FOS Shaun Eli reports:

The news reported today that he reached a settlement with the department. Essentially they'll let him retire, with back pay (including pay for unused sick days, so it's a decent amount of money) and his pension, but he'll plead guilty to unapproved use of a department computer, or something like that.

Thanks, Shaun.

Uh... That's exactly what we predicted would happen to Mr. Kenny. Now, he's free to be a full time comedian if he so chooses. Good luck, Mr. Feder, and welcome.

Catch Eli as a panelist on the WCBS Small Business Breakfast, April 6th in Rye, NY. Click here for details.

Our very short film, "A Man And A Woman" is a victim of its own success! Within the the first 36 hours of its launch, it got hit at least 15,000 times! We've decided to "distribute it" via Youtube.com, so as not to burden our ISP.

Those wishing to view "A Man And A Woman" need only click here and wait for it to load. (It'll load fast-- the film's only 3 minutes, 23 seconds, after all! Actually, it's 3:23:08, but let's not quibble over eight hundredths of a second!)

Enjoy!

One year ago today, Mitch Hedberg died. The folks at the Acme Comedy Co. in Minneapolis ("Mitch's hometown") have assembled Nick Swardson, Patton Oswalt, Mike Birbiglia, Zach Galifianakis, Dave Mordal, Lynn Shawcroft and Bonnie McFarlane for a benefit show at the Orpheum Theatre on April 30th, 2006 at 7 pm. For further details, download the giant .pdf here. (Be advised, they used some funky typefaces so, if your computer is trailing edge, it might just be resolved as three pages of dots. If that happens, call Jon Richards at (612) 338-6393 for information.)

Anyone like to read more about the recently concluded goings on in Aspen? Our own Adam Gropman has filed his final wrap up of the USCAF festivities and it's now available on his blog, titled Grop-land.

While you're there, check out Gropman's battle with a pinched nerve! Laugh as Gropman wonders whether anyone would actually tell him if he was slowly turning into an asshole and guffaw as he enumerates "10 Kind Of Funny Things About the Mo**mmed Cartoon Controversy"

With the exception of the Male and Female Halves of the Staff, Gropman has been a contributor to SHECKYmagazine.com longer than anyone.

From AP:

LOS ANGELES Comedian George Lopez is the latest recipient of a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. The star and co-creator of A-B-C's George Lopez was joined by his wife, Ann, and Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa at the ceremony today.

Ann, who donated a kidney to Lopez last April, cited her husband's rough upbringing in Los Angeles, saying he is _quote_ "that little blade of grass that got through the cracks and got out."

Okay. Now no one here thinks Lopez isn't deserving of a star on the Walk. However, we are disturbed that there are some glaring omissions on that strip on terazzo and brass. We posted as much just over a year ago.Check them out:

Milton Berle
Red Buttons
George Carlin
Johnny Carson
Bill Cosby
Rodney Dangerfield
Redd Foxx
Shecky Greene
Buddy Hackett
Bob Hope
Alan King
Rich Little
Rowan & Martin
Bob Newhart
Don Rickles
Joan Rivers
Penn & Teller

Excuse me, did you say Johnny Carson?! That's right. According to the Detroit Free Press, as of January 25 of last year, he was on the "eligible" list, meaning that he/she is only $15,000 away from that star.

Would it kill the next honoree to peel off $15,000 and start a domino effect? Like, say if Ray Romano were to be honored (if he doesn't have one already), maybe he might reach into his cookie jar (recently fattened, we hear, by $50 million for each of the last two seasons of his sitcom!) and quietly pay for Johnny's star. (Sure, he's dead and all, but might it not mean something to his wife or his fans?)

Spare us the nasty emails castigating us for telling Romano how to spend his cash. He's the one (or his publicist is) who's making sure that the "2 X $50 million" figure makes it into each one of the "Ice Age II" interviews. And, from what we understand, the overriding theme of each of those interviews has been that Romano has a void in his life since the series ended. Perhaps coughing up the necessary funds to commemorate his comedy colleague(s) might make him feel as though his post-E.L.R. life is meaningful. Heck, with the kind of reserves he has, he could knock off all the above stars for a paltry $255,000. (We're sure Romano is accustomed to folks telling him how and where to blow his bread. And we're doubly sure that, when he had none, there was no shortage of folks telling how he might acquire some, making for a nice symmetry.)

We're particularly horrified that Shecky Greene isn't memorialized there. He's coming up on his 80th birthday, next Saturday (the 8th), so, it's probably too late to fill out all the paperwork, but wouldn't that have been swell? Ah, well. We hear the Mega-Millions is up $100 million.

Todd Barry. Tomorrow night. At 9 PM EST. The premiere of his Comedy Central Presents.

Todd Barry, doing our Question 21 from February of 2002. Here.

You'll recall we posted on Feb. 20 ("Bloody riots provoked by... Danish comedian?") about a Danish comic who gleefully peed on a Bible but stopped short of doing the same to the Koran.

Now UPI is reporting that a Norwegian comic, Otto Jespersen, has burned a Bible for comic effect.

Jespersen lit a bonfire in front of the city hall and, with the help of Mayor Arve Tonning, started throwing books on the blaze, Aftenposten reported Wednesday.

But then Jespersen ripped out several pages from a Bible and threw them on the fire. Tonning said he tried to stop Jespersen, but was ignored.

When we read the phrase, "started throwing books on the blaze," we were taken aback. Wasn't it those zany Nazis who perfected that comedy bit a few years ago, maybe during the late 30s? (Even XTC wrote a song about it... called "Books Are Burning"-- Andy Partridge isn't exactly known for his subtlety.) And now book burning is considered wacky and nutty in Norway. My how things change!

"Imagine the fireworks," says the Female Half of the Staff, "when the Danish comic and the Norwegian comic end up on the same bill together!" Indeed!

Norwegian Comic: "Dude: You're doing my Bible bit! You can't do that!"

Danish Comic: "No way! I do a slight twist on it... I pee on it. I made it my own!"

Norwegian Comic (seeking compromise): "Dude: How about we do the bit together at the end... I'll light it on fire, then you pee on it. Cool?"

Danish Comic: "Cool!"

