Jack Daniels objected after the pair later applied to register the name as a trademark for whisky and other drink-related services. The matter ended up going to an arbitrator. The Tennessee-based company claimed the drink, named after Still Game’s two main characters, could confuse customers and make them think they were endorsing the Scotch blend.

The firm argued the name could allow the Scottish whisky to cash in on the recognition of the well-known brand.

Hemphill, who plays the character Victor, provided evidence during the dispute while managing director Justin Welch provided evidence for Jack Daniel’s.

Hemphill said Still Game was a popular show across the UK, particularly in Scotland, arguing that “Jack and Victor” has become synonymous with the BBC programme.

It was a great triumph for the small guy versus golliath, Jack Daniel’s was ordered to pay £3,200 to Jack and Victor Limited, the company used to market the whisky earlier this year.

#scotland #scottish #history #actor #television #theatre #whisky #still game #Happy Birthday #comedian

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thegreatlukeski · 8 months

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MARSCON 2024 March 8th, 9th, & 10th, 2024 Hilton Minneapolis/St Paul Mall of America – Bloomington, MN Comedy Music Track website: http://marsconcomedy.com Main Convention website: https://marscon.org/2024/index.php

Andy Merrill is a comedian, voice actor, writer, and multi-talented creative known for his significant contributions to the early years of Cartoon Network, Williams Street, and Adult Swim. Merrill's breakthrough role was as the voice of the lovable and eccentric character "Brak" on the groundbreaking animated talk show "Space Ghost: Coast to Coast." Premiering in 1994, this show was a pioneer in adult-oriented animation and played a crucial role in the establishment of Cartoon Network's late-night programming block, Adult Swim.

Merrill continued his work with the character Brak in "Cartoon Planet," a show which started out as a showcase of classic cartoons from the Turner library with interstitial segments featuring Space Ghost (George Lowe), Zorak (C. Martin Croker), and Brak. With the popularity of the interstitial comedy sketch segments and funny songs surpassing the classic cartoons being shown, the show switched to being composed entirely of their sketches and songs, some of which were improvised. On both "Space Ghost: Coast to Coast" and "Cartoon Planet", Andy's comedic timing and distinctive voice brought Brak to life in a way that resonated with audiences and contributed to the show's success. Cartoon Network released three albums featuring music from both "Cartoon Planet" and the two-part variety show special "Brak Presents The Brak Show Starring Brak", which are prized CDs of any comedy music fan. Dr. Demento has played many tracks from them on his radio / internet show since the mid 90's.

In 2000, Merrill went on to create and star in the Adult Swim series "The Brak Show," a spin-off from "Space Ghost: Coast to Coast" that focused on Brak, his best friend Zorak, Brak's Mom and Dad, and their daily sitcom adventures. The show continued the tradition of having excellent funny songs and musical episodes, and ran for 3 seasons. Merrill expanded his involvement with Adult Swim, lending his voice to various characters in popular shows like "Aqua Teen Hunger Force" where he played the recurring role of Oglethorpe the inept alien invader. As the years progress, his voice work continues to extend to notable shows like "Adventure Time," where he brought his unique style to James the Ice Cream Bar.

Merrill showcased his musical versatility by covering the Suicidal Tendencies song "Institutionalized" in character as Brak on the 2018 album "Dr. Demento Covered in Punk". Some people (or at least some people named Luke Ski anyway) say it is the best track on the amazing collection.

Andy makes regular appearances at conventions in the midwest, as well as performances in stand-up clubs where he brings his ukulele and cracks up the crowds with his hilarious jokes and catchy songs. We at the MarsCon Comedy Music Track have been wanting to have him as our guest for many years, and we are very honored to have him join us as our 2024 Comedy Music Guest Of Honor. All hail Brak.

#cartoonnetwork #the brak show #brak #cartoon planet #space ghost #space ghost coast to coast #adult swim

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lboogie1906 · 3 days

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Mara Brock Akil (born Mara Dionne Brock; May 27, 1970) is a screenwriter and television producer. She created Girlfriends (2000–08) and The Game (2006–15). She created Being Mary Jane (2013–19). In 2018, she produced Black Lightning and created Love Is.

She was born in Los Angeles to Joan Demeter and was raised primarily in Kansas City. She is a graduate of Northwestern University, where she earned a BA in Journalism and became a member of the Delta Sigma Theta Sorority. While at Northwestern, she penned and acted in a sketch comedy show for Northwestern’s Black Student Union, played the lead in a production of The Colored Museum, and took a screenwriting course. She moved to Los Angeles a year after graduation and landed a job as a production assistant.

