As part of the "Penn Says:" series of videos, the large, talking half of Penn & Teller holds forth on the greatness of Shecky Greene, upon seeing the great one perform last month at the Suncoast casino. It's six minutes and worth every second.

(Of particular note: Penn expresses some regret that Greene wasn't included in "The Aristocrats," something we wondered about when we saw the movie.)



Take special care to avoid reading any of the comments afterward, as your time is more precious than that.

If you have 9:49, check out our very first episode of "Lying About: Standup," entitled, "Is It Too Soon?" in which we discuss, among other things, whether it's too soon for comics to make jokes about the death of Michael Jackson.



The title of our venture is pretty obvious-- It's two people... talking about standup... while... lying about-- plus, it's got that vague, cool, double-meaning thing going; the one that people who listen to too much Minnesota Public Radio seem to really dig.

It's a video serial in several installments. We haven't figured out a catchy name like "Vlog" or "Vee-Log" or "Vlod-cast" yet.

OMG! U have got to see this!

It's a video posted by Lisa Corrao called, "Ivan Hernandez Gets Scolded by Old Ladies About a Hitler Joke." It features Ivan Hernandez (obviously!) and Dave Kinney and it's shot and edited by Lisa. Call it comedy-related reality video. It's self-explanatory.

There aren't many impressionists around. When we were growing up, there seemed to be enough to have one on Merv's show at least once a month. And once a month on Tonight. And an occasional appearance on Steve Allen's show or on Ed Sullivan. Now, our impressionists are almost limited to weak, makeup-dependent turns on Saturday Night Live by sketch comics who often barely approximate the celebrity they're impersonating and yell out catchphrases.

People like David Frye and Frank Gorshin and Will Jordan did amazing impressions with little more than a comb or a shift of the suit jacket.

Have American audiences outgrown the art of impersonation? Has it gone the way of doubletalk as something that automatically elicits hearty laughter, applause and admiration?

Comedian and impersonator Fred Travalena died Sunday afternoon after a seven-year battle with cancer. He was 66.

He was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin's lymphoma in 2002 and prostate cancer in 2003. Following five years' remission, the lymphoma returned in 2008.

During Travalena's 40-year career, he entertained audiences with impressions of celebrities such as Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin and Bob Hope. He was a regular on the "Tonight Show," with Johnny Carson.

It's fashionable among today's comedians to deride impressionists. But they certainly do get a response. And, in the case of Travalena (and others), they had long, successful careers.

We tried to think of comedians working today who are primarily impressionists and we could only come up with Jim Morris and Steve Bridges, two brilliant mimics who mainly are noted for their tremendous impressions of political figures.

Google has very tight security. Understandable, we suppose. So, when some sort of suspicious software is inserted into a website (with or without the knowledge of the site's owner), the Google alarms and whistles go off and, before you know it, your site is being labeled as some sort of internet pariah.

About 36 hours ago, we made a "reconsideration request" to Google, asking them to rummage around under the hood and make sure no demons were present. A company the size of Google isn't exactly light on its feet, so the request may take another few hours.

Until then, if you notice anything suspicious, let us know via email (drop one to The Female Half using tmskene(at sign)hotmail(dot)com) or via our MySpace site.

None of this "badware" is to be feared-- it's more a nuisance than anything (the name derives from a elision (?) of the terms "bad" and "adware." Cnet says badware "is not designed to purposefully destroy data or compromise a system as is a virus or Trojan."

In fact, some software from such giants as Sears, Kmart and AOL has been labeled as badware by a consortium of companies (including Google and Microsoft) that pay attention to such things.

Where did it come from? Russia or China is a good bet. (They've been implicated in a lot of spamming and adware schemes lately.)

We look forward to posting regularly again.

And, during our forced vacation, we've been working on other projects that needed our attention.

We had Saturday off, so we motored up 295 to hang out with Bonnie McFarlane (who was headlining Princeton Catch A Rising Star). We brought along former Rascals Cherry Hill GM Jason Pollock. And we were joined by comedian Rabbi Bob Alper-- a longtime reader/supporter of SHECKYmagazine.com-- we had never met the Alper, but we've corresponded with him for what seems like forever; it was great to finally meet him after all these years. (He was in a Philly suburb for a full weekend-- officiating at a wedding Saturday, then gigging at a synogogue on Sunday.)

(Thanks to Catch manager Steve Trevelise for his hospitality.)


From left: Rabbi Bob Alper, Bonnie McFarlane, The Female Half, Jason Pollock (Not pictured: The weekend's featured comedian Joe Pontillo)

We're in the middle of transferring SHECKYmagazine.com from our old server to a new one. In the meantime, Google is essentially blocking the site with a "This site may harm your computer" message. Google, we suspect, is being overly cautious. Apparently, there are a lot of servers out there with so-called "badware." (It might be part of this botnet thing we've been reading about over the past few months.) There are a great number of sites out there affected-- some large, some small-- and administrators throughout the WWW are executing plans similar to ours.

Anyway, we'll be back up and running in no time, without any gremlins.

Check back occasionally and we'll update our progress.

Thanks.

The Jerusalem Post interviewed "Loud Fast Jews," the super group formed by four punk rock legends Handsome Dick Manitoba of The Dictators, Tommy Ramone of the Ramones, Blondie's Chris Stein and Patti Smith Group member Lenny Kaye, on the occasion of their appearance at the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research last week.

The four talked about their Jewish heritage and their influences:

Indeed, all four said the New York scene-- their Brooklyn and Bronx neighborhoods, CBGB's-- influenced them personally and artistically. But yes, they were influenced by other Jewish entertainers of the day-- from Ed Sullivan to Broadway composers to performers in the Catskills. "All that shtick was Jewish," said Ramone, "and to me that was very important."

"I'm sure what I spit back has a little Shecky Greene in it," said Manitoba.

Who knew that Handsome Dick Manitoba was influenced by Shecky Greene?

The PWTorch website (that stands for Pro Wrestling), says that WWE legend King Kong Bundy is working on a career in standup comedy. They cite a story in the Poughkeepsie paper.

Bundy says he's doing stand-up comedy across the Northeast U.S., including New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania. "I'm laying pretty low. I'm starting my standup comedy. I'm getting back into that now," Bundy told Phil Strum of the Poughkeepsie (N.Y.) Journal.

The figure above is a Bundy action figure that's getting $49 on amazon.com. Bundy debuted (in wrestling) in 1981 and wrestled for nearly two decades.

At his peak, he weighed a quarter of a ton. We suppose heckling won't be a problem.

Comedian Steven Crowder, writing for Steven Breitbart's BigHollywood website, says that "Republicans need to grow a sense of humor."

As proof, he cites the reaction to three recent incidents involving very public joke-making that didn't go over so well.

