Of course

Cartoon classic THE SIMPSONS has been named the best comedy TV show of all time in a new poll.

Editors at AOL Television named the long-running animation top of a list of 50 of the greatest small screen funnies, claiming, “The townsfolk of Springfield… have become engrained into modern pop culture.”

Seinfeld was named second, followed by All in the Family, The Mary Tyler Moore Show and Cheers.

None of the top ten shows are still running - and only six of the top 50 are currently on the air; The Office (14), South Park (16), Curb Your Enthusiasm (18), 30 Rock (20), Scrubs (40) and Family Guy (47).

I’d put South Park in the top ten, Stone and Parker are modern day “Jonathan Swifts” I don’t think anyone is doing a better job satitizing our culture. This season has been pure gold so far.

The American version of The Office is surprisingly good but I’d have to wait a few years to see if it has staying power.

Curb Your Enthusiasm was great until the last season, if felt like they swept up all the crap left on the writing and editing room floors and said ‘Ah what the hell.’, stopped watching because it was that wretched. Before that abomination of a season I would have put it in my own top ten, now not so sure.

I’ve just started watching 30 Rock and am an instant fan, I resisted getting into it because of it’s SNL cast roots (SNL hasn’t been funny in a very long time) but am now hooked. Alec Baldwin is hysterical.

I’ve never watched Scrubs, it’s on my list.

And Family Guy 40?!?! C’mon…

Interesting

This is one of most important steps to becoming a professional comedian because stand up is an art form based upon experience. One of the differences between the 80s boom/early 90s post-boom generation and the new crop of comics is that the earlier generation were willing to perform everywhere they could: dive bars, restaurants, shopping malls - any venue that hosted a “comedy night.” The other major difference is that they were given more time on those shows. New comics could book “one nighter” spots that often ran 15-30 minutes.

Today, new comics are given an average 5-10 minutes, so they will have to work harder to gain more time. On the contrary, some new comics are opting to work only rooms in which they are most comfortable. But limiting yourself to certain rooms can ill-prepare you for when you face tougher audiences. You don’t become better by being safe.

Now here in Ottawa you have Absolute with rooms and crowds so easy that they laugh at set-ups, hell you can get clappter to an applause break by sipping your beer humorously whereas at Yuk’s you have to pull every laugh out of the fuckers like a dentist using rusty pliers and leverage on a tiger’s mouth.

So naturally there are some who are more inclined to play AC than YY and as the above says they’re really not doing themselves any favors. However I like the fact that I’m on at Yuk’s this Wednesday and then the week after at Absolute; I suspect my ego will need the massage after the strain of two bad sets in a row (I’m doing the same bombing run I did last week, hopefully with better results.

KitH New Tour: N’Ottawa

Comedy troupe The Kids In The Hall brought their reunion tour to Canadian soil Sunday night with a show in Winnipeg.

It’s been six years since the Kids last toured, and Bruce McCulloch says he’s enjoying the reunion.

McCulloch, whose characters on the Kids’ hit TV show included Cathy the gossiping secretary and a flying pig, says the group is playing mostly new material on the tour.

He says he and his colleagues didn’t want to simply replay old gags for nostalgia.

The Winnipeg crowd ate up the new material, including a skit where a couple claims to be crack addicts in order to avoid becoming godparents to an ugly baby.

The Kids bring their show to Calgary, Toronto and other cities in the coming weeks.

But n’Ottawa (term I coined growing up, nothing cool ever came to Ottawa as in “Is Mr. T coming to Canada? Yeah, to Toronto and Montreal but n’Ottawa). They were here for their last tour which was great but didn’t have much new stuff but it was sold out nonetheless.

If I wasn’t lazy I’d write an angry email to… people.

See over the jump for my three favorite KitH sketches

Absolute Prohibition

Now everyone will have to say they’re Russel Barth.

1

And if you’re a comedian and you’re going to break the law make sure the judge likes your act:

A STAND-UP comic convicted of stealing from his employer was spared jail today – after a judge said he would like to go and see him perform at the Edinburgh Festival.

Gary Little, 44, faced being sent back to prison for re-offending while on licence for a drugs conviction.

The comedian, who is well known on the Scottish comedy circuit, was freed in 1999 but went on to steal £50,000 worth of books from a publishing company and sold them on eBay.

A visual review of my performance last night

Change “trunk” to “stunk” to complete it.

Well some of the new stuff hit and it was a small crowd but the acts before me got more laughs so I can’t blame them entirely.

No, wait… yes I can… there… it was them and not me.

Well now I feel better.

More things people don’t find funny

Gangsta grannies

Inaccurate patient descriptions

Poor workmanship

Shut up

That’s funny:

BILL Pollard ended up in hospital on Sunday after being hit by a ball while playing in the Blind Golfers Charity competition at Wychwood.

After a few stitches and a dreadful headache, Bill is on the mend and ready to return to the fairways.

Step-over jokes

Those are the kind of bits that are just lying there in plain sight and everyone walks over them until one day a comedian (usually someone else) stops and goes “Holy crap! That’s a joke!” and picks it up.

Latest example:

Comedian Billy Cowen pokes his head into Chrysi Rubin’s office, in the back of The Laugh Shop in Londonderry Mall. “Hey,” he says, “I just got back from prying the gun from Charlton Heston’s cold, dead hands.”

I can always spot a step-over joke because my first reaction is “Fuck! Why didn’t I think of that?”.

New bits ready for read through

I’m on at Yuk’s tomorrow night and I’m going to open with some new stuff because I’m sick to death of my current “Hey, how ya doing?” surrogate.

The best opening bit I ever saw was on The Improv during the 80s where the guy came out, didn’t say a word in his hands a coffee cup, sugar and creamer. Goes to the stool starts mixing in his condiments ignoring the crowd. Someone laughs quietly, he stops and glares which naturally makes everyone laugh uproariously, he returns to being oblivious then his coffee ready goes to the mic, takes a sip, looks around, takes another sip and then goes in annoyance;

“What? You people start your job right away?”

20 years later and I still remember it, that’s all the proof I need that’s it’s the best opener I’ve ever seen.

Anyway, the new bits are codenamed

• Gary Coleman please don’t
• Hope this crowd plays video games
• This made a kitchen full of people laugh their asses off once. Once.
• It’s “true” but is it “funny”?
• Joke with no punchline, hope one occurs on stage

Then bail out into some stuff that at one point or another has gotten a laugh.

Now for what is easliy the worst part of comedy; reherasal.

The N-Word

So I have a bit about this:

In 2003, a Houston junior prosecutor successfully won a case in which a man was convicted of manslaughter, resulting from his driving while intoxicated. Resultantly, the prosecutor received a congratulatory email from his boss, assistant district attorney Mike Trent, including the following statement: “He overcame a subversively good defence by Matt Hennessey that had some Canadians on the jury feeling sorry for the defendant and forced them to do the right thing.”While occurring over 5 years ago, the e-mail only came to light last month during another un-related investigation.

Last August it was also reported that a black woman from the Southeast revealed that she too was being referred to as a Canadian. The woman worked at a shop and overheard customers complaining about the fact that they were always waited on by a Canadian. At the time the woman admitted that she had no clue as to whom or what they were referring to until she confided in a co-worker who told her that Canadian was the new N-word.

I’ve written it from a few angles but I hate saying “n-word”; it feels mealy-mouthed and a cop-out somehow yet conversely I don’t want to say “nigger” for the exact opposite reason. Even in competent comedy hands (which I don’t have) the word can poison the whole set and the comedian ends up spending precious stage time digging themselves out of the hole.

Frustrating.

Some thoughts on the issue can be found here.