38 posts tagged with humor by Kattullus.
Displaying 1 through 38 of 38.
"Who's that? The slow comedy man."
Slow & Steady is a new hour-long stand-up comedy special where the star of Joe Pera Talks to You, Joe Pera, talks to you. He ends by attempting to put the audience to sleep, with a live edition of his sleep podcast, Drifting Off with Joe Pera. [Joe Pera previously]
“It’s better than nothing”
The Stopgap is a new website edited by Danny M. Lavery and Jo Livingstone. The two editors were interviewed by Laura Hazard Owen about their idea for the site and it’s future.
The Darkness at the Heart of Chuck E. Cheese
Last Squeak Tonight is a special web-only episode of Last Week Tonight with John Oliver, a nearly half hour exploration of the Chuck E. Cheese chain of pizza parlors with singing animatronics, from its strange, off-kilter beginnings as way for Nolan Bushnell’s Atari to make money off arcade machines, to its depressing, soulless present. Even if you’ve never set foot inside a Chuck E. Cheese, it is a grimly fascinating watch.
Fiat divisa panem
The utterly delightful site dedicated to classifying plastic bread tags is an article by Annie Rauwerda about The Holotypic Occlupanid Research Group [previously], or horg.com (horg.org is squatted upon), where John Daniel classifies occlupanids, or plastic bread tags, with biological rigor, taxonomizing the 208 types into 17 families, as well as discussing pseudo-occlupanids.
“The first website debuted only a couple years prior to my retirement”
The Far Side has a new website, Gary Larson explains why now in a letter. While the website is in its beginning stages, there is a daily selection of comic strips, plus sections for themed collections and scans from Larson’s sketchbooks.
The Most Pessimistic Town in the World
In Puolanka, Finland's ‘best worst’ dying town, some citizens held a meeting to figure out if they could hold some fun events. “One man said that nothing works out here”, said Riitta Nykänen, “not even pessimism.” And so Puolanka decided to celebrate Pessimism Days. That has spawned a popular YouTube channel hosted by Tommi Rajala, and is the subject of a five minute video report by the BBC.
"How Hannah Stands Up to Schizophrenia"
Hannah Bryndís Proppé-Bailey talks about how stand-up comedy and football help her deal with schizophrenia (autoplaying video, may blow dust into eyes) for UEFA’s Equal Game project. Earlier this year Hannah Jane Cohen interviewed her about her comedy.
"A comedy podcast about things that are actually sad."
The Alice Fraser Trilogy is a series of three stand-up specials where Australian comedian Alice Fraser tells the story of when her mother died, with digressions into her past and other subjects. It's available as a podcast [iTunes link]. For regular listeners of The Bugle, Alice Fraser will be familiar, but for those who aren't her comedy is a mix of absurdism, earnestness, wordplay and pessimism.
"A tree can't make or break Christmas, only people can do that"
Joe Pera Helps You Find the Perfect Christmas Tree is a good-natured twenty minute comedy about a middle school choir teacher in Michigan who's looking for a perfect Christmas tree. This special led to an Adult Swim series called Joe Pera Talks With You which is unfortunately geolocked outside North America. The eponymous Joe Pera's website has a lot more of his material available online.
"I would want the dickpic program changed."
John Oliver explores the topic of government surveillance in the context of the June 1st deadline to reauthorize the Patriot Act and the ongoing Edward Snowden case.
"I attempted to repeat the experiment, however once my assistant discovered that I didn’t really have any tuna, she declined to participate in any further tests."
The Pliocene Pussy Cat Theory (which originally appeared in The Annals of Improbable Research) argues that the human ancestor Australopithecus domesticated cats for hunting, defense and harvesting static electricity to make it easier to climb trees. The theory, which was proposed by Lorenzo Love, is a parody of the Aquatic Ape Hypothesis (which is critiqued here and in shorter form here). Whether you know about the Aquatic Ape Hypothesis or not, the Pliocene Pussy Cat Theory, and Love's follow-up, the Subterranean Ape Theory, will completely alter your understanding of human evolution.
Two whole stand-up shows and a story album by Daniel Kitson
Two whole stand-up performances by comedian Daniel Kitson can be downloaded on a pay-what-you-want basis (even if you want to pay nothing). These are the 2004 and 2005 Edinburgh performances (2004 performance previously on MeFi). Kitson has also recorded a story album with musician Gavin Osborn, selling for ₤2.50, and the first three tracks, of eleven, can be streamed online. [via The Bugle]
Tribute to George Carlin
Louis CK talks about what George Carlin meant to him during a New York Public Library tribute to Carlin hosted by Whoopi Goldberg, that also featured, among others, Ben Stiller, Kevin Smith and Carlin's children Kelly and Patrick.
Cthulhu Anesti!
