From The Comic's Comic

January 2022

Comedy doesn’t have a Human Resources department, so leave it to Piffany to dole out honors and/or discipline accordingly. Piffany’s Employee of the Month for January 2022 is W. Kamau Bell. Congrats Kamau!

This month’s award points out perhaps why comedy needs an HR department!

Bell, winner of three consecutive Emmy Awards from 2017-2019 for his CNN series, United Shades of America, brings his award-winning touch on “outstanding unstructured reality programs” to Showtime for his four-part docuseries on the life and legacy of comedian Bill Cosby. We Need to Talk About Cosby premiered on Jan. 30, and even if you think you know everything or too much about the comedian and actor’s onstage credits or offstage antics, it’s a must-watch.

I’ll have more to say about the docuseries, but congrats to Bell for pulling this off, even including Cosby’s court appeal win — which coincided with the production’s final day of filming!

Honorable mentions for January include…

Quinta Brunson for her wonderful new ABC sitcom, Abbott Elementary. After a sneak preview of the pilot episode in December, Abbott Elementary has quietly grown a sizeable audience over the course of its first half-dozen weeks, quadrupling its ratings in MP35, which is TV-exec speak for multi-platform viewing within 35 days. The series premiere drew a 0.6 rating in the 18-49 demo and 2.79 million viewers in December, growing to a 2.4 rating and 7.1 million viewers after 35 days. Congrats!

Check out this clip from earlier in the week on Jimmy Kimmel Live, in which we meet the real Ms. Abbott!!!

Also making a big splash on TV in January: Bridget Everett. A longtime cabaret star in New York City who started making waves everywhere else on the comedy festival circuit as well as by playing sidekick to Amy Schumer, Everett steps out in her first big starring role on HBO’s Somebody Somewhere, which premiered Jan. 16. HBO just announced a second season for her show on Thursday. Congrats!

Last but maybe not least? The Kennedy Center announced Jon Stewart as this year’s winner of The Mark Twain Prize for American Humor. It’s a lifetime achievement award, though, so kinda apples and oranges to what we do here at Piffany each month. I’ll also have more to say about Stewart and that prize soon enough. Because there’s a lot we need to talk about there, too.

Past Piffany Employees of the Month have included: Nicole Byer (December 2021), Jackie Kashian and Laurie Kilmartin (November 2021), James Austin Johnson (October 2021), Phoebe Robinson (September 2021), Ms. Pat (August 2021), and Kevin Hart (July 2021).

Please let me know who you think should be considered for honors in January come the end of this month!