There's a profile of Seth Davis in today's USA Today. Readers, hungry for any news morsel in the giant gap between the Elite Eight and the Final Four, will even read an article about a member of CBS's broadcast team:

After growing up in an affluent Washington, D.C., suburb, Davis was on the student newspaper and student-run TV station at Duke. He did standup comedy for a year in New York. "It was 98 per cent a hobby," he says. "But I held up hope there'd be a network exec in the audience who'd insist on giving me a sitcom."

How do you like that? Lanny Davis' kid tried standup after a stint at Duke. Looks like things turned out all right after all. Like we say-- It's once again cool to admit you did standup.

We'll be in Vegas for the finals. We're thinking of watching the final game at a race and sports book, but we haven't decided which one. Do we watch from the book at the Wynn? Or do we head downtown? Perhaps a compromise-- the Stardust... one last hurrah while it's still standing. We're thinking of putting a tenspot down on George Mason.

In her latest column The Female Half of the Staff talks about getting lustily booed by an O & A crowd.

As I watched the patrons occupy the room, all my anxiety began to resurface. This crowd was a good decade younger than the folks who sat in these seats 24 hours prior and while the previous show was dominated by couples, this show reminded me of what China must look like now that they've gotten rid of all the girl babies.

But I'm a pro right? I've handled practically every situation there is to handle right?

I should have rescheduled.

Well, there's the gathering clouds, now go read about the storm.

ComingSoon.net interviewed David Spade:

CS: How important is standup for you?

Spade: I think I'm getting worse. I've been doing The Mirage a lot in Vegas. I go out there and they pay more, so it's harder because I have to do better. And I have to do it longer. I'm not that bad at it anymore but it's really hard when you've got too much going on. Like right now it's really hard because I have this and the show starts Thursday. We tape Wednesday the first show. So this is like a little crazy time but usually I've got a lot of time off and I sneak out there and do it and I get to work on it. It's good to do standup. It kind of wakes you up and makes you feel like you're doing something and get the crowd right there. That's all fun. But it's a lot of work. Like I asked Adam (Sandler) why he doesn't do it anymore. He would never consider it. He goes, 'I would never do it again.' It's hard and he gets overwhelmed with probably too high of expectations so it's not that fun for him.

Read the whole thing.

The word on the street is that two comics are known to be among those chosen to appear on the fourth season of NBC's Last Comic Standing. Before we reveal the names of those two comics, however, we'd like to run our favorite part of CONTESTANT APPLICATION, RELEASE AND TRANSFER OF RIGHTS:

Are you an acquaintance of, or do you have a personal or professional relationship with, any of the following people:

(a) Barry Katz? Yes No (circle one)
(b) Bob Reade? Yes No (circle one)
(c) Ross Mark? Yes No (circle one)
(d) Peter Engel? Yes No (circle one)
(e) Dan Cutforth? Yes No (circle one)
(f) Jane Lipsitz? Yes No (circle one)

If the answer was "Yes" to any of questions (a) through (f) above, please describe: (1) the nature of your relationship; (2) how long you have known them; and (3) how often you see and/or speak to them.

Our second favorite part is the stern warning at the top which says that failure to fill out the form "honestly, accurately and completely" will result in "forfeiture of any prizes or other things you may or would have been awarded." Pretty harsh! You'll be forced to forfeit prizes you were never even awarded!

Oh, yeah: Kira Soltanovich and Joey Gay.

It's our lame attempt at mimicking a Variety headline. It's also our clumsy way of summarizing a story on a New Zealand website about American ventriloquist David Strassman... and his buddy, Chuck Wood.

In his new show, Get Chuck'd!, his first in Wellington in four years, Strassman continues to celebrate and send up the whole idea of sticking his hand up a puppet's backside. It will include the familiar retinue of characters, including Chuck Wood and Ted E Bear, plus a few new ones. "The show has gotten more involved, more twisted, darker."

Sad news out of Atlanta. Lyn Bartlett, a server at the Punchline for more than a decade, was among three people brutally murdered in a farmhouse north of the city in a rampage Sunday night. Bartlett hadn't worked at the comedy club for at least three years. She resided in Cumming, GA, with her 17-year-old son, who is recovering from stab wounds. The police are investigating, three suspects have been arrested. An account of the mayhem can be read here (we caution that it is rather upsetting). Subsequent details have emerged that three of the ten occupants of the house managed to escape unharmed, due largely to the efforts of Bartlett.

"She was feisty, she had a great laugh and she wasn't the least bit intimidated by any comedian who walked through that door," says the Female Half of the Staff of Bartlett. We strongly advise all to hoist one in her memory across the parking lot at Cafe 290.

...again!

We're fielding so many media inquiries that we weren't even aware of the hit we got in today's USAToday.

...others are finding stardom through the Web. "In the past, comics had to depend on managers, agents and media conglomerates to get the attention of those who had the power to rocket them to stardom" says Brian McKim of sheckymagazine.com. "The Internet is really turning things upside down."

We vaguely remember speaking on the phone with Gary Strauss a coupla weeks back. A lot has happened in the interim (personally and professionally!), so we can be forgiven if our memory of this particular MSM encounter got fuzzed out.

The above quote was all that survived from a 15-minute teleconference. Still, a hit in USAToday is a hit in USAToday! (We suspect it might be only featured in the online version of the paper. We'll hunt one down tomorrow. We were hipped to it by a sharp-eyed reader!) Welcome McPaper readers! And, check out our new short film, "A Man And A Woman!" by clicking here.

The article is a good one, though. Check out this nugget from David Steinberg:

"With a TV sitcom, you get where the audience is. With the Internet, you might be playing to an audience of one," says comedian/director David Steinberg, the host of TV Land's Sit Down Comedy with David Steinberg (Wednesdays, 10 p.m. ET/PT). "There's more excitement over how many times Sit Down is downloaded to iPods than ratings. It's strange. You sort of make up a theory as you go. It's like trying to hold mercury in your hand. It's changing all the time"

Check out the brief Chicago Sun-Times article about Jeff Garlin's new series.

Former Chicago funnyman Jeff Garlin's new TV pilot is coming together nicely -- with a fellow area resident joining the cast. Oak Park native Dan Castellaneta, the voice of Homer Simpson, has signed on for The Jeff Garlin Project on TBS.

Anyone wanna read our interview with Garlin?

Barry Garron, writing for the Hollywood Reporter, stretches credulity when he claims that the new NBC series The Heist utilizes...