Today is a day to celebrate the Risen God. I mean, of course, Cthulhu, that most adorable of Old Ones, who stars in The Adventures of Lil Cthulhu. If you haven't been eaten yet and need to waste time until then, The Calls for Cthulhu series is a nice way to distract yourself from your impending doom. If all that cuteness isn't enough, or perhaps too much, then you might want to check out oldie but goodie Cutethulhu.
Amy Sedaris crafts things
Amy Sedaris has a YouTube channel where she demonstrates how to craft objects from her new book Simple Times: Crafts for Poor People. So far she's made hot dogs on a rake, potato ships, a donut bird feeder, a Thanksgiving centerpiece, pompoms and a rabbit treat called Dynamite Stixx.
Radio Spiritworld broadcasting on 6.22 megahertz in the 49 metre band on shortwave and selected ouija boards
Radio Spiritworld (Inter-dimensional) is the only station broadcasting from the afterlife into the living world. Well, actually it's a half an hour of wonderfully inventive audio-comedy from Peter Serafinowicz and Robert Popper, writers and creators of Look Around You, who between them have worked on or appeared in all the recent British comedies you love. [iTunes download link]
True American Dog
True American Dog is where I go for my silliness these days. It's a single panel photoshop comic about animals. And what animals! There's Kooly the Bear, Eagle, Dog and many more. It's about as silly as it gets, in a good way.
Feminism in Effect!
Jenny Hagel has a three part YouTube series about "a dumpy women's studies professor [who] transforms herself into a ghetto fabulous rap star to convince people to care about feminism. When she's finished rapping...they still don't care." Parts 1, 2 and 3.
Comedian David Mitchell shares his opinions
David Mitchell's Soap Box features The Peep Show's David Mitchell giving his opinions on various topics. The new series starts with Mitchell pondering the myth of King Cnut attempting to turn back the tides. The comedian has covered many issues, such as respect for the elderly, beer and being asked how much one earns. You can also subscribe to the series as a video podcast [iTunes link]
Rob Paravonian's Life as a Comic
Life as a Comic is series of short videos by Rob Paravonian (famous for The Pachelbel Rant) about what it's like to be a working stand-up comic. It has recently started up again after a long break. Here's the first episode which is about doing gigs at venues which aren't full-time comedy clubs. Direct links to the rest of the episodes, all of which are in quicktime-format, below the cut. [more inside]
"My friend from Michigan says if you pushed all the Great Lakes together they'd be as big as the Mediterranean. I say, why bother?"
Scans of all three issues of Army Man Magazine, the legendary late 80s humor zine put together by future Simpsons' writer George Meyer (an excellent New Yorker profile of Meyer) which also included material from Jack Handey, John Swartzwelder, Bob Odenkirk, among many others. Another contributor, Ian Frazier, talks about Army Man in a Believer Interview. Sadly the scans are small (but the jokes are still big) and of poor quality. For a non-eyestraining introduction, Maud Newton transcribed a good bit of material and posted it at the end of an appreciation of Army Man on her blog.
Star Wars as an Icelandic saga
Tattúínárdælasaga (The Saga of the People of the Tattooine River Valley) is the Icelandic saga Star Wars was based on. So far five chapters have been transcribed.
The Goon Show
The Goon Show was a highly popular and immensely influential radio show on the BBC in the 1950s featuring Peter Sellers, Harry Secombe and Spike Milligan. They would sometimes do live readings of episodes, here's a video recording of The Whistling Spy Enigma (parts 1, 2, 3) and a much later recording of Tales of Men's Shirts (parts 1, 2, 3). The first features Ray Ellington, musical director of the Goon Show, and the second John Cleese, who, like his fellow Pythons, was a huge fan of The Goon Show growing up. In the 50s BBC turned The Goon Show into a TV show with puppets, called Telegoons. A number of shows exist online: The Lurgi Strikes Britain (1, 2), The Nadger Plague (1, 2), Captain Seagoon RN (1, 2), Tales of Montmartre (1, 2), The First Albert Memorial to the Moon (1, 2), The Hastings Flyer (1, 2), The Affair of the Lone Banana (1, 2), The Africa Ship Canal (1, 2), The Booted Gorilla (1, 2), The Ascent of Mount Everest (1, 2), The Dreaded Batter Pudding Hurler of Bexhill on Sea (1, 2), Fort Knight (1, 2), The Terrible Revenge of Fred Fu Manchu (1, 2), The Lost Colony (1, 2) and, finally, back where we first began, the Telegoons version of The Whistling Spy Enigma (1, 2).
Over 8000 Cartoons from Punch Magazine
Punch Cartoons has over 8000 cartoons from the pages of Punch, the long-running British satirical magazine. It cast its eye on everything from quintessentially British entertainment to children's books to computer games to optometrists. Punch ran from 1841 to 1992 and was relaunched in 1996 and finally closed shop in 2002. You can read up on the history of the magazine on their website and if you want to read some old issues to see what they were like, Project Gutenberg has quite a few. [Punch previously]
Maria Bamford's One-Hour Homemade Christmas Special!