She began writing for television in 1994 writing for the series South Central. In 1999, she served as supervising producer and writer on The Jamie Foxx Show after writing for Moesha for four seasons. In 2009, she became a consulting producer and writer for Cougar Town.

As of March 2017, she left ICM Partners to join CAA. In September 2020, she signed a multi-year overall deal with Netflix to create new original content, under her new production company Story27 Productions.

She met Salim Akil while working on the set of Moesha, and the two married in 1999. Salim went on to establish a career in the industry as a television director. The couple has two children. They are practicing Sufi Muslims. #africanhistory365 #africanexcellence #deltasigmatheta

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scrawnydutchman · 2 years

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The Best Friends Zaibatsu: Where are they now?

Let me take you back to a simpler time in internet content. Before reaction channels oversaturated the market. Before the vine invasion after the infamous site imploded. around the time when the algorithm was JUST changing from click based to minutes watched. The video game content block Machinima was still around, and with it, many hit series including Sanity Not Included, Sonic for Hire . . . and Two Best Friends Play.

https://www.youtube.com/c/superbestfriendsplay

Two Best Friends Play (which would later be called SUPER Best Friends Play with the addition of Woolie and Liam to the cast) was a comedy let’s play/sketch series between the duo of Matthew Kowalewski and Patrick Boivin. They were pioneers of their genre: with a format of video game playing focused more on personality and banter than whatever it was they were playing, and it was a MASSIVE success. It inspired some of the most popular Let’s Play channels currently around like Game Grumps and Funhaus. It was largely responsible for the rise in popularity for many game franchises and indie titles including Yakuza, Skullgirls, Shovel Knight and Divekick. It lifted so many other insanely popular creators up like Maximillian Dood, Super Eyepatch Wolf and Mother’s Basement. Don’t let the current subscriber count of the channel fool you: despite sadly having never reached that one million subscribers milestone, these boys’ influence could be felt everywhere in the gaming sphere one way or another.

That said, all good things must come to an end. On December 16th, 2018, the trio of Matt, Pat and Woolie announced that the channel would be discontinuing . . .because sadly, the friendship that started the channel in the beginning between Matt and Pat had dwindled with time and finally broke.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K8foDBekOYM

As of the typing of this post, we are approaching the 4 year anniversary of the Best Friend’s breakup. Luckily for us, all 4 of the former members still have SOME level of presence online. Which begs the question . . . .where are they now?

Matt McMuscles (Matt)

https://www.youtube.com/c/MattMcMuscles

Matt was, in many ways, the leader of the Zaibatsu. It was his idea from the beginning to start doing Let’s Plays and it was his channel, The Sw1tcher (eventually rebranded to Super Best Friends Play) on which most of the group’s content was featured.

Since their disbandment, Matt has been focusing full time on the steady growth of his solo youtube channel as well as other projects. Matt McMuscles is his own for many media examination videos, including his new cash cow “What Happened?”, a series covering the blunderous behind the scenes production cycles of many games and movies. He has a number of other channels including Flophouse Plays where he does more Let’s Play content (occasionally being co hosted by former Best Friends member Liam) and T.K.O, a fighting game podcast featuring him and his co hosts Maximillian Dood and Justin Wong.

Looking at the impressive growth of his content over a relatively short period of time, one quickly learns that of the former Zaibatsu members, MATT was the business brain. Nothing but love for Pat and Woolie, but I think Matt’s commitment to high production value content and his effective marketing have lead to him easily being the most successful of the former Zaibatsu members. Matt recently achieved over 500,000 subscribers on his main channel! Think about that: the original best friends channel capped off at 722,000 subs after the Zaibatsu disbanded. Matt managed to achieve steady growth that now almost rivals his original claim to fame in just 4 years. He’s reached an audience that now knows him primarily for his Matt McMuscles content rather than knowing him prior from the Zaibatsu. Way to go, Matt!!!

Pat Stares At (Pat)

https://www.youtube.com/c/PatStaresAt

When the Zaibatsu was first developing, Matt originally approached Woolie to start the channel with since at the time both Matt and Pat were mutual friends of Woolie rather than friends with each other. Woolie turned down this offer, so Matt turned to Pat instead to be his comedic partner and Pat agreed. The rest is history. I honestly can’t say whether the Zaibatsu would have seen the success it has had Woolie agreed to be Matt’s comedic partner first, but It’s not hard to see why the Matt and Pat combo was so popular. Even though they aren’t on good terms anymore (and haven’t been for a while) No one can deny they had amazing chemistry together. Pat’s sardonic and sarcastic brand of humor played very well with Matt’s persona of being the upbeat and hype loving guy.