...a tantalizingly fresh take on the genre, writer-producers Mark and Robb Cullen create a world in which the good guys, or at least the most interesting characters, are the ones who rob banks and jewelry stores. And they do it with dash, style and finesse. The outwitted detectives assigned to the case are either indifferent or just plain overmatched.

C'mon... hasn't Hollywood been mining the anti-hero thing for about 35 years now? (So much so that it might be refreshing if the cops were the good guys!) But the trailers look interesting. And it's notable here merely because, buried way down in the list of cast members is "Detective Billy O'Brien: Billy Gardell, a comic.

Gardell had a big role in the obscure (FX will do that) series Lucky, but this time, it's on one of The Big Four. And, the producers (or was it the network?) gave Gardell the "punchline" on the trailer. Every trailer has a punchline. Every good trailer. Never underestimate the power of a strong performance in a trailer. It affords tons of exposure, it's aired often, at all times, and, if it's edited craftily, it can lend the excerpted scenes even more impact than they might have in the context of the actual episode from which they're extracted.

John Rogers, according to his own bio, on his blog, Kung Fu Monkey "started doing stand-up in 1988, got his Physics degree in 1990, began writing television in 1995, and writing movies in 1999. He plainly needs to focus."

We first ran into him in the Charles Playhouse in Boston, when that building housed the legendary Comedy Connection.

His post last May, "Learn to say 'ain't' ..." tackled the perceived troubles of so many Democrat candidates and their inability to connect with audiences both large and small. As we swing into the '06 elections, his observations acquire a new relevance. "My bigger point... is that the art of politics is convincing people to connect with you. When you have an idea, and the other guy has an idea-- if you don't connect in some primal way with the listeners your idea is never even going to get considered, no matter how much better it is on a rational level."

He gets to the heart of it:

Now who the hell am I to even think I have something to contribute here? Well, let's say the candidate's job is to walk into a room of complete strangers and get them to like him. Connect with him. Wow, the few rare politicians who can do that, they're worth their weight in gold.

It did that for twelve years. So did hundreds of other people you've never heard of. We're stand-ups, and that's the ENTRY-LEVEL for the job.

It might add to the entertainment factor to watch the upcoming campaigns and campaigners through the lens of a standup comic or standup fan. Perhaps the campaigns will hire standup comics as high-paid advisers. We can only hope.

We've been at Charlie Goodnights in Raleigh for the past few days. We're back in the office now. This is a lovely portrait (taken with the auto-timer) of house emcee Lumpy, flanked by the Female Half of the Staff and the Male Half. Goodnights lived up to the USAToday hype.

...get the check beforehand.

Anyone catch The Apprentice last week? The teams were tasked with entertaining a bunch of car dealers in a daytime event. One of them got the bright idea of hiring a comedian. Okay. Cool. They got Corey Kahaney. Okay. Cool. The gig didn't go great (or at least that's what the editors wanted us to think... we're not sure exactly how it went, but that's not the issue here).

What was disturbing was the post-mortem, where these chuckleheads dissected the event and tried to figure out what went wrong. The idiots on the team that lost tried to blame their failure on the comedian (of course!) complaining that she was coarse, vulgar. Odlly, when they were pushed, they had to admit that she was funny.

Trump was a douchebag. He asked if she was paid before the gig or after-- Implying that, had they waited until after the gig to pay her, they would have had the option to not pay her! Nice!

Trump also appeared shocked at the price tag for Kahaney-- $1,700. He said that maybe they could've saved that much just by putting one of the team members up there to entertain. (Yeah, right-- Jerry the Russian guy is a real scream. We would've loved to be present for that meltdown.)

Trump displayed a total disregard for the artist, a total lack of respect for what it is we do. And a total failure to grasp just how hard standup is and how much experience and expertise Kahaney and other professional comics bring to the table. Shame on Trump for being such a lunkhead and for being so... unbusinesslike.

Paul Ogata has turned in a Big Move about his Aspen experience:

"Early Saturday afternoon, I opted to pass on the USCAF in favor of seeing "the other" festival, the Aspen Laundromat Comedy Festival. Unfortunately, I learned after getting there that Adam Gropman was not in the house as he returned to L.A. the previous day. Well, two out of three objectives met isn't a bad percentage, right? All was not lost however, as I was treated to a rocking show by the craziest bunch of mother-effers there ever was. Big props to Christy Murphy for having the ovarios de cobre amarillo to set it all up. And kudos to Sunshine Laundromat owner Richard Winn for buying into such a bizarre concept. When all was said and done, Winn commented on how impressed he was and he even began plotting for the Second Annual ALCF. Performing to a standing room only laundromat crowd (there were only six chairs) were Reutter, Ferrell, Murphy, Brett Gilbert, Vance Sanders, Nosmo King, Damon Epps and Marty Laquidaro. In keeping with the laundry-theme, the comics even kept it clean."

...as you can plainly see.

We're working hard to resolve these problems.

As the television stations usta say: Please Stand By!

Thanks.

UPDATE: We just did the Heimlich on our Blogger. We forced it to hock up the old file and re-publish the index. All is well! Thanks for your patience!

We're giving you 12 days notice about Kathleen Madigan's Comedy Central special debuts next Saturday at 8:30 PM ET. It's called "Kathleen Madigan: In Other Words." Check out our interview with Madigan, from February of 2002.

While we've never interviewed Ron "Tater Salad" White in the pages of this publication, we have had the pleasure of working with him. And our columnist Kid Dave Miller has flown to a one-nighter with him. And, if you've never seen him work, you have 13 days to make plans to watch the world premiere of his Comedy Central special, "You Can't Fix Stupid " to air March 26 at 9 PM ET.

...and, as the saying goes, comedy is hard.

Just got the following email from comedian Chrissy Burns:

Thought you might enjoy a funny road story:

I was doing this corporate show for a Feed & Seed company. Every year they invite all their customers-- farmers and their wives-- to come out to the VFW hall, have dinner and see a little comedy show. They also take the opportunity to promote new products, grain hauling services, etc. It was way out in northwestern Iowa in the middle of nowhere-- the nearest hotel they could get me was 25 miles away. They told me to come early so I could eat, meet people, etc.

So I go and there's about 200 people there-- two-thirds of them in their 60's & 70's. They have me get food and show me to a seat they've saved for me at a table of old people. One guy beside me says, "So you're the pretty lady comedian they've been saving this seat for. I'm one lucky guy." I said, "Well, that just proves you're more of a comedian than I am!" He laughed and said, "Oh, no, Sweetie, I love buxom redheads!" I laughed, he laughed, the table laughed. Then I started talking to the people across from me.