Exhibit A, Crowder says, is the reaction to President's Special Olympics gag during his appearance on Jay Leno's Tonight. Exhibit B is the offense taken to Wanda Sykes' ill-fated performance before the White House Correspondents Dinner. Exhibit C is, of course, the impetus for the article-- the firestorm that erupted over David Letterman's monologue jokes concerning Sarah Palin's daughter(s).

In none of the examples does Crowder honestly assess the very fundamental aspect of who is telling the joke and within which context the person is telling it.

This is disappointing, considering that Crowder is a professional comedian. It is disappointing, it is frustrating and it's maddening, considering that, of all people, Crowder should know that these facts must be taken into consideration.

But Crowder is not alone. Judging from what we've read on various blogs and in comments (indeed, in our own comments), comedians are loath to consider context and are instead more likely to blindly defend the comedian out of some sort of loyalty to the joke or the joke teller.

As near as we can follow the logic (insofar as there is any logic to be observed) the reasoning goes like this: If we don't defend the joke ("It's only a joke! Lighten up!"), then we will all be rounded up and sent to some sort of jail for crass people. Or we will all be classified as lunkheads, with restrictions on our speech, or on our subject matter and on our livelihoods.

But, of all the people on the planet, it is comedians who should be able to rise above all of this and observe, in a rather dispassionate manner, all three instances for what they are: Incidents where people attempted to makes jokes in such a setting, and in such a manner, that rendered them inappropriate.

It's all about context.

There is a supreme irony here. Comedians should acknowledge that, once in a great while, a joke doesn't work because of who is telling it and where they're telling it. Which among us doesn't know that? Which of us doesn't live by that bit of knowledge? If we were to acknowledge that simple fact in these discussions, it would actually make us look better, more attuned to the whole dynamic that exists between joke-teller and audience. We're supposed to be the experts on this stuff, are we not?

Why have so many intelligent, reasonable people (comedians) abandoned intelligence and reason in these instances? It's a mystery.

Crowder contends that the donnybrook over Wanda Sykes' performance at the White Horse Correspondents Dinner was caused by people who took offense that she wished that prominent talk show host Rush Limbaugh's kidneys would fail and that folks "jumped on the dame for 'wishing death upon somebody, which is inappropriate under any circumstances!'" He defends her by saying that Sykes set had been performed "within the context of comedy."

So, the defense is that Sykes did the jokes, "within the context of comedy." That is a meaningless phrase.

The context is not "comedy." The context is actually the White House Correspondents Dinner. Comedy cannot be considered its own context. If it were, no one would get more than $200 for a corporate gig.

Consider that one cannot do comedy at the Holocaust Museum. One cannot crack jokes on the rim of an actively erupting volcano or in the immediate aftermath of a five-car pileup in which there are multiple deaths. "Sure, they were jokes about the lava and the smell of anti-freeze and six million dead Jews! But they were jokes, right! Comedy provides its own context, right? They come with their own protective coating. No one need even think about taking umbrage. They're told within Crowder's magical 'context of comedy,' so no one can complain, right?"

Nonsense. Context isn't everything. But it is something.

Context is vitally important to assessing the appropriateness of a joke. Context is something that must be considered.

But context is also our friend.

Context is not just something that hems in comedy, it's something that liberates our performance. When you define what can't be said and where and by whom, you essentially leave the rest of it wide open.

When you consider what might be asked of comedians (professional and amateur) in these last three incidents, it's really not a whole lot: Maybe the POTUS shouldn't make a joke about retarded people on network television; maybe the comedian at the WHCD shouldn't wish death upon someone; maybe Davide Letterman would be advised to go easy on the sex jokes about a prominent politician's daughter. Could any one of those taken individually, or all three combined be said to constitute a serious threat to the artistic freedom of professional comedians?

The answer is no.

In all of these recent controversies, we (professional comedians) could have actually agreed with all those who took umbrage. And we could have done so and still not suffered any erosion of our artistic freedom. We may not have necessarily agreed that suspension of firing is appropriate for Letterman. We may not have been required to the President to step down. But we could have at least acknowledged that, in some cases, here and there, a comedian does something that might be considered inappropriate.

Indeed, had we offered our "professional opinions" and brought our expertise to bear upon the discussion, we would have been viewed as sober, thoughtful professionals who are aware of boundaries, aware of sensibilities, aware of limitations. But we could also have simultaneously delineated just where those boundaries and limitations end. And-- and this is the weird part that few seem to understand-- we could have done so with absolutely no risk to our precious "outlaw personae." (Really, when it gets right down to it, how many people over the age of 19 actually believe that even the most outspoken among us is actually an "outlaw" in any sense of the word, or in any danger whatsoever of being prosecuted for what we say or how we say it... within the proper context, of course! What're the chances of, say, Doug Stanhope being hauled off to the pokey for something he says in a live performance in our lifetime? We'll take that bet. Anyone? Whipping out the penis or threatening the President cancels the bet.)

Instead, far too many chose to scream "First Amendment" at the top of their lungs with no concession that the folks on the "other side" had any legitimate reason to register any complaint whatever. (When was the last time, in anyone's memory, when the "other side" had absolutely no leg to stand on? It happens, but rarely. To totally dismiss the possibility is a tactical and strategical error of monumental proportions.)

An awful lot of the rhetoric from the side of the comedians had/has all the subtlety of a hallucinating boar.

A sharp-eyed reader sent us the link to the Chicago Trib's rundown of the roster for the inaugural Just For Laughs fest in the Windy City. Click through the slide show and the third face you see is that of Andy Dick.

The photo that the Trib chose to use the pic from the Murietta (CA) police department-- it's the photo from when he was charged with four misdemeanor counts of battery, public intoxication, possession of Xanax without a prescription and possession of marijuana in connection with his July 16 arrest. Complete with the orange jumpsuit.

A Google image search using "Andy Dick" returned 59,000 images... of course, there are duplicates, but you get our point-- did they hafta use that one?

Is it a case of the media taking yet another dig at standup comics, as our emailer speculated? Or is it just the Trib editor trying to make a joke?

We're of the opinion that it's neither.

It has become a given in show business that you don't primarily hire Andy Dick for a personal appearance because he'll deliver a spectacular performance and wow the ticket-buying public as much as you hire him hoping that he'll get caught by the cops whizzing in an alley at 5 AM or he'll drape his penis around his wrist while on stage or he'll narrowly escape being booked on felony sexual battery. And the ensuing ocean of ink will benefit your venue (or your festival) long after Dick's been sentenced or has completed a diversion program of some sort or he gets out of rehab.

Is it a cynical exploitation of Dick's obvious inability to play well with others? "Not exactly known for being a upstanding citizen, Andy Dick never fails to deliver on the surprises," reads the copy under Dick's glassy-eyed, grinning visage. The Trib is in on the gag. They probably thought they were being witty in choosing the pic that they did. No one can blame them. The Fest is in on the gag, too.