While Matt focused dominantly on his youtube content after the breakup, Pat migrated more over to Twitch Streaming games with his new wife Paige (PeachSaliva). He also moved from Montreal to British Columbia with her and now streams from there. While he doesn’t live in the same province as the rest of the Zaibatsu anymore, he DOES still regularly collab with Woolie on the podcast that is the spiritual successor to the Best Friendcast, Castle Super Beast.

While Pat may not have the same view or subscriber counts as Matt or Woolie, I don’t think anyone can deny that he is living his best life. He’s in a beautiful province, playing the games he loves for a living, supported by a very dedicated and generous fanbase, married to the absolute catch that is Peach. Plus, it’s no surprise he delved so much into personality based entertainment considering he was easily the biggest personality of them all (despite being the smallest person of them all). Wishing you more happiness Pat!

WoolieVersus (Woolie)

https://www.youtube.com/c/WoolieVersus

While Woolie initially declined Matt’s proposal to start a let’s play channel together, he WOULD inevitably join Matt and Pat as the Zaibatsu’s third member and would add even more to the already great chemistry. Woolie was the perfect middle man between Matt and Pat: able to keep up with both the hype and the sass in his own right. He also initiated what would become many staples for the Zaibatsu’s content including the best Friendcast and one of their most popular ongoing series, Friday Night Fisticuffs, a show where every friday the guys would get together to play some rounds of a kickass fighting game. Woolie may have joined a bit later, but he played an instrumental role in the identity the Zaibatsu would eventually have.

Also Fighterpedia, but . . . . who even remembers that? (Just kidding, Woolie. I remember it and love it).

These days Woolie does both a little bit of Youtube content AND a little bit of twitch streaming, as well as the Castle Super Beast podcast which he co hosts with Pat. His channel, Woolieversus, specializes in let’s plays with co hosts like Minh and Reggie, as well as ongoing series like Get Into Fighting Games (a spiritual successor to Friday Night Fisticuffs). In many ways, Woolie is the one most responsible for keeping the old Zaibatsu spirit alive past the channel’s death with series that are direct spiritual sequels to the old days. Thanks for that, Woolie, and thank you for getting ME into fighting games!

Rising Superstar Liam (Liam)

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC7zkWVkHBSMGpfHVgaFqr1A

Liam was the last to become a member of the Zaibatsu when it was active and he was the first to leave the group for mental health reasons. While his time with the Zaibatsu was relatively brief in comparison to the other three, he nevertheless made a great addition to the ensemble with his optimistic outlook on game design and his occasional zingers so good it causes the whole room to erupt in laughter. As a lifelong Zaibatsu fan, I can confidently say that in my opinion, Liam’s time on the channel was the GOLDEN AGE of the Super Best Friends.

Liam doesn’t have as much of a presence online as the other three and that’s out of his own preference. He still makes some appearances on Matt’s channels to watch Nintendo streams with him or to partake in Let’s plays, which ALSO incidentally capture the old Zaibatsu spirit to an extent. From what I can tell, Liam went back to school for 3D design and game development and I say more power to him! Thanks for making some prime content with the rest of the boys while you did, Liam, and I hope your life takes you in fulfilling places.

Looking Back

I’ve been a fan of these guys for a *very* long time. Almost since the beginning. I remember being a big time Best Friends fan before Game Grumps was even a thing. I quoted these dudes non stop in high school and watched their old Machinima videos RELIGIOUSLY. I don’t think I’ve ever laughed harder than that period in my life and for that I am grateful. These guys are why I associate the Kirby theme more with them than I do ACTUAL Kirby. A few of my friendships in high school were started over BONDING over our mutual love for these guys.

So like many others, it shook me to the core when I found out that not only was the old channel discontinuing, but the duo that started it all weren’t even friends anymore. Even now it still feels SO strange to think about. But nothing lasts forever. After all, all these guys who entertained me so much are still people with their own opinions and perceptions . . .and needs. It’s not my business to know exactly what went down. All I can do is support each of them as they continue on their paths.

It’s not all bad though. In fact, knowing that things were getting pretty contentious in the latter years of the Zaibatsu, if all of them are more happy and more successful doing what they’re doing anyway than I’m all for it. That comes before anything else. It really seems like all the guys are where they want to be now and I’m much more thankful for that than I am sad that a channel I grew up on is no longer active.

