Comedy: Stand-Up, Improv, Sketch, Podcasts • Page 828

yeah, I don't blame a comedian for keeping a delivery that works but that trailer feels like what you would get if you fed every Mike Birbiglia special into AI and asked it to make a new one. Food joke, slur your words, bumble around stage, something semi-serious. When he was on, he was really on, but it's gotten pretty tired

 

right haha. i didn’t mean it to bash him - he was my favorite comedian once upon a time. just feels like playing the hits 20 years after the album came out at this point

 

I actually really enjoyed The Old Man and the Pool

 

For those interested in comedic history, this HBO Paul Ruebens doc goes pretty deep into the history of the Groundlings and the LA improv scene in the 70's and early 80's.

 

I knew Phil Hartman was in Pee Wee's Playhouse but I didn't know how deeply he was involved with it from when it started just as a midnight Groundlings live show. He also co-wrote Pee Wee's Big Adventure.

Ruebens and Hartman were best friends and had a falling out after he got on SNL. Kind of heartbreaking that Hartman called him a deviant on Stern after his 1991 arrest.

 

Gotta watch the Pee-Wee doc once the second episode drops.

 

It already dropped. They released both simultaneously. I watched both episodes tonight.

 

this was sooo good, reminded me of Mulaney's Baby J special. It was dark and about the passing of all her parents, but she of course made it comical and in her way of story telling. my friend and i thoroughly enjoyed it.

 

Hartman was an interesting presence at the Groundlings and at SNL. From what I remember, he was older and/or more established as an adult than everyone else. He was a designer and had designed some popular rock album covers and I think he had like a house and a whole life while everyone else was a young comedy knucklehead in arrested development. He also was a bit distant and often seemed in some kind of character, even when he was being personable and charming.

I went through the whole Groundlings school/program when I was 19-23 years old circa 2007-2011 and most traces of him were long gone. There were a few teachers who would have overlapped with him but all we had were just black and white photos in the lobby and occasional reminders from folks about how Paul Ruebens created Pee Wee on that stage with Hartman. It’s a weird place and a lot of the folks who go through there are a bit odd, even by comedy standards. Folks who got famous who started at UCB are usually the cool, hip, chill folks and the folks who got famous who started at Groundlings are more weird actor-y folks who, at least to me, were all a bit distant and you never kinda knew who was actually there behind all the characters. If you’re curious about that, look at podcast interviews with SNL folks who went through Groundlings and they’re all either very not funny as themselves or kinda hard to read or aren’t very revealing or vulnerable.

 

This was basically the whole thesis of the Reubens doc. That is who that guy was.

They talk to Laraine Newman, Cassandra Peterson (Elvira), and Lynne Stewart (best known to millenials as Charlie's mom on It's Always Sunny) who were also in that era's Groundlings scene as well.

 

I have to watch it. My own experience there was so long ago for me now that I don’t always remember everything about it but even just reading about the doc on this page reminded me of some things. Thanks for putting it on my radar.

 

This starts tonight

 

I made a thread even though I think this kind of looks bad

 

Glad I didn’t cancel my TFO subscription cause Carl and Lamar start their sopranos podcast on Monday. Hell yeah.

 

I’m in. I missed aziz

 

Trailer was a good reminder that Aziz is bad at acting and writing, I'm still so mad at Master of None being shit

 

The YKS summer movie preview is so dumb and funny.

 

It took awhile to realize the parts of Master Of None that were good were more because of Alan Yang not Aziz.

 

People on this website fucking loved master of none at the time

 

I remember really liking it. No real desire to revisit it

 

I chalk it up to a different time and, I don’t know, lower maturity level?

There are some episodes in that first season that really do speak to things other shows didn’t touch, like Indian and Asian stereotypes.

I think it lost its way in the second season when Aziz was trying to be all artsy and a sad boy because, what was it, the woman he liked wouldn’t cheat on her boyfriend with him or something? I’ll never know because, like “Louie,” I’m keeping that in the 2000s/2010s where it belongs.

 

A young Paul Rust?