Show business has no shortage of tales like this one: Bring in the "mercurial" figure who will dance on the table, shoot up the hotel room with a Colt .45 and kiss all the girls.... We just hope he doesn't die while he's on our dime. The first few who book him aren't so much to blame, but the ones who do so while he's in the in the throes of drug or alcohol addiction or true madness are seeking the spectacle as much as the celebrity.

But, in this case, it might be in poor taste to run the arraignment photo. If we are to believe what we read, Dick might actually have it together finally. Leslie Savage, writing for Entertainment Weekly in February, reviews Rehab House:

Mr. Dick has had his fair share of addictions, but his current drug of choice is Rolling Rock beer (I know-- what is he, a freshman in high school?). Everyone knows Mr. Dick as being, well, true to his name. But in Sober House, you see a whole new side of him, and it's a bit disconcerting. You may actually find yourself empathizing -- and dare I say liking him? He's vulnerable, he's sincere, and he's truly ready to get his act together for the sake of his 20-year-old son, whom he lives with. Which begs the question: Could this possibly be the best career choice Andy Dick has ever made?

Which Dick will show up? The excitement is killing Chicagoans, no doubt.

Perhaps the folks at the Trib didn't know that Dick made yet another attempt at rehab. We wish him the best. He's a funny guy and his short-lived show was hilarious. And he might be a great standup comic... who gets booked for funny stuff, done onstage.

Through all of this, we've been monitoring Twitter and Facebook and blogs. And here and there, we've seen some folks express the opinion that Dave shouldn't have had to apologize.

We concur.

But we also acknowledge it was necessary.

It's an important distinction to make.

Does he absolutely have to apologize? Hell, no. He's a comedian. He could have gone down, boots on, comedy guns blazing, telling one and all that they can kiss his Hoosier ass.

But there was a sizable controversy (and a somewhat reluctant media that kept the story going).

And Letterman, if he wanted to keep his job-- and CBS, if they didn't really feel like finding a substitute-- felt that an apology was necessary. And, when the first apology wasn't enough... both parties agreed that a second apology was in order. Such is the aversion to losing one's job as the host of show on an American television network. (And such is the aversion to going through the laborious process of launching a new host in that position.)

So, did he absolutely have to? No, not all.

Did he think it was necessary to keep his job? He did.

It comes down, not to a free speech issue, but to an "I want to keep my job issue." (And, not to be harsh about it, but the man is not entitled to the job. He serves at the pleasure of Moonves and the sponsors.)

Not so much a matter of freedom as a matter of commerce.

And the folks who expressed their outrage? They, too, had the right to express their feelings. And, since they fully grasped that it was a matter of commerce, they expressed their feelings to the advertisers and to the network executives.

The ultimate decision, as we've said in a previous posting, comes down to Les Moonves.

It would have been effective, had it been Apology Number One.

Not so sure it will work, seeing as it's how it's Apology Number Two.

It went over three minutes. However, since it was not just an apology for the initial offense but an apology that had to negate the outrage compounded by the initial apology, it was a bit lengthier by necessity.

It was certainly better than the first one.

Will it quell the anger? Stop the rally in its tracks? Assuage the Palins?

Only time will tell.

It may well fall short. Was it heavy enough on the contrition? Was it clear enough? Should there have been a bit more clarity and maybe even a retreat from even the Bristol joke (and maybe even a heapin' helpin' of an apology for the slutty flight attendant gag) to get his sizable number of critics to back off?

It oughta be interesting.

The incident, if we're to believe what we're reading, has touched a nerve. And galvanized a group of people-- women from the left, the right and the middle-- that aren't usually normally allied. (We even hear that Joy Behar is now seeing it from her mother's POV.) Whenever that happens, it's formidable.

It may have been too little too late.

However, Americans are, at the end of the day, a very forgiving people.

From TVWeek.com, comes the transcript of a second apology, dropped into tonight's taping of Late Show:

All right, here - I've been thinking about this situation with Governor Palin and her family now for about a week - it was a week ago tonight, and maybe you know about it, maybe you don't know about it. But there was a joke that I told, and I thought I was telling it about the older daughter being at Yankee Stadium. And it was kind of a coarse joke. There's no getting around it, but I never thought it was anybody other than the older daughter, and before the show, I checked to make sure in fact that she is of legal age, 18. Yeah. But the joke really, in and of itself, can't be defended. The next day, people are outraged. They're angry at me because they said, 'How could you make a lousy joke like that about the 14-year-old girl who was at the ball game?' And I had, honestly, no idea that the 14-year-old girl, I had no idea that anybody was at the ball game except the Governor and I was told at the time she was there with Rudy Giuliani...And I really should have made the joke about Rudy..." (audience applauds) "But I didn't, and now people are getting angry and they're saying, 'Well, how can you say something like that about a 14-year-old girl, and does that make you feel good to make those horrible jokes about a kid who's completely innocent, minding her own business,' and, turns out, she was at the ball game. I had no idea she was there. So she's now at the ball game and people think that I made the joke about her. And, but still, I'm wondering, 'Well, what can I do to help people understand that I would never make a joke like this?' I've never made jokes like this as long as we've been on the air, 30 long years, and you can't really be doing jokes like that. And I understand, of course, why people are upset. I would be upset myself.

"And then I was watching the Jim Lehrer 'Newshour' - this commentator, the columnist Mark Shields, was talking about how I had made this indefensible joke about the 14-year-old girl, and I thought, 'Oh, boy, now I'm beginning to understand what the problem is here. It's the perception rather than the intent.' It doesn't make any difference what my intent was, it's the perception. And, as they say about jokes, if you have to explain the joke, it's not a very good joke. And I'm certainly - " (audience applause) "- thank you. Well, my responsibility - I take full blame for that. I told a bad joke. I told a joke that was beyond flawed, and my intent is completely meaningless compared to the perception. And since it was a joke I told, I feel that I need to do the right thing here and apologize for having told that joke. It's not your fault that it was misunderstood, it's my fault. That it was misunderstood." (audience applauds) "Thank you. So I would like to apologize, especially to the two daughters involved, Bristol and Willow, and also to the Governor and her family and everybody else who was outraged by the joke. I'm sorry about it and I'll try to do better in the future. Thank you very much." (audience applause)

It will be fascinating.

We called it. A second apology was deemed to be in order (by CBS? by sponsors? by Dave's people-- who knows). Some folks, if they judge the apology to be sincere, might back off.

And, of course, we're of the opinion that this apology, issued sooner, would have been enough.

But there's no predicting how the public might react. The emotions have run high.

And the apology might "look" insincere. And, no matter if it appears heartfelt this time, it's still the second apology... which never has as much influence as a well-executed/well-timed first apology.

We'll see what happens.

We are having trouble with search engines. Some sort of "badware" is on our internet service provider's server. There's no harm to you, of course, but it is wreaking havoc with our readers' ability to search through our archives.