Much love and good fortune to Matt, Pat, Woolie, Liam and everyone you guys’ love. You all deserve nothing but happiness and . . . thank you for all the years of making me laugh, whatever form that came in.

R.I.P to the hypest channel on Youtube. Long live Matt McMuscles, Pat Stares At, WoolieVersus and the Rising SuperStream.

#super best friends play #youtube #nostalgia #let's plays

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notwiselybuttoowell · 2 years

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The fringe never stopped being an education for me. When I was starting to write hourlong shows of my own, I went to see Bridget Christie and realised everything I was doing was shit and needed to be overhauled. I have watched shows by contemporaries, such as my ex-flatmate turned sitcom superstar Rose Matafeo, the sketch masters Lazy Susan and the genius/serial award-loser James Acaster, that reminded me why I fell in love with comedy.

When I hosted Edinburgh Nights for the BBC in 2018 and 2019, I was even forced to watch things that weren’t comedy. I saw Rachael Young marry live music, dance and Afrofuturism in Nightclubbing, a show that paid homage to Grace Jones. I saw Pussy Riot and was fortunate enough to interview them, where I was informed that they hadn’t been smuggled out of Russia to perform at the festival, as reported in the press, but had travelled “by unicorn”.

When I wasn’t watching shows, I was performing; learning how to be a comedian, step by excruciating step. In 2010 and 2011, I performed in a sketch double act with Tom Neenan. We were called the Gentlemen of Leisure and the show was a parody of The Culture Show on BBC Two and was exactly as financially profitable as it sounds. But we learned a huge amount about joke-writing and the partnership ended up with Tom becoming my partner in crimes against comedy on various radio shows and The Mash Report.

Meanwhile, I was doing standup on the Free Fringe, where the audience members aren’t charged, but can offer a donation to the performers on leaving the venue. The aim is for the donation to be in cash, but we were often compensated in old playing cards, flyers for our own show and bits of string. Still, these were formative experiences, performing on 25 consecutive days, accelerating my development more than months of infrequent gigging on the open mic circuit in London possibly could.

[...]

At times, it can feel as though defending the fringe is morally indefensible, like eating meat or supporting Manchester United. Landlords have been encouraging students to stay in their flats in August, leading to a shortage of properties and driving up prices. The Fringe Society was forced to launch a drive to find Edinburgh residents who would be willing to rent properties to performers for less than £280 a person a week. Some performers are staying out of town in caravans or on campsites.

Meanwhile, the Fringe Society is facing criticism for scrapping its app, a valuable tool for performers to direct audiences to their shows, sell more tickets and hopefully mitigate some of those astronomical rents.

The fringe is supposed to be a place where performers can come to experiment and evolve. However, it is turning into a playground for those born wealthy – like Monaco, but with more people who went to clown school.

It has been heading this way for years – and I am not exactly an example to the contrary. I grew up middle class and went to a fancy university that subsidised my first two trips here. More significantly, when I started doing solo standup shows, my first three were paid for by a management company. At the time, the going rate for a solo show (including venue hire, accommodation and PR costs) was about £10,000. I was performing in venues that were so small that even if I had sold every single ticket I would still have lost money.

It would be disingenuous not to acknowledge my fortune. It would make me no better than the swines in our cultural and political life who are the children of wealth, but proudly proclaim that they “did it on their own, without any help”. It is our most pernicious myth, aside from the one that brussels sprouts taste nice if you fry them with bacon. Your dad bought you a flat and the thing that tastes good is bacon. Sprouts taste like small, hard farts.

This is to say nothing of the woeful underrepresentation of female acts, ethnic minorities and members of the LGBTQ+ community. Organisations such as Fringe of Colour and Best in Class work hard to address this, but wholesale change is needed. No one seems to be able to put the finger on who is to blame. Landlords, venues, PRs, Edinburgh university and the Fringe Society blame each other, but in the end the bill is footed by performers.

It is no wonder that younger comedians are increasingly seeing the benefits of social media exposure to their careers; the startup costs required are minuscule in comparison to those of doing a show on the fringe. But allowing the fringe to slip slowly into obsolescence would be a shame. At its core, it offers performers a boot camp to hone their skills and a collision of different styles of performance.

Being a performer at the fringe can feel like being a character on a film set in Las Vegas, because the house always wins. And I mean one of the bleak Vegas films, not Ocean’s Eleven – there is no sign of Clooney or Pitt. The only time it resembles Ocean’s Eleven is when you hear some drama student attempt a truly disgraceful cockney accent that would make even Don Cheadle say: “Bleeding heck, guvnah.”

