This is going to be a stellar weekend of comedy. The TBS "Just For Laughs" festival is happening all over Chicago this weekend. (Not really sure why this event got organized. I guess just for laughs.)
Tonight I'm seeing Brick, a highly acclaimed (and somewhat disbanded?) Chicago sketch comedy group. Sunday it's Michael Showalter, of The State, Stella and (my favorite) The Baxter.
But the coup of grace really happens on Sunday at the Bob Odenkirk and David Cross and Friends and me in the audience show. Aside from an actual Beatles reunion show where John and George were raised from the dead, there is no live show more worth seeing than this one. Just in case anyone who reads this blog is uninitiated to Bob and David, here is a classic Mr. Show sketch.
Here's another picture of Bob Odenkirk with a passerby. (Bob is the white guy who is smiling.)
I'm leaving today for a 4-day conference in Sioux Falls, SD. I have no idea what there is to do in Sioux Falls, so I will probably spend my evenings watching TV. In honor of all the video I'm going to be watching, enjoy this short video from Liam Lynch.
What happens when you throw 18 actors all on one stage, jam them into uncomfortable positions, and bounce them off of each other until they don't know whether they are going forward or backward? RvD will show you! And no matter what happens, the experiments won’t stop until you look over your shoulder and shout "¡Run, palindrome, nuR!"
Fridays at 7:30 p.m. April 24th through May 22nd
Donny’s Skybox Theatre 1608 North Wells Street Chicago, Illinois
TICKETS $12 General Admission $10 Students $6 Training Center Students By phone: 312-337-3992 Or on the web at The Second City Box Office Written and Directed by Robot vs. Dinosaur
Featuring: Sugar Babe Mike Bauman Zoe Daniels Chip Davis Jules Duffy Courtney Fontaine Anthony Greene Susie Gutowski Martha Hearn Claudia Henao George Hubbard Jr. Andrew Kraft Jim McDoniel Bethany Remely Sarah Shockey Connor Tillman Mary Cait Walthall Douglas Werder
For the uninitiated, Bob and Ray were a great radio comedy duo whose career spanned from 1946 - 1987. Listening to their material now, a lot of it is still "ahead of its time", although they're primarily spoofing shows that have been long forgotten.
Below is one of my very favorite Bob and Ray spoofs, a fake episode of a fake show called "Just Fancy Dan: The Plain Barber of Hartsdale." (Sorry for the crappy quality and the Microsoft signature "ding" towards the end. I couldn't figure out how to simply upload an mp3 except through this means.)
Radio feels to me like a once-great medium that is falling by the wayside. For many the use of a radio seems to be to hear a few songs sandwiched into 20-minute commercial breaks, or to listen to someone of your political leaning spew their opinions at you. By and large, very little happening in the way of innovation. However, with podcasting, it is easier now to find those shows that are doing interesting comedy.
A couple recommendations:
"Seven Second Delay" on WFMU, a freeform radio station out of Jersey City, calls itself "Stunt radio which subjects the radio audience to concepts and topics which mature adults should not have to endure." Each week they pick a new goal or theme or gimmick, and then spend an hour with that topic. Some classics are:
The Electroshock Show -- The hosts, Ken and Andy, recreate the famous Milgram experiment which tests the willingness of participants to obey authority. Ken and Andy take turns calling non-listeners and try to convince them to press a key on their phone which will automatically administer an electric shock to the other. Hilarity ensues.
The Toll Booth Show -- In which they ask callers on the New Jersey Turnpike to go to one specific toll booth and remark to the toll operator that they saw a UFO about a mile back. Hilarity ensues.
The Make You Say No Game -- In which Andy spends the entire hour challenging people on the street to talk to him for two minutes and try to avoid using the words "no" or "know". Sound boring? Think again, because hilarity ensues.
Reuniting The Beatles -- Which is too recent to be a classic, but I put it out there as a point of pride, because I know the guy who provided the original idea.
While I haven't listened much to "The New Phil Hendrie Show", his former show, which had a much different format, is nothing short of genius. Phil did a daily 3-hour show and spent much of that time interviewing dozens of characters (male, female, all different ages and ethnicities) that he also created and voiced--characters who were convincing enough to fool thousands of talk-radio listeners into calling up and getting into long, ridiculous debates with them. You have to pay $6.99 to register to access the site, but I don't think you'll feel let down. Go to the Character Clips section and listen to anything by Bobbie Dooley, Steve Bosell, Jim Sadler, or Don Parsley to get your money's worth. There's always a free clip posted on the site, although it's not always the best material. Just scroll down until you see it in the left-hand column. (The title for this post is stolen from the tagline of Phil Hendrie's show.)
The Saga of the Viking Women and their Voyage to the Waters of the Great Sea Serpent as Performed by the Inmates of the Asylum of Charenton under the Direction of The Great Sea Serpent