While involved in this conversation, the man next to me, the one who likes buxom redheads, falls face down into his plate of food. And me, startled, stupidly asks him, "Sir, are you okay?" Well, of course he's not okay! He's face down in his au gratin potatoes!

He was dead. He simply dropped dead. So they called an ambulance. The ambulance refused to take him saying "There's nothing we can do for him." So they had to call the coroner-- who instructed them not to move him. So the dead guy sat there while we waited for the coroner to come out from the big city. The coroner arrived and well, you know when you die you lose control of your functions so they took him out with potatoes and corn on his face and his pants soiled on both sides. Death is not pretty.

While they were getting him on the gurney, they were also cleaning up the mess he had made at the table-- bowels, urine, etc. They get it all cleaned up just as the body covered with a sheet is headed out the door. They load it into the black station wagon, the door closes and over the speaker, I hear... "Well, we have a comedian tonight. This lady has appeared... blah blah blah... Please welcome, Miss Chrissy Burns!"

They hated me.

Chrissy
http://www.chrissyburns.com

It's getting to be an epidemic.

We're getting a letter every other week or so from a grade schooler who has been assigned the task of writing to a favorite celebrity in the hopes of getting back a response. Not sure what the purpose of the assignment is-- what it's supposed to teach the kid-- but the result on our end has been hilarious (and, in many cases, touching) letters from kids, addressed to the likes of Larry The Cable Guy, Jeff Foxworthy, Chris Rock and, in our latest example, Tom Kenney:

Dear Tom Kenny,

Hi i'm a big fan of yours. I love the characters you play on TV. My favorite character is Spongebob! That is my favorite show ever. It is also the best comedy show. I wanted to know why you became an actor? What's your favorite food? Do you have a pet and does it have a name? I really wanted to know if you can get a picture for me of you and the people who play the other people who play the other characters. Spongebob rules!

Sincerly,

Dylan (Last name withheld)

We aren't sure what to do with them. We suppose these kids think that all us comedians live in one big house, like they do on Last Comic Standing.

Our personal favorite so far is a letter from a young lad in Tennessee who wrote a letter to Foxworthy which contained the immortal endorsement, "You put laughter in my head..." (This line has become a catchphrase around SHECKYmagazine HQ.)

Craig Jarvis of the Raleigh News-Observer did a phone interview with male half of the staff in anticipation of our upcoming appearance at Charlie Goodnights. Early on in the chat, Jarvis asked how the we happened to meet. The male half of the staff gave an answer which might lead one to believe that the circumstances were... less than wholesome. Fortunately, he was afforded the opportunity to correct the record:

Q: Anything else?

A: (Asking his wife.) Anything else? Traci wanted me to point out that her brother-in-law owned the comedy club [where we met] and she was there with her sister. It was essentially a family thing.

Q: So she wasn't like a comedy groupie?

A: No, not a comedy groupie! I saw the look on her face when I said that, but I didn't know how to get out of it.

See y'all in North Carolina.

Our own Adam Gropman is in Aspen, observing, as only he can, the goings on at the U.S. Comedy Arts Festival. He sent us a huge email... which we dropped into an HTML file. Enjoy.

Here's an excerpt:

Our short played 7th our of 8 in the group and it did not get the huge laughs that we were accustomed to and perhaps expecting. While reaction was almost never consistently huge for any of the shorts that day, I think we came in a little cocky and with flighty expectations because our short has generally killed in terms of audience response at viewings around L.A. What we kind of forgot was that the very strengths that our film possesses can appear to be shortcomings in a screening of this sort. We followed 6 highly produced shorts, some live action, some animated. A couple of the animated ones seriously looked as if they had tens-of-millions of dollars worth of high-tech productions studios and massive computer consoles and Flame/Inferno digital effects machine behind them. One, called "Gopher Broke" looked like a Pixar or Disney release. It had a surprisingly old-school, little kid cartoon feel. It's credit roll had like 30 guys under EACH different technical section, so sophisticated and undoubtedly expensive was their production. And then came ours. Our short was done lean, mean and pretty quickly, although our editor Marc Leidy was still enough of a stickler to do 17 takes of one particularly subtle and important segment, and I'm glad he did because the attention to detail certainly paid off. Anyhow, our short looks exactly like a threatening terrorist video, one in which hooded Arab Muslim terrorists hold an American or European hotage- often with guns prominently displayed- and make menacing and beliggerent threats and denunciations against the United States, Israel and whoever else.

Don Rickles has been performing as a headliner in Vegas for 47 years. Need we add more? Perhaps we'll let him add more:

"The transformation has been unbelievable. When I started here, I worked in a place where the Sky Room was on the second floor," he said in a statement."

BOOM... ZING... POW! The 79-year-old Rickles will perform later this month at the 52-year-old Stardust, scheduled to be demolished later this year. Read the whole article.

In January, we cited ("E! Dumps On Dunk!") an E! Online item about comedian Scott LaRose's film, "Comedy Hell," featuring the talents of, among others, Brian Dunkleman. E! erroneously reported that the film was produced and directed by Larose for a paltry $130,000. Turns out that figure was on the smallish side. Actual figures remain elusive. But we are assured it was several times that amount. We regret E! Online's error. People in H-wood get skittish about production numbers.

Sandra Tsing Loh profiles Shelley Berman in the Jewish Journal of Greater Los Angeles ("Inside Shelley Berman, Again"):

Further, while Shelley's famously not a fan of ringing phones, in a cruel twist of fate (as a producer, the phrase "bowels turn to ice" comes to mind), during Shelley's performance not one-- but three-- cellphones go off. Three! (Including one whose owner left the building 24 hours ago.) But even here he finds humor. Removing the cell phone from one young man, he says: "I’ll hold it for you. To get it back later, all you have to do is kiss me... " Long cross back to stage... "Some place."

Photo at left is from late 1999. The plucky editors of this publication found themselves in Las Vegas for 18 hours with nothing to do, a Polaroid camera and the knowledge that a comedy legend was appearing on The Strip.

He graciously posed for this pic, gave us his email address and we interviewed him.

At the heart of the Oscarcast story? A comedian.