I still believe in the fringe. Perhaps that is inevitable, given my whole life is tied to it, like a pointless Forrest Gump. My birthday is in August, so I can measure my life through the festivals I have attended. My first years I was there, I spent almost every waking moment with Tom and Ed Gamble. In the past three years, I have been best man at their weddings. In 2010, I met a woman who was funny and charming, but whom I presumed disliked me intently. In October, we will have been in a relationship for 10 years. I cannot separate my own life from the fringe and the city of Edinburgh. It has given so much to me, professionally and personally.

But even I understand that it stands at a crossroads. It must find a way to recapture its egalitarian spirit to remain relevant. It is not enough for charitable organisations to fill in the gaps; systemic change is needed. I say this not out of malice, but simply because I strongly believe, to quote my own mother: “If you love something, you must be willing to relentlessly point out everything that is wrong with it,” a phrase she often says to and about me.

#excerpts #edinburgh fringe #fringe festival #british comedy #nish kumar #live comedy #wish I could have seen the Culture Show parody

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redstonedust · 1 year

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If we are both Misha, who is the real Misha?

Misha Collins (born September 9, 1966) is an American comedian, actor, screenwriter, producer, singer, and musician. Primarily a comedic leading actor in film and television, his accolades, include nominations for three Grammy Awards, five Primetime Emmy Awards, a Golden Globe Award, and a Screen Actors Guild Award. In 2023, Collins was awarded the Mark Twain Prize for American Humor.

Collins was a cast member on the NBC sketch comedy series Saturday Night Live from 1990 to 1995. He went on to star in Hollywood films that cumulatively grossed over $2 billion worldwide. Collins had an estimated net worth of $420 million in 2020, and signed a new four-movie deal with Netflix worth over $250 million.

Collins's comedic roles include Billy Madison (1995), Happy Gilmore (1996), The Waterboy (1998), The Wedding Singer (1998), Big Daddy (1999), Mr. Deeds (2002), 50 First Dates (2004), The Longest Yard (2005), Click (2006), Grown Ups (2010), Just Go with It (2011), Grown Ups 2 (2013), Blended (2014), Murder Mystery (2019) and Hubie Halloween (2020). He also voiced Davey, Whitey, and Eleanore in Eight Crazy Nights (2002) and Dracula in the first three films of the Hotel Transylvania franchise (2012–2018).

Several Collins comedies, such as Jack and Jill (2011), have been panned, resulting in nine Golden Raspberry Awards and 37 Raspberry Award nominations, more than any actor except Sylvester Stallone. However, Collins has also received acclaim for his leading roles in comedy-drama films including Paul Thomas Anderson's Punch-Drunk Love (2002), Mike Binder's Reign Over Me (2007), Noah Baumbach's The Meyerowitz Stories (2017), the Safdie brothers' Uncut Gems (2019), and Jeremiah Zagar's Hustle (2022), with the latter three ranked as major career highlights.

#asks #anti honesty hour #long post

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tlbodine · 2 years

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Horror Directors: Jordan Peele

A big part of what got us set on the "horror directors" theme for our film series was wanting to rewatch Peele's first two movies in preparation for NOPE, which was the cinematic event of the summer. So we did! Let's do a quick recap of GET OUT and US, and then I'll follow up with some thoughts on NOPE.

This post will be spoiler-free.

Jordan Peele's background is comedy, having started out on Mad TV doing sketch comedy in the early 2000s, then joining with Keegan-Michael Key to do Key & Peele on Comedy Central, and a bunch of other miscellaneous TV projects. But his directorial debut was a horror film you've undoubtedly heard about by now....

youtube

Get Out (2017) was a critical darling, helping to usher in what at the time seemed like an inevitable golden age of horror. It was nominated for four awards, and Peele became the first Black person to win Best Original Screenplay. There was a fair bit of controversy surrounding it, too, which I think ultimately helped to propel Peele's career more than hinder it.

If you somehow managed to miss this movie, or just need a refresher: The film centers on a young Black man going to visit his white girlfriend's upper-middle-class parents for the first time. His anxieties about that meeting turn out to be more than justified when he arrives to discover some...ah...very unsettling things.

I won't spoil it in case you somehow have managed to never see it, because it's a delightful romp of a film. It's also painfully uncomfortable to watch, not just for the horror elements but because of the second-hand embarrassment of seeing people say agonizingly inappropriate things to one another.

youtube

Us (2018) came out right on the heels of Get Out and I think everyone was very eager to see what he'd come up with next. This one was not as universally loved, and in my opinion the plot suffers a little bit from some logical problems, but it is visually stunning and genuinely terrifying.