We have temporarily taken down the Google SearchSite toolbar at top of the center of our center column. Once the problem is solved, we'll put it back up.

In the meantime, if you're searching for something on our site, we urge all to consider using Google or any of the other popular search engines-- But, you'll succeed in getting to your goal if you click on the "Cached page" link at the bottom of any search results that come up.

Since posting about David Letterman's apology, a lot has happened.

Tomorrow, there's a rally scheduled in Manhattan to exert pressure on CBS to fire Late Show host David Letterman. Should he be fired? It's not a question of "should." It's a business decision. And that decision most likely rests with Les Moonves, president and COO of Columbia Broadcast System.

Moonves will no doubt consider several things like how many people show up, how much MSM coverage it gets, how long the controversy might last or how many women viewers he can afford to alienate by keeping Letterman on. Or... urge Letterman to call a press conference and issue a second apology. Stranger things have happened.

The National Organization for Women (NOW) has added Letterman's June 8 performance to their "Media Hall of Shame." They conclude the page by exhorting their followers to "Take Action" and "Write to CBS and tell them what you think," which, when clicked, brings up a handy-dandy form to generate either email or an actual hard copy.

Huffington Post readers were treated to this essay by Amy Siskind, described as the president and co-founder of The New Agenda, a nonpartisan organization devoted to advancing women's rights. Siskind sees the wayward monologue and the ensuing outrcy as a watershed moment:

And perhaps most revolutionary of all are the unlikely alliances being forged to fight against the words of David Letterman. Women who have had abortions are joining hands with those whose religion forbids it. Men who voted against Proposition 8 are joining hands with lesbian couples. Women who pulled the lever for a Republican are joining hands with men who voted for a Democrat. All uniting in the name of common decency and the desire to make things better for the next generation. It's a "how did we let it come to this" type of moment.

Of course, it could all be over with by Thursday. With Letterman back securely at the helm of his show and everyone in the media onto the next controversy, the next outrage, the next gaffe.

Then, there's the results of a US Weekly "Water Cooler Poll," which asks, "Whose side are you on?"

Sarah Palin-- %89.31
David Letterman-- %10.69

This has taken a fascinating turn.

If Dave loses his gig (and we're putting it at 60/40 right now that he keeps his job), a scenario similar to the Imus debacle will no doubt unfold. There is plenty of residual good will toward Letterman and there will be virtually no decrease in his celebrity-- perhaps even an uptick! After a cooling-off period, he'll resurface on ABC or Fox as host of a show that goes up against whichever show replaces his.

In much the same way that Bill Maher re-surfaced, in a slightly different format and with a different taping schedule on HBO after stirring up a controversy on his ABC show. Imus returned to radio after being signed by Citadel Broadcasting.

In both the Imus and the Maher situations, some folks tried to represent what happened as censorship. And in neither case was that so. Neither CBS nor ABC (nor MSNBC, who dropped Imus' simulcast) are government entities. They are corporations who bowed to public pressure, and to pressure from sponsors. At no time was any government involved. And, it is worth noting, both hosts are now gainfully employed, doing what they did before they lost their previous jobs. And, to our knowledge, no one is suggesting that either man be removed from his current position.

But this isn't going away overnight. And it can't be easily dismissed as a "manufactured hissy-fit" by knuckle-dragging "sows" with the "IQ of a door stop." It seems to be a rather broad and varied gang of people who are expressing their disappointment-- and in a variety of ways. Women, womyn, men (fathers), NOW members, mothers, daughters, Alaskans, HuffPo readers, conservatives, feminists, housewives-- if the juggernaut has such a broad demo, the problem is real.

It may not be, as Siskind writes, that "men who voted against Proposition 8 are joining hands with lesbian couples," but it certainly is varied enough that it can't be dismissed out of hand as some sort of "rightwing withchunt" as so many have speculated. And that's doubly bad for Dave.

We were unaware of the contest that Comedy Central was sponsoring until we saw Tim Slaigle pumping his video via Facebook.

It's the Open Mic Challenge.

Welcome to the Jokes.com Open Mic Challenge! Are you an aspiring stand-up comedian? Show us your bits for the chance to appear on Comedy Central. Check back every month for a new challenge!

We notice that there's not a whole lot of comments or views for the videos, even those that have been up for four or five days. This is odd, considering that it's backed by Comedy Central. Hmmm... are folks growing tired of online video contests? Are comedians hip to the draconian Content Submission Policies? (We clicked on this one and got a "The Page You Are Looking For Cannot Be Found" message. Hmmm... would any video submitted during this timeframe not be subject to the (no doubt) ridiculous and one-sided terms of the normal submission policy?)

Anyway, we'll check back to see if it gets any momentum. Perhaps the adverts haven't started running yet.

Or, it's yet another case of folks trying and failing to shoehorn old conventions into the Web (the L.A. Times capitalizes it). Like producing television "Webisodes" of original content for exclusive exhibition on the Web.

An LAT article, titled "Hollywood hits the stop button on high-profile Web video efforts" by Ben Fritz and Dawn Chmielewski, serves as an obituary and a coroner's report on the failed effort by several large entertainment entities (and several smaller "investors") to create successful "online comedy initiatives," or OCIs, in the lingo of that sub-genre of the entertainment industry.

Nearly all have failed. Some still struggle on.

The number of studios bankrolling Web videos has shrunk significantly, however. As a result, many who continue to believe in the promise of Web video are coalescing around new ideas such as integrating sponsors into projects ahead of production.

"There are fewer buyers now, so increasingly that conversation involves working backward from what a brand needs, rather than financing a Web video in complete isolation," said Jordan Levin, chief executive of production company Generate, which specializes in digital content.

Ah... So... You're going to make... long-form... commercials? The kids will eat that right up. (The same kids, we are constantly reminded, who do not like "slick" or scripted comedy. The same savvy kids who can smell the stench a sales pitch from a mile away? Oh, this is going to be big!)

Full disclosure: We dodged this bullet when, back a couple years ago, we were considered for the position of running Super Deluxe, Turner's failed OCI. We suspect we were turned down because we asked for too much money. Turns out, our suspicions were probably dead-on:

With the search for a sustainable business model ongoing, many wonder how long talented people will continue to work for peanuts and the promise of rewards somewhere over the rainbow.

Los Angeles-based Big Fantastic, a group of filmmakers, has produced six series over the last two years for various Web production companies. Still, writer and director Chris Hempel admits they're waiting for their big reward.

But money is probably less of a problem than the folks who are behind these ventures who just plain old don't understand the medium. They may understand television or movies or talent management, but they don't "get" the Web.

An awful lot of what we see on the WWW is merely an attempt by some folks with deep pockets to bend the WWW to their will. To make it do what the other media have done-- Instead of episodes, we'll call them "webisodes," and it'll be just like TV! But we'll make it do what we want on a somewhat different scale, with different ways of generating revenue!