The catalyst in the Danish Muslim cartoon controversy? A comedian. (Scroll down, if you gotta.)

A player in the story about the recorded lecture of Colorado high school teacher Jay Bennish who compares Bush to Hitler in front of a bunch of high school students? A kid who has done standup. Of course.

Sean Allen got an I-Pod for Christmas, then got an Overland High School teacher suspended (with pay!) when the MSM played Allen's recording of said teacher's lecture and determined that he might have strayed slightly "off message" for a public school geography teacher.

The MSM googled Allen and found out that he fancies himself a standup comic of sorts. They found his myspace where he self-deprecatinglly refers to his nascent comedy career:

Im from Aurora Colorado or the A-town as we know it. Im the youngest stand-up comic that i know of at this point.Im a new comedian to the game. If thats what we call it...I also don't know who "we" is. Maybe its "us", but then who am I? Nevermind...Anyway I've done a couple of shows and am happy to say they have gone over well.

Now what relevance does this fact have with regard to the larger issue of a student taping his teacher then sending it to a talk show host (Mike Rosen, KOA) and a syndicated columnist (Walter E. Williams)?

Well, nothing. (Of course, we like to point out things like this because, well, that's what we do here. If there's a comedian, even an open miker, robbing a bank or hosting the Oscars or carving a statue of Mark Twain out of a 500-lb. block of butter, we'll probably comment on it in the pages of this magazine.)

But some of the folks who are defending Jay Bennish (he's the teacher) and trying to discredit Sean Allen (he's the student) seem to be using the fact that he's a standup comic against him. Paranoia again? We don't think so. (Of course we don't... we're paranoid!)

But seriously, folks: If the fact that the 15 year-old Allen had done a coupla open mikes was in any way relevant when discussing the important issues of this controversy, we'd be glad to point them out and kick them around. But it's not relevant. Which makes the references to his avocation all the more disturbing.

We'll allow that, if the facts were otherwise, it might be relevant. If the kid was doing material about this or that or how his high school geography teacher sucks or whatever-- it might have some bearing on the controversy. But, so far, all we've heard is some gag about beating a Jehovah's Witness to death with the JW's bible. (The ungainly setup is merely to get to the punchline, which is wordplay involving "Jehovah's Witness Protection Program." Not exactly the most original joke in the world, but the kid seems to be on the right track.) But so far, nobody can make a credible case that what he's saying in his comedy act in any way impugns Allen or weakens his case.

(Here's another weird thing-- They're mangling his joke. It's a wordplay thing, that much is clear. But the folks who are referencing the bit focus on the violent setup. And totally leave out the actual punchline. Very odd.)

Often, they'll drop the fact that he's a comedian into the mix... and leave it at that. As if the mere fact that the kid fancies himself a wiseguy is enough to discredit him. Very unnerving.

Some folks are even going so far (so low?) as to imply that he's doing all this to further his standup career. What standup career? He's done a handful of open mikes... he's 15! (Actually, he just celebrated his sweet 16.) Yeah... defending Bush and appearing on right-wing talk shows-- ZOOM! To the top he goes! Why just this week in Aspen they had a Conservative Teenage Comics With Two Minutes of Material Showcase. Heavily attended, from what we hear!

Paul Farhi has written a splendid profile of Dave Chappelle/Chapelle, taken from backstage conversations after a recent sold out concert at the Tower in Upper Darby, PA. The show was part of a nine-city mini-tour promoting the opening of Chappelle's Block Party movie.

Sorta kinda sorta.

It has come to be known simply as "Aspen." The official title is The United States Comedy Arts Festival. However, the acronym thing is un-doable, since USCAF sounds like some sort of coffee-flavored emitic. (Ipecac for adults, maybe?) This give us an idea for a counter-fest, rather like Slamdance is to Sundance: IPECAC-- The International Performers, Entertainers, Comedians (not in) Aspen, Colorado. Hold it in Denver. (Or anywhere, really, considering the geographical obstinance contained in its very name.)

We're only turning our attention toward that expensive, high-altitude private party because we have two spies there... we think. Our Big Mover Paul Ogata is in a film directed by Damon Wayans. And our Adam Gropman is there as well, by virtue of... well, let's let him tell it:

My short film (I wrote and starred in) "Insight Into The Enemy," will be showing at Aspen on Wednesday, March 8, 1:30pm in Isis 1 Theater and Friday, March 10, 10:15am in Isis 2 Theater.

We hope the two of them hang out together and form a SHECKYmagazine contingent in the mountains of Colorado. (And we hope they snap some pics and perhaps generate some text for you, our readers.)

Wade through the USCAF website if you have a spare epoch.

We don't normally mention this kind of thing here...

We were scheduled to work in Saginaw, MI, this weekend. (Yeah, yeah, stop bragging!) At a club called 6 Shooters. Some folks know it as Shooters. Got a phone call a couple Saturday nights ago. (Strategically placed so as not to actually get one of us live, no doubt! If you wanna call a comic, but not actually talk to him/her, call on a Saturday night.) On this particular Saturday, however, we're home; we answer. And we're told that, 13 days hence, we'll not be needed in Saginaw. No more comedy at Shooters. Less than two weeks notice. No offer of compensation, partial or otherwise.

We make this public for two reasons: If you're booked at Shooters, start making phone calls now. And secondly, we're looking to replace our cancelled date. We are available this weekend, to put it another way.

What's going on in the Mitten-Shaped State, comedy-wise? Comedy is booming everywhere else. The Great Lakes State, however, seems to be having its difficulties. Stay tuned. And send us an email if you have any openings for two plucky comedians this weekend.

We've read a lot of articles in the past 24 hours about the Oscarcast. As the day wore on, the MSM became increasingly bold in their condemnation (Is that a strong word? We think not.) of Jon Stewart. Somewhere along the way, we read something that gave us a chill. It was a negative review that compared Stewart to hosts past, but lumped him in with Chris Rock, Chevy Chase and David Letterman. It identified all three as "comedians" and did so in such a way as to pin their failure on the fact that they were comedians. (And they wrote it in such a way as to deliver the word "comedians" with the literary equivalent of a contemptuous spit in the reader's eye.)

Are we being paranoid? Of course! Where have you been for the last six years and eleven months?? A large part of our mission in that time has been tracking the snottiness of the media regarding standup comics. And they've been pretty bad. (And, as we always say, "if there actually after us, is it really paranoia?")