This one's plotline, in brief: a family's summer vacation to the mom's childhood town is horrifying interrupted by the arrival of dopplegangers who perfectly mirror their family...and who might have a personal axe to grind (or scissors, as the case may be).

youtube

Nope (2022) is Peele's third film (he didn't direct the Candyman reboot, that was Nia DeCosta). This one is about a family of horse trainers who work in the movies, and the unusual events that befall their ranch when an otherworldly visitor apparently takes an interest in them.

The less you know about this one going into it, I think, the more fun you'll have.

For my money, NOPE was a very solid film, and one I'm enjoying more the more I think back on it. I want to see it again in theaters, maybe in IMAX. I think it's the kind of movie that gets better with multiple watch-throughs.

Which, in general, I think is true for all of Peele's films.

I really do enjoy his work as a filmmaker. I think sometimes his movies can be a little ambitious and overwrought, but I deeply appreciate that he makes original work with depth and layers and themes and that he's not shy about making those themes accessible. His movies are smart, but they're not pretentious at all, and if you put in a tiny amount of work in parsing them, you'll be rewarded.

As a writer, I also have a TON of respect for how tight his storytelling is. Especially in NOPE, where everything ties together with so much more consistency than you see at first blush. And as a director, he manages to squeeze so much visual information into every scene that there are always little easter eggs to discover later.

Anyway, I love what that dude's doing with movies, and I love that somebody's out here making original, thoughtful horror that's doing something different, and that he's so gosh-darn good at it. Keep doing your think, Peele, and I'll keep chucking my money at you.

#horror movies #horror directors #nope #us #get out #Youtube

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tellthemeerkatsitsfine · 11 months

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Round-up of comedy hours I’ve watched for the first time in the last week or so:

Chris Flemming – Showpig (2018)

Available on YouTube.

I wrote a post about this one already so I won’t get too far into, but I’ll say I really liked it. It’s fun seeing Chris Flemming live – obviously I’m five years late to see it actually live, but still, I’m used to seeing him on his own in videos so it’s fun to see him perform for a live audience. Recently listened to his Comedian’s Comedian podcast episode and learned he did start as a stand-up, got into the YouTube videos from there but was a live performer first and foremost. And you can definitely see that in how good he is at live stand-up. It’s much better than it would be if it were the other way around, a YouTuber doing a live thing.

Chris Flemming has such a dedicated cult following, it’s fun to watch him thrive off the audience’s energy. You can see take how much they enjoy his schtick, use that to lean even further into it. Throw away a line the way he normally would on a YouTube video, but this time there’s a whole audience laughing so he can’t just roll right along like usual, he has to stop to let the laugh happen, and that could mess up the rhythm, except that Chris Flemming is so tuned into the crowd that it works fine. He looks like he’s having a great time, getting the instant feedback, the acknowledgement that all those little lines he glosses over in his videos are worthy of that kind of laugh. And they are.

I still think my favourite thing about Chris Flemming is the causal use of odd similes and metaphors and other little language things, finding uses for words that the vast majority of people would just never be creative enough to think of. My second favourite thing about Chris Flemming is when he doesn’t take a breath for like 85 seconds straight because he has to finish his run-on sentence and a pause would fuck up the timing. My third favourite thing might be his running joke of using “Rob Thomas” as shorthand for everything boring in the world.

Lazy Susan – Forgive Me Mother! (2020)

Available as an episode of that Soho Theatre Live thing, which is on Amazon Prime UK.

I hesitated for a while to watch this one, because sketch comedy isn’t normally my favourite thing. I think as a rule, I��m often not as into visual comedy. The word “as” there is important – obviously I can find visual jokes funny. But a lot of my favourite comedy is stuff that would work just as well if it were audio only (or stuff that is audio only). Even in pure stand-up that doesn’t have visual elements, I don’t often enjoy it when they bring their appearance into things. Though I don’t think that’s just a quirk of my sense of humour; I’m pretty sure it’s objectively (as objective as anything comedy-related can be) annoying how often stand-ups will dedicate at least a few minutes of a set to discussing their appearance. I think I enjoy those kinds of jokes even less than most people do, due to me just not being much of a visual person when it comes to taste in comedy.