But along the way, they make fundamental errors. Like not letting others embed your content. Or attempting to make your product look just like television, when that medium is actually sliding in popularity. Or trying to "manufacture" videos that are "viral." Or plucking someone from obscurity (someone who has created videos on a shoestring that have garnered millions of hits) and setting them up with larger budgets on the assumption that the larger budget will automatically mean that many more hits.

In our Montreal updates from 2000, we marveled at how many new, online ventures there were. (We called them dot-coms back then, remember?) And we saw them as dripping with opportunity:

The back page of the HRSCI was purchased by Laugh.com. Half of the lobby is dominated by comedyworld.com's "cybercast" corral and banners hang overhead touting thefunniest.com and pop.com. The folks at humorvision.com (a division of fastband.com) purchased a quarter-pager and playboy.com has dispatched a representative or two. And, of course, SHECKY! (sheckymagazine.com) is present in the form of editors Brian McKim and Traci Skene. There is an explosion of dot-commers here at the festival this year. Much more so than last year. And there are many more business cards with email addresses.

What does all this mean? We overheard one comedian, when the plethora of dot-commers was brought to her attention, say that there were "too many dot-coms" here at the Festival. What the hell does that mean? There can never be too many movie production companies around. There can never be too many talent agents milling about. There can never be too many network executives present. How ever can there be too many dot-coms? The internet represents opportunity for comics. Can we all agree that there can never be too many opportunities? Although SHECKY! might be a dot-com, we are proud of our sub-motto: "We're not making any money, but we're not losing any, either!" (Apparently that's something that many of the dot-comsters cannot claim!)

And we were correct: Within a year or so, many or all of the dot-coms we mentioned were tax write-offs, investment black holes, smoldering wrecks. Some claim they were victims of the bursting of the dot-com bubble. But it wasn't that investment dried up, it was their model that doomed them. Some tried to make the internet into a movie studio or a distributor. Others tried to make their domain into a radio studio. Others into portals or clearinghouses. None survived.

There is a certain irony here. Way back when, folks were up in arms and ready to write their congressman to pass laws to protect the WWW-- "If we don't do something now, the Web will be dominated by Time-Warner! And General Electric! And Rupert Murdoch! And Starbucks! And Archer Daniels Midland! And high-fructose corn syrup!" Little did they know that the WWW needed no defending-- it's big and sprawling and wild and untameable, we would tell anyone who'd listen. The "newshole" is infinitely large, the network is "scalable," it reaches hundreds of millions. And that is what attracts Hollywood to it... and that is what also confounds Hollywood when it tries to make it do tricks.

... or just a sputter or two before it dies down?

We were alerted to a column in today's New York Post, written by Andrea Peyser, about how, while David Letterman was telling jokes that riled up a good chunk of the nation...

His struggling brother up the dial, Conan O'Brien, on Thursday night was having a blast slurring women and Jews-- two groups that may constitute the last permissible sick-comedy staples.

Here's Conan:

"Political experts say that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is expected to endorse what he calls a two-state solution for Israelis and Palestinians to live side by side but have no contact," he said. Ba-dump.

"Netanyahu said it will be exactly like being married to a Jewish woman." Ba-dump-bump.

She goes on to say that "...women, specifically white women, make up the last group that one may freely stereotype to get a cheap laugh."

Up until now, it's pretty standard and reasonable rhetoric-- In ten years of monitoring this stuff, we've seen some pretty off-the-wall criticism of comedians, so this isn't remarkable.

But, she caps off the essay by relating the following:

In 2006, I attended a "comedy" fund-raiser at Town Hall to raise money for homeless women, at which alleged funnyman Louis C.K. joked about "decimating" his "stupid" 4-year-old daughter by bashing her in the head. Comic Patrice O'Neal gave men lessons about improving their orgasms by paralyzing their partners while in the act.

And this was a fund-raiser for homeless women, many of them victims of domestic violence!

Setting aside the fact that Louis C.K. and Patrice O'Neal might not be the ideal comics for a benefit for a women's shelter, what's remarkable about this is that Peyser has been more or less seething for three years.

She has taken the occasion of the Conan O'Brien joke (ostensibly, but we really know it's the Palin/Letterman dustup that was the impetus) to dust off the three-year-old "Aren't comedians jerks?" story.

It's a by-product. It happened in the wake of the Imus flap. But, in that case, we argued that Imus wasn't a standup comic. And his remark was an off-the-cuff remark, and not a prepared joke.

And it happened when Michael Richards went postal.

And we predicted it would happen with this latest debacle.

When the damage control comes too late or is inadequate, we can expect the blowback to be severe and we can expect it to reach far into the comedy community.

It will die down (just as it did in the other instances), but it could have been strangled much, much sooner.

Thanks to Al Romas for the tip.

We heard from FOS Jason Pollock that Jake Johannsen was in town, just across the river at Helium.

This set off a fortunate chain of events.

Before that, we heard that Lord Carrett and Nick Cobb were headed down the NJTPKE to do a private party in Center City Philadelphia.

And Pollock told us that he was headed over the bridge Friday night to catch the MST3K live show at the Trocadero (featuring Joel Hodgson, Frank Conniff and the whole gang), and that afterward, he was intent on heading across town to catch Johannsen's second show. And The Male Half had a gig (at a Democratic Party fundraiser in Bucks County) on Friday night as well.


That's Lord Carrett and Jake Johannsen in the green room at Helium Friday night.

So... we all converged on Helium at about the same time, just before the second show of the evening, where we also encountered local comedian John Kensil, emcee/opener for the weekend Vince Patterson, the weekend's feature (and Wednesday evening's Helium headliner) Bernadette Pauley and local (transplant from Cincinnati) comedian Geoff Tate. We were soon joined by the aforementioned Pollock, Carrett and Cobb.

It was a regular comedy party, a mini-fest. A rarity in these parts, and a delight to participate in. Introductions all around, met a few people we hadn't met before, caught up with a couple we hadn't seen in a while. The sort of thing we imagine goes on in NYC all the time, but something that happens in Philly on an irregular basis.


That's Bernadette Pauley talking to John Kensil while Nick Cobb: A. snoozes... or B. is listening to the conversation and thoroughly disgusted... or C. is merely the victim of a bad photograph? The answer is "C." We found Nick to be a splendid individual-- energetic and slow to disgust.

There seems to be some uncertainty as to whether Best Week Ever is gone for good. The blogosphere is reporting, in one or two places, that it's gone. But VH-1 is saying it's gone until January 2010 but even they're not sure. But Tompkins himself, via his Twitter account, is saying:

Thanks to everyone who stayed with Best Week Ever with me as the host. Please watch tomorrow night. I am not taking questions. Thank you.

and

And, in the absence of any word to the contrary from VH1, it's safe to assume the very last Best Week Ever with Paul F. Tompkins.