But lately, it has been getting better. Until today. We have the ugly, sweaty feeling that the media might take this opportunity to not just hammer Stewart, but to turn their negative attention to comics in general. Something about the tone of the last 24 hours. We'll be monitoring (as always!), but now we'll be extra vigilant for Oscar fallout.

It seems as though the powerful folks (in the MSM, in Hollywood, etc.) like comedians... as long as comedians joke about the things they want them to joke about. When they don't, they get indignant, angry, vengeful. And they tend to commit the unpardonable sin of failing (willfully so?) to distinguish one comedian from another. We're hoping it doesn't happen again.

Don't be fooled by the headline on the review of Stewart's performance on the website for Canadian television. Their praise is tentative at best. In its recap of the evening, they said:

...hopefully Stewart's legacy won't share the fate of fellow New York talk show host David Letterman who bombed on stage with the infamous "Oprah, Uma"'; joke that sealed his fate as a one-time host.[...]But Oscar organizers are hoping that Stewart will bring in the highly-coveted younger audience that makes up much of the viewers of his cable TV show.

Not exactly a rave. Read the whole thing, as it quotes Stewart's material extensively, not just the Bjork gag.

Associated Press is less tentative. Their review, "Stewart Disappoints As Oscars Host,"

The broadcast began on a shaky note with a filmed intro that found past Oscar host Billy Crystal being introduced as this year's host, then declining, followed by Chris Rock, Steve Martin, Whoopi Goldberg, David Letterman, Mel Gibson, even Mr. Moviephone — none of whom wanted the gig.

That seemed to leave it to Stewart by default. Maybe it's come to this.

Frazier Moore is the byline. He/she doesn't get it, obviously. Perhaps AP's first priority when assigning someone to review a comedy performance should be to assign someone who has... a... sense... of... humor? Is that asking too much?

But as the night wore on, Stewart proved too deferential, too nice and too obvious in his targets.

Deferential? Does Moore own a dictionary? (No one does deferential like Billy Crystal, who has developed the art of simultaneously delivering a punchline and apologizing.) Stewart deferred to no one. We suppose the reaction to Stewart comes down to this: In this, the year of Serious Oscar tackling Major Important Issues, they hired Stewart because they figured he'd get down and dirty and deliver a non-stop stream of Bush bashing and Red State gags. Instead, he targeted Hollywood. And, as we saw, Hollywood has a marvelous sense of humor about everything... but Hollywood. Proof of this: More than one article citing the Bjork joke as the hardest laugh of the night and a high point. It was the weakest one of the evening and the most hackneyed (Hasn't there been enough Bjork jokes? She wasn't even in the building! How about a Lorena Bobbitt joke while we're at it?) But it came closest to what the Hollywood Establishment anticipated.

ADDENDUM (2:57 PM EST): From H-wood media crank, Nikki Finke, comes this-- "Even his sharp political humor, what little there was of it, was dull. He slammed the Democrats twice, and told only one Cheney joke. (That got his biggest laugh.) He didn’t lay a glove on Bush, and what’s up with that? Isn’t that why we tuned in, to see Mr. Liberal get himself in trouble with the Red State Right?"

Pretty spooky, huh? We called that one!

Stewart makes a living mocking the self-important, pointing out hypocrisy. Hollywood is dripping with self-importance and the streets are paved with hypocrisy. It's a comedy gold mine! (When you have a rapper from Three 6 Mafia clutching an Oscar and thanking Gil Cates, it's a dream for a comic like Stewart.)

Tom Shales in a Reuters review...

...found it "hard to believe that professional entertainers could have put together a show less entertaining than this year's Oscars, hosted with a smug humorlessness by comic Jon Stewart, a sad and pale shadow of great hosts gone by."

Smug? Certainly. That's what he was hired for, it's his main asset on The Daily Show. Humorless? Only if you're the butt of the jokes.

At least Ebert and Roeper dug the act.

"He was smart, he was funny, he was as comfortable and as anyone since Johnny Carson, and I think he could have the job for life, if he wants it," Ebert said. Roeper chimed in that he thought the "the Carson comparison is perfect."

We thought the performance was consistently funny throughout. No one has been harder on Stewart than us over the past year or so. But we enjoyed the show. We had a feeling it might go this way, however... as did Stewart. (Recall his reference to-- and defense of-- Letterman's Oscar hosting performance on Larry King Live last week.)

A personal note: Hey! What's up with US Weekly? They had their first-ever Oscar bash at Wolfgang Puck's place at the Pacific Design Center and they didn't invite the Fashion Policers? Oh, sure! Ask us to comment on the horrid apparel of H-wood's beautiful people, but, for God's sake, DO NOT invite them to any parties!

Further ADDENDA: Could anyone be more out of touch than the WashPo's Tom Shales?

"Stewart began the show drearily, loping through a monologue that lacked a single hilarious joke with the possible exception of "Bjork couldn't be here tonight. She was trying on her Oscar dress and Dick Cheney shot her."

That was about it-- and Stewart had five months, working with his legions of writers from the Daily Show on Comedy Central, to come up with good material. It goes to prove that there's still a big, big difference between basic cable and big-time network television after all."

Shales is sticking up for Network Television, against Cable Television, while working for a dying newspaper. He has no idea how irrelevant he is...

MSNBC.com has gone so far as to say it "Daily Show host will be lumped in with Letterman, Rock as Oscar failure" in a sub-headline. MSNBC.com contributor Andy Dehnart said:

Exposing hypocrisy while being self-depreciating (sic) is what Stewart does best; in fact, it's basically all he does. Those who believe The Daily Show is actually "fake news" don't understand either satire or the exceptionally smart, informative humor that the show invokes on a daily basis. Stewart and The Daily Show's team emphasize and demonstrate the importance and gravity of the day's news by making fun of it.

But that sort of contradictory, somewhat nuanced humor didn't work well for the Oscars' audience. The theater audience's lack of laughter was judgmental and was at odds with viewers who were laughing because this was the funny Jon Stewart we know from cable.

And there's the frustrating part: Stewart was a success. We here at SHECKYmagazine HQ enjoyed his hosting. A good portion of America enjoyed it. But Hollywood will have the final say. And they're not amused. If they cared at all about their declining appeal among great portions of America (box office receipts are waaay down), they would laugh off Stewart's jibes. They are in no mood to do so; they care not about their sinking Q rating.