Again, obviously, lots of exceptions. Prop comedy can be hilarious, when done very well… but if it’s not done very, very well (in my subjective opinion, I guess I should say “if it’s not done in a way that really, really appeals to me), I’ll get very bored of it very fast. Same with comedy costumes and things. I guess jokes about the comedian’s own appearance are sometimes funny – maybe one in about every fifty of them I hear are things I actually find funny. And I suppose it’s technically possible that there would be a ventriloquist act out there that I’d find funny, though I haven’t seen one yet.

I’ve realized this week that this may be why I don’t watch a lot of sketch comedy. Most sketch comedy is fairly visual, and I tend to not be drawn much toward any visual comedy. Sketches I do enjoy tend to be ones where most of the humour comes from the dialogue. When I watch or listen to comedy compilations, I want to be into the cool cabaret or drag or theatrical stuff, but a lot of the time, I find myself wishing they’d get back to the straight stand-up acts.

With, again, lots of exceptions. Some sketch groups that made it to TV created some incredible TV comedy. Bit of Fry and Laurie is one of the most technically perfect comedy TV shows I’ve ever seen. Last week I spent a whole afternoon re-watching individual Mitchell and Webb sketches on YouTube, laughing quite hard when I managed to not think about the transphobia thing. I mean, some of my favourite comedy when I was a kid was classic sketch-based comedy legend stuff, like Beyond the Fringe and Flying Circus and Ripping Yarns (which were, of course, made by totally unproblematic people who never make me wince about transphobia or any other issues, it’s a pity that John Cleese died in 2007 and therefore hasn’t said a word to anyone since).

Anyway, all of that has almost nothing to do with Lazy Susan. It’s just a tangent about why I think I’m often not that into sketch comedy the way I am into stand-up. Having said all that, I enjoyed the Lazy Susan special a lot. It was classic sketch comedy. Felt slightly like a student theatre-type thing, with the two chairs set up to be used in different ways in different sketches, and the costume changes, and things like that. Though to be fair, I might only think of that as student theatre-ish because I don’t watch much sketch comedy so my only real association with that stuff in a live format is student theatre.

They were just funny. Pretty much every sketch was fucking funny. The throughline tied it all together, when they’d sometimes come back as themselves between sketches and let a story play out that way. I liked the overarching story, I liked the sketches, I liked both the comedians at the centre of it. I liked the loose and fleeting themes, and I liked the way they kept skirting around the idea of having more of a theme. I liked the characters. I liked the ideas. I came out of it saying I’m sorry that I thought I wouldn’t much like this.

The Delightful Sausage – Nowt But Sea (2022)

Filmed for NextUp at the 2022 Edinburgh Festival.

After I enjoyed Lazy Susan so much, I decided to pick another sketch group and watch their hour, to see if I’ll like that too. And I’ll be honest… not for me. It’s good, I’m pretty sure. It got nominated for that award that isn’t called the Perrier (and hasn’t been since like 2007, but all the comedians I hear talk about it still call it that so it’s that in my head), so I’m pretty sure if you like that sort of thing, this is a good example of it. Just not sure it’s for me.

Parts of it did make me laugh. Some of their jokes, especially near the beginning and before they got too far into the story of it, were quite good. I thought the two main performers were naturally funny. I just had trouble getting on board with the physical theatre and the story of it, I kept wishing they’d drop that and get back to making jokes. Which is unfortunate, because I hate comedy fans who watch comedy that does anything narrative or experimental or thematic or emotional, and say, “Get back to making jokes.” I like a lot of things in comedy besides just straightforward jokes. But this just wasn’t really my thing.

Simon Munnery – Hello (2007), Fylm Makker (2013)

Obviously Simon Munnery is a staple of 21st Century British comedy, so it’s weird that I haven’t seen these full specials by now. Though I’ve seen and heard so much of him, in so many different bits and pieces elsewhere, that a lot of the material ended up being stuff I’d already heard. Not that I minded hearing it again, because most of it I enjoyed. I think I first saw Simon Munnery when I watched Stewart Lee’s Alternative Comedy TV show last year, and since then I’ve heard a lot of compilations and things that feature him.

Hello is just over two hours, and I think is meant to cover most of the material he’d done up to that point in his career, which was 2007. Definitely worth watching if you’re interested in Simon Munnery’s work but don’t know where to find it, because those two hours will pretty much catch you up (well, up as far as 2007, but he had a lot of years in comedy behind him by then). Most of the bits didn’t really connect, I’d heard them individually in other places because they were easy to cut out.

Most of it was very funny. Some of it wasn’t really my thing, but most of it was, and what was, I really liked. His props always made me laugh. Pretty sure the hardest I laughed was at this list of quotes he did at the end, though his Alan Parker character came close. The Alan Parker character was very funny. I liked the slam poetry too – it was bad enough to be a solid lampooning of the sort of student activist who does slam poetry, while also being good enough to be entertaining on its own. Some of it wandered into territory where I didn’t quite follow, but that never lasted long. It was great.