And, for pure, Tompkins-hating bile (complete with Tompkins' name spelled wrong), check out TheInsider's re-run of a hacktastic blog's rundown of the entire matter:

Admit it, you’ve seen the show go off the deep end once they took away every funny comic and left us with the creepy and strangely hairy Paul. You probably even stopped watching entirely because every joke he delivered was as bad as his wardrobe choices.

Ouch! Bonus: TheInsider carried the misspelling over to their re-run! Complete with a graphic that spells his name correctly! (Knowing Tompkins, that probably pissed him off more than any cracks about his relative hairiness!)

David Letterman got himself into some hot water the other night. He made a joke about Sarah Palin's daughter. The Alaska governor and her daughter attended a Yankees game earlier in the week and the Late Show host used the occasion to make a crude joke about the daughter being "knocked up by Alex Rodriguez." (There were other sexually-charged jokes, aimed at the governor, but they're not the ones that have stirred so much discontent.)

Trouble with the joke (the real trouble with the joke, and the only reason why it wasn't dismissed as just more routine bile directed at the former vice-presidential candidate) is that Palin was in attendance with her 14-year-old daughter, Willow, not her 18-year-old daughter.

Oops.

The ensuing firestorm forced Letterman to apologize on his show last night (see YouTube below). And so he should have. One can make crude sexual jokes about an 18-year-old and not have to apologize. One cannot make crude sexual jokes about a minor. Not if you're the host of a network television show. (Comedians, in the proper context, can-- and often do-- make all kinds of crude references-- sexual and otherwise, about all manner of people, places and things. High-profile, network television hosts, however, are a different creature, subject to different "rules," for lack of a better term.)

The apology, however, was not much of an apology.

He never actually admitted that somewhere, somehow, somebody screwed the pooch badly-- someone got bad info and didn't realize that it was Willow in attendance, not Bristol. A crucial bit of information.

In the apology, he's defensive. Here's a crucial portion, at the beginning:

These are not jokes made about her 14-year-old daughter. I would never, never make jokes about raping or having sex of any description with a 14-year-old girl... Am I guilty of poor taste? Yes. Did I suggest that it was okay for her 14-year-old daughter to be having promiscuous sex? No.

Ah, but there is the problem: He did make that suggestion. It was a screw up. There was confusion (Was Bristol there, or was it Willow?) and the confusion resulted in a major goof.

The apology should have been swifter, should have been more forceful, should have been less defensive. It should have focused on the extremely important fact that it was mistaken identity that led him to "suggest that it was okay for her 14-year-old daughter to be having promiscuous sex."

And it could have been a lot shorter.

Instead, it was lengthy, it was smirky, it was defensive and it re-told all the controversial jokes that prompted the apology in the first place... with perhaps even more laughter from the audience than the jokes originally got.

Do we care? We do, and for one reason: Some of Letterman's defenders have used the "It was only a joke" defense. (Or the variation: "He's a comedian.")

"Only a joke" is an adequate defense 99 times out of 100. But, on rare occasions, that is not the appropriate defense. In this case, it was not so much the joke that caused the uproar, but the confusion and the error behind the joke that made it seem so utterly offensive. So, the joke doesn't need defending. The apology should be for the confusion and the ensuing misconception that it was about a minor.

We thought she was at the game with her oldest daughter, who is over 18. We apologize for the confusion. It may have seemed as though I was making a crude joke about a youngster, but believe me, that was not my intent and I am sorry if anyone was offended.

And then you go find out who wrote the gag without reading the news article clearly enough to know that it was the youngest daughter at the stadium that night, and you fire him or her.

You don't wait 24 hours then tape an 8-minute apology that repeats the joke, then basically mocks the parents for being somewhat upset that their daughter was the object of a crude joke. (No matter that the anger is over a misunderstanding, no matter how much you might despise their politics.)

It's similar (but, we stress, not an exact analogy) to the situation of a comedian who goes into the audience, gets a garbled answer from a chap in the front row and then asks, "What? Are you fucking retarded?" and it turns out that the chap is indeed retarded. What do you do?

1. Go on defense? "Hey, cut me a break! How was I supposed to know? I would never make fun of a retarded person!"

Bad strategy. Why? Because you just did make fun of a retarded person. It's best to apologize, make an excuse about the lights in your eyes and move on. Trying to bail out by being defensive is the last strategy you should try. Because getting them to squelch their initial anger (regardless of whether the perceived offense is borne of confusion or mistaken identity or bright lights), is nearly impossible. They saw what they saw, they heard what they heard. To their mind, they're right... and righteous in their indignation. They might not be as understanding as you'd like, they might be over-reacting a bit, but they're genuinely miffed.

And antagonizing them for misunderstanding your situation is an even worse strategy. You're not addressing their situation. Instead, you're pleading your case. Oh, boy! Let the fun begin.

Flint, MI, comedian/radio host Rusty Thomas hipped us to the Wikipedia entry on the term "Deadpan," because there at the bottom, under the heading of "Notable Deadpan Comedians," is none other than "Brian McKim, American stand-up comedian and writer."

Listed first, no less!

Deadpan is a form of comic delivery in which humor is presented without a change in emotion or facial expression, usually speaking in a monotonous manner.

Etymology

The term "deadpan" first emerged as an adjective or adverb in the 1920s, as a compound word combining "dead" and "pan" (a slang term for the face). It was first recorded as a noun in Vanity Fair in 1927; a dead pan was thus 'a face or facial expression displaying no emotion, animation, or humor'. The verb deadpan 'to speak, act, or utter in a deadpan manner; to maintain a dead pan' rose in the early 40s, it stems from journalism rather than theatre. Today its use is especially common in humor from the United Kingdom, Ireland, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. It is also very much appreciated in France, South Africa and Finland.

We love the fact that, among those countries where deadpan "is especially common in humor," the United States of America is not listed... which might explain why The Male Half is working only Friday (and not Saturday) this weekend.

We're thrilled that, further down the list, is Todd Barry, Mitch Hedberg, Bob Newhart, Steven Wright and Jackie Vernon! Pretty good company!

All these years, The Male Half has had to struggle against the "low energy" rap. This was laid on him by ignorant club owners and clueless bookers. It's "deadpan," you morons!

Sean L. McCarthy's Comic's Comic blog reports it here that Michael Roof, the comic popularly known as "Chicken," has died. Buzz is that Roof took his own life.

We recall that Roof made quite a splash (literally and figuratively) at the 1999 (?) Just For Laughs Festival, signing a development deal at the fest after taking a dip in the fountain on the Terasse de la Jardin at the Delta Hotel during one of the parties held there.

"Preparation, confidence and creativity can give you an edge in effectiveness," is the theme of a book aimed at CEOs, written by Roger Edward Jones, called "What Can Chief Executives Learn From Stand-Up Comedians?"