They won't be able to destroy Stewart, but they won't be inclined to compare him to H.L. Mencken anytime soon.

They take the only nominee with a sense of humor and a near-permanent smirk (George Clooney) and they have him introduce the "In Memoriam" portion of the broadcast. (That's the one where they show slo-mo clips of all the movie type people who've died in the past year.)

Then... they don't include Don Knotts! Where the hell was Don Knotts? Or Darren McGavin? Or Dennis Weaver? All three made movies. All three were well-known. What, did they die too recently? Was it too much of a problem to edit them into the clip reel? (They've got a town full of professional film editors! You would think the deadline for the dead reel would be a matter of hours before the broadcast!)

At least they included the two expired comedians-- Pat Morita and Richard Pryor.

Hour number one of the Oscarcast is over. We laughed heartily at several points. The fake host thing that opened it up was well done. The monologue superior. The cowboy film clip thing was hilarious.

But we're getting the idea that Hollywood is/was more in love with the idea of Jon Stewart. When confronted with the reality of Stewart, however, they seem to be shifting uncomfortably in their seats. We suppose that's a danger when a passel of ultra-serious films and filmmakers and actors are nominated-- comedy has an uphill battle. (Tim Burton couldn't even muster a smile for the Wallace & Grommit sight gag! What's up with that?! What a bunch of humorless pricks!) We think even Stewart started to sense that his monologue wasn't getting the response it deserved. He's probably calling Letterman backstage and commiserating.

It only takes a few minutes to read the touching NYT Magazine article (Free reg. req.), a humor piece by Todd Barry.

The School for the Deaf called me to teach a variety of subjects. One day I was called to teach home economics. The entire class was made up of two taller boys who looked a bit too old for grade school. We spent the class hanging around and burning food. (I believe it was macaroni and cheese.) It was fun. Yes, things were going O.K. at the school. That is, until I made a tragic error in judgment. I made a joke.

It's a pretty big deal (at least for the foreseeable future) when someone gets a piece published in the NYT Magazine. We envy Mr. Barry.

Here's what we're hearing (from an anonymous email):

1) Just because one made it past the Tempe round does not guarantee that one will advance. They find out in two weeks who gets cut and who doesn't. They just know that they advanced past Tempe and have a chance of making the finals.

2) There are no semifinals, just finals. So they'll pick like 60, then sit in a room and whittle it down to 20-30. So those who got picked in Tempe might not step onstage again.

3) Here's who got picked in Tempe:

Ty Barnett
Mark Saldana
Josh McDermitt
Lahna Turner
April Macie
J. Chris Newberg
Chris Porter
Bruce Fine
Eddie Ifft

4) There was no "Simon-like" producer I saw. Just Bob and Ross (and Ross can be mean in his own right-- but not Simon mean). The producers were all nice.

5) One person who stood in line got picked for the night show. Everyone else had "appointments."

Once again: Rumor Disclaimer. We're not sure if any of this is 100 per cent true... but it all sound plausible. We'll keep you posted.

Hey: We note that Ralphie May's girlfriend (wife?) and Gary Gulman's girlfriend were picked. Hmmm... Where's Ant's girlfriend? (Hey-- he's one of our Myspace Friends... we're allowed to bust his balls. I think.) We also note that the comedy business has reached critical mass, comedy couple-wise-- It's time now for Comedy Couple Challenge ("A very special L.C.S."), hosted by the premiere comedy couple, Rich Voss and Bonnie McFarlane. We're available.

And, here is who we hear made it in from L.A.:

doug benson
adam hunter
tig
gabriel iglesias
jackie flynn
mike burton
kira soltanovich
kyle cease
saleem

Chris King, writing in Las Vegas City Life, on the death of his old man, "lounge giant" Sonny King (so named by Frank Sinatra):

He went out the old-fashioned way-- from hard living. He was penniless from financial irresponsibility; both ears were shot from years of high stage volume; his cancer-ridden throat was ravaged from belting out three shows a night, six nights a week; and his lungs collapsed from the smoke-infested cabarets. These battle wounds were the products of seven decades of saloon singing. For him, life was not a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving in a pretty and well-preserved body, but rather, a party wagon skidding broadside, thoroughly used up, totally worn out.

Without naming names, there are a few people in this business who wouldn't mind going out that way!

At one point, in this account of his father's funeral, King recalls that "A little guy who looked like Santa Claus said, 'I remember when your father and Shecky Greene got so drunk they ran a car into the Caesars Palace fountains.'" In all the times we've heard the story of Shecky driving into the fountains at Caesar's, we had always heard it told that he was alone at the time. It puts the story in a different light.

A spy from Los Angeles sent us an email, from which we extracted he following:

1. Anthony Clark will host LCS IV. He has signed a 3-year contract, so I guess NBC is banking on LCS being a ratings hit again...

2. There will be NO HOUSE this time, just comedy -- NBC wants it to be more the comedy version of American Idol.

3. ...the Simon Cowell of LCS IV (a producer of the show) is tearing up established comics left and right... trying to make a scene... to be like American Idol.

4. Comics with numerous Tonight Show appearances to their credit (among other things) auditioned in LA at the Improv only to be "Simonized." (Our term, not his-- Editors)

5. Comics who have already made it on LCS IV: Gabriel Iglesias, Gene Pompa, Tig

The author warns that these are just some L.A.-based comics who've made it and that, if other comics from other cities are added, these folks may be cut. Hmmm... Stay tuned. We're not saying any of this is true... but it certainly sounds plausible. (And, in defense of Simon Cowell, he is not uniformly nasty or unnecessarily so. He is knowledgeable, he is sharp and he is honest. Might it be giving this LCS producer too much credit to compare him to Cowell?)

Sounds less like reality programming and more like a comedy contest... which, to be quite honest, is reality programming. The more things change...

March 7, 8 and 9 are the dates for Ron White's Workshop at the Atlanta Punchline. He's trying out material for his upcoming (and never-ending) tour. The Punchline website says it's for "Blue Collar III." Regardless of what it's for, it's a chance to see White in a club setting.

This gives us another chance to plug Kid Dave Miller's "Runnin' With Tater Salad," a fascinating peek into Miller's recent experience with the ultimate one-nighter, accompanying White on a recent arena gig!

