On this date in 1963, the most influential comedy theater to ever emerge out of the Bay Area -
The Committee - opened its doors at 622 Broadway in North Beach. Thus began a full decade of widespread cultural influence, with multiple studio albums, appearances on The Tonight Show and The Dick Cavett Show, and a feature film. The Committee's provocative and confrontational style, influenced equally by Chicago's Second City and the radical politics of the era, set the stage for much of the comedy to follow. The Groundlings was a direct descendents (Gary Austin came from Committee workshops) and the improv structure known as Harold, basic arithmetic in the halls of IO and the Upright Citizens Brigage, was birthed at The Committee under the direction of Del Close.
To celebrate this anniversary, I'd like to present a
recently unearthed recording of their Satirathon from 1968, from the archives of the late Peter Bergman. Featuring, among others, Garry Goodrow, Carl Gottlieb, and Chris "The Egg" Ross, an improv genius who succumbed to an overdose, in 1970, at the age of 25.
posted by mcgordonliddy
on Apr 10, 2013 -
4 comments
"There are plenty of reasons to recover from addiction, anxiety, depression, and trauma....But comedians are perverse people who often don't care about any of those things. So maybe this will convince them, and maybe this will convince me: get better — so you can get funny."
In a frank, personal, and revealing article, essayist Jaime Lutz interviews comedians
Marc Maron,
Eddie Pepitone,
Paul Gilmartin, and
Anthony Atamanuik about the uneasy relationship between mental illness and comedy.
posted by scarylarry
on Dec 14, 2012 -
9 comments
One of New Zealand's greatest-ever exports of experimental music,
The Dead C. have built a huge catalog of challenging "rock" music over the last 25 years that offers massively dosed
psychedelic excess, improvised all-night flights, blistering free noise and deconstruction of
blazing garage punk for adventurous listeners. They've cheekily called themselves "The
AMM of punk rock" and it's not far from the truth. Their high-water mark -- the double-LP
Harsh 70s Reality -- has reached twentieth anniversary status and has just been
reissued on vinyl by legendary US imprint
Siltbreeze, restoring a few cuts that didn't make it to the late 1990s CD re-release and offering this fearless free music to a new generation of fans.
[more inside]
posted by porn in the woods
on Oct 23, 2012 -
24 comments
Years after its final broadcast, the award-winning, pond-hopping, cult comedy hit
Whose Line is it Anyway? is returning to television! Sort of! Tonight in just a few minutes,
Drew Carey's Improv-A-Ganza (
promo,
sample segment) makes its debut on GSN, reuniting Carey with popular "Whosers" Ryan Stiles, Colin Mochrie, Greg Proops, Brad Sherwood, Wayne Brady, and
many more. Though the show will air every weekday, you don't have to wait around for new episodes to get your improv fix -- in spite of the lack of DVD box sets, there's a veritable treasure trove of past content available free from multiple online sources, including
the complete run of the American Whose Line on both YouTube and
fansite WatchWLIIA along with
every episode of the original UK run from Channel4's official YouTube channel and
their streaming video site 4oD. Too much content? Look inside for selections of the show's most hilarious moments as sampled from
the show's burgeoning TVTropes entry. See also:
Fan guide -
American episode guide (
UK version) -
List of game types [more inside]
posted by Rhaomi
on Apr 11, 2011 -
49 comments
ImprovEverywhere has a gallery opening in the New York Subway. "In the course of making the art labels, the mundane stuff of the platform really did become weirdly compelling and beautiful. I wasn’t sure if everyone else would have that experience, or if we would be busy consciously pretending that these random objects were art. In the course of the event, some other friends who came made brilliant observations about the pieces that helped bring my mindset firmly back into of-course-this-is-art, rather than viewing the subway as a collection of quick fixes over time. It’s wonderful how we can decide to create a collective reality, and how it can sometimes catch us up within itself. I’m glad other folks also got caught up in "Wow.. This might really be art!", and that some non-agents got such a kick out of it!"
posted by Kattullus
on Mar 18, 2009 -
50 comments
Eddie destroys the ship. Ron Moore's Battlestar Galactica
podcasts have been discussed before, but the
most recent one contains a gem. At the end of the episode
Maelstrom,
Edward James Olmos ("Eddie" to his friends on the set) lashes out in an unscripted, improvised, emotional moment, destroying a sailing ship model that had been a frequent prop on the set. Turns out the ship ...
ahem ... wasn't a prop, but an extremely valuable museum piece.
posted by frogan
on Mar 6, 2007 -
79 comments
The Night Andy Kaufman Sabotaged After
Michael Richards flipped out at the Laugh Factory, some
speculated that Kramer had an "Andy Kaufman moment" gone horribly wrong, but did you know that Richards was once a target of Kaufman's humor himself? On February 20, 1981,
Andy Kaufman hosted ABC's late night comedy show,
Fridays , but refused to stay on script during the live Broadcast. After deliberately blowing lines in several sketches, Kaufman
instigated a fight during one sketch, by
pouring water on Fridays cast member, Michael Richards. The next year, ratings for Fridays were so low that they
asked Kaufman to host a second time to boost ratings. (More inside.)
posted by jonp72
on Nov 23, 2006 -
59 comments
Look up more -
Improv Everywhere has been mentioned
before but this latest mission is the largest yet. After reading about it here, I wonder how many people signed up for the NYC list? Were there any other MeFites there? I was window 39...
posted by xmod2
on Mar 23, 2005 -
11 comments
< earshot >
Live improvisation with digital audio. Play, loop and compose with multiple sound file formats, including:
wav, aif, aiff, aifc, mov, au, mid, mp3, swa, mpg, mpeg, snd... Found while Googlifying for links to the currently tanked Johnny Spencer's
'vanity site' directed towards fans of Black popular music c1940's to 1970's. I have not a clue as to the what or why of it but thought the teeming geeky horde might. Provided for your consumer testing.
posted by y2karl
on Jun 27, 2003 -
6 comments