Jones doesn't strike you as someone with a comedic streak. His book's title, What Can Chief Executives Learn From Stand-Up Comedians? is not exactly a thigh-slapper. But he's got street cred. He was on the train back to his office two years ago after leading a coaching session when the thought struck him that he needed to follow his own advice and move out of his own comfort zone.

He spent the next couple of months going to live comedy gigs and studying comedians like Bill Hicks on YouTube before signing up to do a live stand-up performance himself at a local comedy club. To make sure he didn't back out, he invited 30 of his corporate clients. They all came.

We're available for any CEO retreats, seminars or refreshers. We would welcome the chance to put some execs up on the stage and whip them into comedy shape.

We have one question: If chief executives can learn so much from standup comics, why aren't more comics CEOs? (We suppose they are-- they're chief executive officers of their own corporations.)

We finally got around to watching the John Landis documentary "Mr. Warmth: The Don Rickles Project."

We urge all to watch it, even if you've seen it already.

It's the kind of movie that makes one happy to be in the entertainment business.

And we figure that if every comic in America watches it between now and Friday, the shows in each and every comedy club and college and country club and private function will be that much better because the comedian mounting the stage will feel as though he's part of something vast and timeless and special.

It's on Hulu.com and it's free. Fire up the web browser, pop the popcorn, and click here.

Here's the last graf from Dee's UK Guardian review of Comedy 104 (from Topeka, KS, via the internet):

You'd be hard pressed to find a radio format less conducive to carrying on with your normal life to than a relentless attack of standup comedians. It doesn't work with writing (well, typing), it doesn't work with washing-up or gardening. In fact, the only thing listening to standup comedy works with is drinking. The laughter and cackling of a room full of drunks in some 80s New York club is an odd juxtaposition when you're listening in daylight, going about your everyday crap – it's like a little window into some hellish universe where people have got nothing better to do with their time than lounge around all night laughing their crazy heads off like it's the first time they've ever heard a grown man say the word "cock". I'm going to have to spend the whole of tomorrow with Classic FM to cleanse my soul.

Not so sure it's a good review. It's like sending a vegan to review a steakhouse.

Women are "are exposed to less comedy," "instructed to be demure" and "are often turned off by open-mic nights."

A transcript of the lastest public appearance by Jerry Lewis?

Quotes from a June 1962 Look magazine, perhaps?

No and no! It's an article in yesterday's Chicago Tribune on Chicago comic Cameron Esposito's comedy finishing school called Feminine Comique.

We can see why womyn would be turned off by open mike nights. Let's let Ashley Vinson, a "thirtysomething executive producer at an ad agency" tell us why:

It was a bunch of 22-year-old guys in the audience. One guy got up there and did eight minutes about poo. I talked about my emotions.

You see, men (or "guys," if you're not interested in treating them seriously) are all icky and snickery and they talk about the wrong things. And they only like to hear other "guys" talk about icky things, so they can snicker a lot.

Women, on the other hand, are sensitive and they like to talk about their emotions. (But they apparently still have trouble telling reporters from the Chicago Tribune their real ages... hmmm... curious.)

Everybody's gotta have an angle to sell their product. Cameron Esposito is no different, we suppose. (And we praised her quotes from an article in Chicago Time Out back in January on the Windy City's "LGBT" comedy scene. Hers were the only sane ones!)

But surely a womyn-only class on standup can get the point across (and get some enrollees through the door) without resorting to such fiction as is quoted at the outset of this posting.

Women are exposed to less comedy? "Scan the crowd at the next comedy show you attend," urges Esposito and author Chris McNamara. Oh, really? We've scanned the crowd at all the comedy shows we've "attended," and we'd have to say that the vast majority of them are packed with just about an even number of men and women. Only rarely is the audience one gender or another. We're not buying Esposito's nonsense about "exposure to comedy and gender norms."

Last time we looked, women were allowed to own (and watch) a television. And we hear some of them are allowed (in certain states) to hook those TV's up to cable! Satellites, even! (And we hear that some of the bolder females in some of the more promiscuous states in America were purchasing VCR's and DVD players and-- Gasp!-- renting videos and DVD's! But you didn't hear it here! Others, risking certain execution in the middle of the local soccer pitch, were using Tivo!)

Tom Rhodes is making travel videos again. We were first aware of his "Tom Rhodes Rhode Scholar" travelogues a while back when we saw his brief account of a trip to Arizona.

His latest is a tour of Rome.



While it lacks the production values of his previous videos of Dublin, Dayton, Paris, Berlin and a few dozen others, it's still interesting and it's a good dose of raw Rhodes as he acts as a wiseguy tourguide (a wiseguide?) through the ancient Italian capital.

Hop onto his Kingofhaha Youtube channel and check them all out.

The "computational knowledge engine" known as Wolfram Alpha has made quite a splash among eggheads the past few weeks. (We saw a couple online articles a few weeks back when it was launched and we heard an interview with the creator, Stephen Wolfram on a computer show on KFI in Los Angeles during a May 16 drive through the Mojave.)

It's a fancy search engine and it's being hailed as the next big thing. That's right, it's a thing... and it's big. It's supposed to out-Google Google by a factor of... a googol.

Anyway, we got a URL dropped into our inbox by FOS Aaron Ward (who, by this time, might be considered some sort of contributing editor) that linked to a page on Gizmodo that was titled, "Wolfram Alpha is actually a frustrated standup comedian." The page contains a dozen or so examples of screen shots that resulted from some wiseguys out there trying to elicit wacky responses from the much ballyhooed search engine. Some of the responses are odd, some are funny.

Actually we concluded, after reading a few of the responses, that W-A isn't so much a frustrated comic as much as he/it is merely subject to an extraordinary amount of... heckling.

That's pretty much what the back-and-forth on Gizmodo reminds us of. "Audience members" throwing anything it can at the overly-hyped, bubble-brained know-it-all application, trying to get a laugh at its expense.

It also reminds us of how Mark Twain or other of his contemporaries might have felt when they brought their "act" to less sophisticated backwater venues in the days before radio, when the lecture circuit was one way of bringing the message to the masses. We have no doubt that Twain and others might have been besieged with a fair amount of taunts and wisecracks in an attempt to rattle.

In most cases, it seems, Wolfram Alpha did just fine. And we don't anticipate any backlash from the even-tempered answer-bot.

Yeee-OWCH! But mandatory reading!

Her setup:

Which is worse? Network execs too scared to change a successful formula. Or network execs too willing to turn everything on its head. It's clear that Conan's version of NBC's cash cow The Tonight Show is just more of the same old/same old. And that's how O'Brien's longtime exec producer Jeff Ross and boss Jeff Zucker want it. But while they were golfing together this weekend in a foursome at Riviera Country Club (Ross, who just moved out here, is the better player, while Zucker has a 14 handicap and can barely keep up), they both worried how to prevent primetime's The Jay Leno Show from cannibalizing Conan's late night show this fall. And my info is that it's already getting ugly.