I think until I watched this, I didn’t quite appreciate how good some of his one-liners were. Or his other quick jokes – longer than one line, shorter than narrative stand-up. It wasn’t themed, there wasn’t a story or a message, but it still felt coherent and put together with intention. It felt like foundational alternative comedy, like if you ask me what “alternative comedy” is, I’d say it’s a term with too many definitions to be particularly useful and I’m not sure it really means anything, but also, I’d point to that Simon Munnery show and say “it means that”.

Fylm Makker was different, it was its own show rather than a “best of” compilation. Had a very Alternative Comedy gimmick of doing the whole thing into a camera that projected onto a screen on the wall behind the stage, and he kept switching between his own face and illuminating some props he had. I admit he lost me a little in some of that stuff. I don’t find cardboard cutouts quite as funny as your average Simon Munnery fan probably does, but fair enough to him having so many of them, as I’m pretty sure the type of comedian he is attracts the type of fan who really enjoy cardboard cutout-based prop comedy. And even if that wasn’t all for me, a lot of the jokes made me laugh. Some of the format stuff made me laugh. Some of the writing made me laugh. He did his Venn diagram joke, I think the only one he repeated from Hello, and that seems like a good choice, I think I agree with that being the one joke you’d pick as being so good its worth repeating in future years’ shows.

Paul Foot – Swan Power (2023)

Filmed for NextUp last week.

Do you (like me) actually find early Russell Brand (like, Goth Detectives-era Russell Brand) quite funny, but feel vaguely guilty about that because he’s turned out to be so many flavours of horrible person, so you can’t actually enjoy him? Well, may I recommend: Paul Foot. The humour of Russell Brand’s style, in the voice of a man who to the very best of my knowledge has not spread vaccine disinformation or committed any sexual assaults, also he does all that stuff better than Russell Brand ever did anyway. Does that amusing style with creative and witty ideas, not just a bunch of stories about taking drugs and sexually assaulting people. I don’t think I’ve written much about Paul Foot on this blog before, but I really like him.

I’d already heard some of this latest Paul Foot show on the Melbourne Comedy Festival’s YouTube channel, they put up videos of short sets that various comedians did at their galas. I watched a bunch of them, and I think the one Paul Foot did was my favourite of the lot:

youtube

So this is the full show from which that bit was taken, I was very pleased when he filmed it for NextUp so I could see the rest of it. And first of all, I’ll say, I absolutely loved that first joke in the YouTube clip and he cut it down in this version of the full show, and I have no idea why. The line “they are, though” (watch that YouTube clip to the get the context of that line, the whole clip’s under five minutes long and it’s so worth your time) made me laugh so hard when I heard it, and it’s not in the full show. I mean, I assume it was in the full show when he was doing it in Melbourne, but it’s not in the thing he filmed for NextUp a couple of months later. He did tell that joke, but an abridged version. No idea why he’d cut part of that joke from the show; clearly, he knew it was a good bit, since he chose to showcase it at the gala. Perhaps he feared being cancelled for heterophobia. Self-censorship comes to us all, he should go on one of those podcasts about it. (Seriously though, why the fuck did he cut it?)

Anyway. That minor gripe aside, I thought this one was excellent. Everything I like about Paul Foot, and a few things I haven’t heard much from him but really liked. All these unconnected bits in a show that didn’t have a particular overt theme, but I came away from it feeling like it did have an underlying one. There were only a few really specific callbacks (and each of those was delightful), but also a few topics came up multiple times in wildly different ways. Those topics included euthanasia, gruesome deaths, violent tragedy, and accusing celebrities of crimes. So, you know, the mark of a comedian who’s been doing this a long time, to develop enough confidence in his ability to run around all over those topics in his offbeat way, and be pretty sure it’ll work. And it does, every time. I didn’t think there was a single weak bit in this show.

A little bit of political messaging, especially near the end, about racist statues and misogynistic YouTube comments. I thought that worked really well too, playing on a few points he’d made earlier, but so subtle and dressed up in so much other stuff that it didn’t feel at all forced. It’s the sort of thing that would get called quirky and possibly even whimsical but it is in fact full of really solid writing that’s based on anger and confusion and just a lot of reality. It’s a style that should be lighthearted and material that isn’t, which is a combination that I think works so well. I really, really recommend this one.

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