Maria Bamford's One-Hour Homemade Christmas Special! by Maria Bamford, stand-up comic and pretty much a native speaker in Pretend Tiger. FYI, if you've heard some of those jokes before... it's a gift! She made it for us, for Christmas, to celebrate her success at selling out this year.
Bob Claster interviews comedians
Bob Claster was a DJ on KCRW in Los Angeles. In the 80's he had a comedy show called Funny Stuff and he would interview comedians. He has many of these interviews online as mp3s. He interviewed Tom Lehrer, Douglas Adams, Danny Arnold (a.k.a. Barney Miller), Peter Cook, Terry Jones, two interviews with John Cleese, one solo and another with Michael Palin, Emo Philips, Billy Connolly, Mort Sahl, Quentin Crisp, "Brother Theodore" Gottlieb, June Foray and Bill Scott (a.k.a. Rocky and Bullwinkle and an epic five-part interview with Stan Freberg, the subject of my last post.
Freberg! Freberg!
Oregon! Oregon! A Centennial Fable in Three Acts is a musical comedy by famed radio comedian and Looney Tunes voice actor Stan Freberg that was commissioned in 1959 to commemorate the 100th anniversary of Oregon statehood. This year, on the 150th anniversary, Stan Freberg and Pink Martini will revive the musical with a new 4th act written by Freberg (check out the complete Pink Martini concert on the page). For more Freberg goodness check out these 15 episodes of his radio show and this 1999 interview which includes some of his classic sketches (sketches in RealAudio format).
ImprovArt
ImprovEverywhere has a gallery opening in the New York Subway. "In the course of making the art labels, the mundane stuff of the platform really did become weirdly compelling and beautiful. I wasn’t sure if everyone else would have that experience, or if we would be busy consciously pretending that these random objects were art. In the course of the event, some other friends who came made brilliant observations about the pieces that helped bring my mindset firmly back into of-course-this-is-art, rather than viewing the subway as a collection of quick fixes over time. It’s wonderful how we can decide to create a collective reality, and how it can sometimes catch us up within itself. I’m glad other folks also got caught up in "Wow.. This might really be art!", and that some non-agents got such a kick out of it!"
The Invisible Life of Poet
The Invisible Life of Poet is a webcomic by Christopher Stetson Wilson that's been published weekly for three and a half years. It features the adventures of nerdy high school student Poet and his retinue (mostly his friend Ben). There are many ways to navigate the archive. For a quality skim, check out the author's favorites. If you want a more indepth look you can check out the tag categories, characters (e.g. Seph the Corruptor, Coach Fathead), contemporary issues (e.g. class warfare, gender issues), culture and society (e.g. mass media, religion), hyperreality (e.g. board games, hallucinations), miscellaneous (e.g. great art, lowbrow humor) and psycho-social constructs (e.g. bullying, love and seduction).
The Bugle - Audio Newspaper for a Visual World
The Bugle is a topical comedic podcast by The Daily Show's John Oliver and fellow comedian Andy Saltzman. They style it an Audio Newspaper for a Visual World. Each weekly episode is about half an hour long.
199 Peter Cook videos
199 Peter Cook videos (in case you don't know who Peter Cook is, he's often considered the funniest English comedian of the 20th Century, this myspace page has a concise biography).
Bob Odenkirk's Derek and Simon
Aslan Shrugged
"And, why," Lucy says, "a lamp post!" The lamp post shines like a monument to industry.Aslan Shrugged 1 2 3 4 [via a review of Atlas Shrugged in The Valve]
Right wing humor site that's actually funny. That's not a joke.
Who says right-wingers can't be funny? Eco Enquirer fights the good bad anti-environmentalist fight with humor, wit and verve. Stories include Penguins "Fed Up" With Media Attention, Is Earth 'Spinning Out of Control'?, Court Orders Fisherman to Apologize to Eagle, Levitating Islands in Bermuda Triangle Observed by Spy Satellite and many others.
Start Your Own Cult, with Dr. Emeril Lazarus
"The time is right, and the time is now! The Lord has spoken to you. He has commanded you to create the New Jerusalem, to prepare for His arrival, to gather the flock, bring together the faithful, spread the Word. Blinded like Paul on his way to Damascus, you are now set to follow His Way. But how do you start such an ambitious project?" Dr. Emeril Lazarus has all the answers.
Phone Sex Pranks
Phone Sex Pranks — "Below are prank calls I've made- to phone sex girls. Only thing is, I tell them I'm into some "weird" stuff. They're all 100% real and 100% expensive." He's Gil Ozeri of Upright Citizens Brigade Theater. The weird stuff he's into? Clowns, Jewish mother stereotypes, old-timey barbers and Clippy. Yes, Clippy of MS Word infamy. [nsfw, natch]
"Personally, I don't see much difference between giraffes and big spiders."
GiraffobiaDotCom — the place for people what thinks giraffes is scary.
"You're a clown, not a crimefighter!"
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