Dave Chappelle/Chapelle says, of Comedy Central's plans to air the half-baked Season 3 episodes:

"I feel like it's kind of a bully move," Chappelle told the Dayton Daily News in a telephone interview for a story Wednesday. "That's just how I feel about it. I don't know if that's the case. But if people don't watch it, then I'd be more than happy."

Does anyone know if he kept that $50 million? If he did, we figure there's no way he can squawk about the disposal of the episodes. If he didn't, then maybe he has a say. (And that's a big maybe, when you're talking about the upside down world of TV. And was there really $50 million involved? We're starting to have our doubts.)

Here's another question: How desperate is Comedy Central? Why don't they just find another Dave Chappelle/Chapelle? (Or two or three mini-Chappelles? For a fraction of the purchase price.) Actually, that's three questions. And a declarative statement. Sorry. Have they forgotten that before Dave Chappelle was Dave Chappelle, he was merely... Dave Chappelle?

A rare case of a gaggle of TV execs who refuse to vengefully turf their current star and mount a search for "the next (Fill in name of vengefully turfed star here)!" Instead they cling pathetically to the "proven commodity" while the proven commodity says all manner of horrible things about them to the press. A pathetic display... even for TV executives!!

Or is it the other way around? The money quote from the Reuters story:

HBO chairman and CEO Chris Albrecht said that once the opportunity arose to form a partnership with Cook, the network jumped on the chance to "get in business with him as many ways as we could."

Staggering.

If we were Dane Cook, we'd open up every set with, "I just signed a deal with HBO..." and then wait for the response from the comics in the back of the house.

"Original content is the salt and pepper on the meal," he said. "It is certainly not the engine driving this."

This horribly mangled metaphor, in a fascinating NYT article ("Yahoo Says It Is Backing Away From TV-Style Web Shows"), is hocked up by Lloyd Braun, former ABC-TV suit who is now head of Yahoo's Media Group. We're betting that there was a tiny trickle of sweat just arriving at the top of the crack of Lloyd Braun's ass as this escaped from his lips.

Yahoo, sitting atop an eye-popping pile of cash, hired a TV guy (Braun from ABC) and a movie guy (Terry Semel from Warners) to make Yahoo into the next Big Media Thing. When hired five years ago, Semel said, "I will always have a lot to learn about the internet. But I'm surrounded by what I consider to be some of the world-class experts." He proceeded to hire experts... on television. Slick!

One of those experts was Llloyd Braun, he of the salty, peppery, engine.

But things are not going well in Yahoo-land. It's been five years-- an eternity in cyberspace-- and the suits can't decide if Yahoo wants to emulate television or movies or... what, exactly?

Braun, no doubt fighting for his job, incongruously and clumsily reminds all of his most recent triumphs:

He acknowledged that coming off developing ABC programs like Lost and Desperate Housewives, he had overly grand expectations for what he should do at Yahoo.

He then goes on to indulge in some spectacular Suitspeak, admitting his woeful failure to comprehend the newness of The New Media and simultaneously speculating out loud about how he might save his executive skin:

"I realized I have to check my ego at the door for a moment, and forget whatever expectations people had about me because of my former life, and really take a hard look at who should this business be built for the long term-— a business that is not dependent on a series of expensive one-off's to survive," he said.

Is it just us, or does this sound like something one says after one has been fired?

The occasion for all this hand-wringing is a Startling Announcement by Yahoo that they wanted a do-over on their previous Startling Announcement. That is: We aren't going to produce a boatload of television-like shows for Yahoo.

When we heard the original announcement, we were delighted! They were, in effect, going to become another TV network-- more opportunities for comedians, said we. None of that is happening now. It turns out that they must now devise new and ingenious ways for The New Media to fail.

They seem to be pleading: Why can't everyone just leave the TV and Movie guys alone while they screw up the New Media (just like they did TV and Movies)?!? Give a suit a break!

From the sidelines comes this quote:

Jordan Rohan, an analyst with RBC Capital Markets, said Yahoo's shift in strategy was sound. "Embracing things like blogs and sharing of content between individuals" is at least as important as "coming up with the next mega-online event," he said. "The Internet is such a niche content environment that the broadcast model does not really work."

Note to Yahoo: Hire Jordan Rohan! He seems to have good grip on which part of the engine the salt and pepper should be sprinkled!

The folks in Hollywood are at it again.

Barry Garron, writing in The Hollywood Reporter, on Fox's Free Ride:

Searching for a different approach to the traditional sitcom, Rob Roy Thomas, a veteran commercial director, came up with a series in which actors rely on a story outline and their own improv skills. After piecing together the best takes, the result was sensational. Sadly, Significant Others lasted only two seasons on Bravo.

Yes. How very, very sad.

The sitcom, don't you know, is dead.

The truly funny sitcoms-- the ones that will carry us into the next Golden Era of Television-- won't need writers. Brave souls like Rob Roy Thomas will re-invent the form and skilled actors will merely improv their way into the Television Hall of Fame. No writers need apply. (Those pesky writers were getting in the way!)

Why do they insist on this fantasy? What is so utterly horrifying to these nitwits about taking an idea for a sitcom, hiring accomplished writers to concoct truly humorous situations and dialogue, then hiring talented actors with a flair for comedy? Why all these wistful daydreams about a world in which we don't need writers, the actors are all triple threats and the genre that brought us The Honeymooners, Mary Tyler Moore and Seinfeld is a flawed model tossed unceremoniously on the scrapheap of television history?

How long before AFTRA insists on writers' pay for the actors? How long before they insist that all actors on these "Improv-coms" join the Writers Guild? Can you imagine being a writer on one of these shows? Oh, sure, you get that fat paycheck for 13 weeks or so, but then you pick up the trade paper and see "Writers Unnecessary!" (And, how utterly unimaginative on the part of the publicists-- highly paid publicists!-- at these networks! Can't they figure out any other way of making their sitcom seem noteworthy?

And why is it that the producers of dramas never claim that their product is improv-ed? (Well, with the exception of Henry Jaglom. Has anyone, not doing acid, ever made it more than 12 minutes into a Henry Jaglom movie? Oh, and Woody Allen. Has anyone enjoyed any of the "largely improvised" Woody pics lately? I think some of them were supposed to be humorous... it was hard to tell, though.)

It's good to see Allan Havey in a series-- for that fact alone, Free Ride was worth noting on this website. But it would be so nice if they abandoned this moronic "re-inventing the sitcom" story line.