Read the rest.

Okay... this is twice in one month that we've linked to Nikki Finke and actually agreed with some of what she's written. (Only remarkable because we've called her all sorts of awful names in the past.)

We like her advice. And we especially like this:

Zucker and Silverman keep spinning how NBC is now the Comedy Network. Fine, then make The Jay Leno Show into the Comedy Hour, not the Talking Heads Hour. Yes, Leno is so insecure that he abandoned The Tonight Show's long and noble tradition under Johnny Carson of spotlighting the kind of raw stand-up talent who went on to become household names: Jerry Seinfeld, Roseanne Barr, Garry Shandling, Drew Carey, Louie Anderson, Steven Wright, Rita Rudner, Gallagher. (Well, everyone but him...) Bring back that segment. Lengthen it. Reassure Jay that this isn't an audition for his hosting spot in 2012.

Okay, we could do without the gratuitous Gallagher dig, but you get the point.

And we like how she advises the producers of the show to raid the talent of other shows on NBC and its competitors to come in and do skits and appearances and videos for a week at a shot-- "These young and old and quirky types will be like swigs of Red Bull for the mainstream audience." Did she say "old?" Talk about thinking outside the box! This kind of talk could get her killed.

Okay, a lot of what Finke is saying might be total horseshit. It wouldn't be the first time she "amplified" something to grab unique visitors-- its part of what she does. And she is way too hard on Leno (and a bit too effusive in her praise of Don Ohlmeyer). But we have been speculating for some time that Leno dropping into primetime might have a positive effect on standup comics... especially standup comics with a bit of experience. As the majors compete with cable and gaming and the internet, the demo narrows and sharpens into somewhat more... experienced viewers. (Nothing like CBS, though-- they're acknowledged in the industry to be the one net that specializes in old people and their parents.)

So... it oughta be interesting to see how the new show in the new time slot, with the paranoid suits influences the booking policy and the sensibilities of the new show.

(Choose carefully which of Finke's commenters to read fully... some of them are just atrocious!)

Here's the transcript of a radio report on a controversy created when Australian TV comedy sketch team "The Chasers" did a bit about "Make a Realistic Wish Foundation" that helps thousands of children "lower their extravagance and selfishness in the face of death." Pretty funny, actually... unless you've got a kid that's dying of cancer and you're watching the show and that particular sketch comes on. Talk about bad timing!

Anyway, folks wrote all sorts of letters and complained to the TV network. And the sketch was cut out of subsequent re-airings (and out of the internet version of the show). Even Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd has chimed in to condemn the actors.

One letter writer called for "Suspension of their contact for the year. Go away, get some perspective. Visit a third world country. Visit some hospitals."

This is what sticks in our craw: Why do folks think that a comedian who makes a joke (an obviously sick one, as this is) is totally unaware of just how offensive the joke is? How moronic does one have to be to think that The Chasers are totally unaware of the misery of folks in the Third World? What kind of idiot thinks that such jokes are made from a lack of perspective?

It is perspective that draws the comedian toward the gag in the first place-- he sees the suffering, he imagines the exact opposite reaction to said suffering and then he crafts a joke that will stir an outrageous reaction and, if all goes well, an uproarious laugh. And he does so knowing full well that, for some, the joke might just hit a little too close to home. (As was the case with the parents sitting at home watching with a cancer-ridden tot by their side.)

Of course, the letter writers have the right to write letters and demand an apology and demand a suspension.

But re-education is not what is called for here.

To call for visits to hospitals for a hiatus to gather &qout;perspective" is to demonstrate a lamentable failure to understand just how a black humorist operates and what motivates him.

Comic and writer Dave Bloustein says:

It's difficult to tell someone they should stay away from any taboos in comedy, particularly subversive political comedy like The Chaser where ideally you want them to tackle golden cows of all shapes and sizes. I guess the problem is with political comedy in particular, you've always got to wonder who the target is and preferably you want it to be a powerful target that can be torn down. And I guess the question is, is if the target in this situation is sick children then they're not necessarily a particularly empowered target.

Yes, but, this isn't a case of political humor. It's dark or "sick" or "black" comedy. Calling it political (and designating the dying kids as "targets") misses the point of the gag. If there is any target, it's Death. If there is any point, it is to be outrageous while finding just the smallest bit of humor in one of the most tragic of situations in existence. It is, quite literally, laughing in the face of death. A time-honored tradition.

It is instructive to occasionally remind ourselves how others perceive us, how non-comedians view what we do. This column, from a northern New England news service website, is authored by Shawn P. Sullivan and it contains his musings on the nature of standup on the occasion of seeing Seinfeld perform at a theater in Maine.

I paused for a moment because when I looked at the stage and saw the microphone I realized that's all that was there.

A person giving a speech or a lecture likely has a podium. A singer has a band and instruments. An actor has props and a set, and he can hide behind a role, makeup and a costume.

A comedian, though? He's got that microphone, and that's it. He's got no place to hide — especially since he's playing himself.

Imagine the confidence it must take to get up in front of people and try to make them laugh for 90 minutes straight. That's what I thought when I saw the microphone. I got those butterflies in much the same way you get them when you imagine what it would be like to skydive or bungee-jump.

Sullivan vacillates between one who is mystified by standup and one who is an expert on standup, saying that bad comics-- "gimmicky and insecure ones who choose easy targets, rip off material and drop one F-bomb too many — are to be avoided." Huh? Gimmicky? Insecure? Rip off material? How many "F-bombs" is too many? Perhaps this imaginary "bad comic" is actually a good comic, he's just not your cup of tee-hee. There are, when all is said and done, precious few objectively "bad comics." As Gary Muledeer (a very good comic) famously said, quoting his grandfather, "If we all liked the same thing, everybody'd be after your grandmother."

Later in the piece, he mentions how "My friend Steve down in Massachusetts is a professional comedian," but he never mentions Steve's last name! C'mon! He's a comedian! He could use the ink! (Is it Sweeney? Could be.) What? Are you afraid you'd violate his privacy by mentioning his last name? Sheesh!

We received a few emails trying to assuage our anxiety over the demise of ABC's Better Off Ted, one of the funniest sitcoms in a long time. FOS Alan Kaye sends along word that the remaining eight episodes of B.O.T. will air this summer. Warm up the VCR, or the Tivo... or the Happauge HVR 950Q!

A Reuters article says that Japanese government officials hope that standup comedy "will soften the stiff image of bureaucrats." American bureaucrats are pretty rigid and humorless, can you imagine Japanese drones?

More than 100 transport ministry officials in their 20s got tips this week from professional comedians as part of training in communication skills.

Good luck with that.