Reflections on how far we’ve come, how far we have yet to go for justice in comedy
Our top stories of the week aren’t for the weak as we close out 2022!
G.R.E.T.A.
The most discussed and liked joke of the week belongs not to a comedian, but to a 19-year-old Swedish environmental activist, clapping back at a 36-year-old former kickboxer and alleged grifter and human trafficker. Make that jokes, plural.
Greta Thunberg turns 20 in a few days, but she has given Elon Musk’s Twitter more engagement than he even dreamed of, with two of the most-liked Tweets ever (3.8 million and counting for her Dec. 28 reply to Andrew Tate, and then 3.4 million+ for her follow-up after Tate’s arrest in Romania, charged with human trafficking violations, just hours after his video posting with a Romanian pizza chain — Jerry’s Pizza — in plain sight).
ZING!
Adding to the delicious ironies, the European group advocating action against human trafficking already carries the acronym: GRETA.
It’s all-too symbolic, too, for 20-2-2 and where the comedy industry stands, or continues to wobble, in the face of so much evidence of too too many bad men in comedy (and show-business, and politics, and business, but we’re in the business of producing a comedy newsletter, so let’s stick to our wheelhouse for now).
Exhibit A: Jeff Ross Roasts Texas Criminal Into Death Row Sentence?!?
Also this week, defense attorney McKenzie Edwards announced she’d petitioned the U.S. Supreme Court on behalf of her client, Gabriel Hall, sentenced to death in Texas based on video footage from a 2015 Comedy Central, Jeff Ross Roasts Criminals: Live at Brazos County Jail. Including footage that didn’t even air?!
At the heart of the appeal, Hall’s attorneys had instructed the Brazos County Sheriff to stop ANYONE from talking to him without their permission, and Ross’s Roast violated that. Previously: In 2019, the Austin American-Statesman had covered the case, noting then: “The footage of Hall never made it into “Jeff Ross Roasts Criminals: Live at Brazos County Jail,” but it did get played for a different audience — the 12 jurors who found Hall guilty of capital murder. They then had to choose between sentencing him to death or life in prison without parole during the punishment phase of his 2015 trial.”
This bizarre turn of events reminded Ross-haters that the comedian found himself in legally troubling waters back in 2020.
That’s when a woman came forward in a Vulture interview, alleging she’d been in a relationship with Ross two decades earlier when she was only 15. Ross not only vehemently denied her allegations — his statement from June 2020 read “Let me be clear. These disgusting allegations asserted against me are absolutely not true. I have never engaged in any sexual relationship with a minor.” — but also had his lawyer go public with threats of a defamation countersuit that November.
Curiously, there are no actual current or past filings on behalf of either Ross or his accuser in the New York court databases. So, yeah. Looks like either he scared her off or paid her off?
Exhibits B and C: Bill Cosby
Bill Cosby spoke with Scott Spears this week on his WGH-AM “Money Talk” radio program in Virginia and vowed to return to stand-up touring in 2023. Really? Really??!
“When I come out of this, I feel that I will be able to perform and be the Bill Cosby that my audience knows me to be,” the 85-year-old comedian and convicted sexual predator said. (His 2023 predictions come 16 minutes into that 22-minute clip above) Cosby’s rep, Andrew Wyatt, confirmed to Variety that the comedian is “looking at spring/summer to start touring.”
Cosby served almost three years in prison before the Pennsylvania Supreme Court overturned his sentence, freeing him thanks to a technicality, or rather an oral promise by a prior prosecuting attorney to leave Cosby alone.
Earlier this month, five women filed a new suit in New York (under a state law temporarily suspending the statute of limitations for sexual assault claims during a six-month window), and just this week, TMZ reported on a sixth woman, who alleges Cosby drugged and raped her in 1986 after luring her to his sitcom set, dinner and a hotel room under the pretenses of helping her career.
WE STILL NEED TO TALK ABOUT COSBY, APPARENTLY
Exhibits B & C as in Bryan Callen
Bryan Callen is performing tonight in Boston, next weekend in San Diego, and has a March 2023 date on the books for Sony Hall in Times Square.
This despite a 2020 Los Angeles Times expose with four women accusing Callen of rape and other sexual misconduct. In 2021, the LAT reported that Callen attempted to countersue the husband of one of his accusers, before later dropping that countersuit.
One of the projects that went away, though, was a Netflix prank show Callen had intended to star in along with comedian/actor Chris D’Elia.
Exhibit D, as in D’Elia
In case you didn’t read last week’s comedy news dispatch here, Chris D’Elia most recently starred in a documentary expose on how he’s apparently still preying on young women and teen girls outside of his marriage.
D’Elia’s actual YouTube channel — I kid you not — is called Supercult. With 595,000 subscribers, even? He’s also gigging in San Diego next weekend — HOW CONVENIENT FOR HIM AND CALLEN — and still getting booked at the Hollywood Improv.
This video from comedian Kyle Anderson now has more than 378,000 views in 10 days.
D’Elia, meanwhile, was singing “Silver Bells” topless for his Instagram followers this Christmas.
Ho. Ho. Ho.
Exhibits H, S, N, and L
Hey, whatever happened to that bombshell lawsuit by “Jane Doe” against Horatio Sanz, and by extension Jimmy Fallon, Lorne Michaels and Saturday Night Live? Glad I asked!
Her Tort-Child Victims Act case, which dated back to her being a teenaged fan of SNL whose fan site not only attracted the attention of Sanz and Fallon while they were cast members, but also allegedly spurred them to invite her to afterparties and wound up with Sanz allegedly taking advantage of her sexually, and years later apologizing to her about it? Yeah, that case.
Looks it got settled out of court, as this Nov. 23 stipulation filed with the New York Supreme Court ended the case by dismissing her claims “with prejudice.”
Industry News
P.S. on South Park…hot on the holiday heels of Matt Stone and Trey Parker getting megabucks for their deep-fake projects, they’ve revealed a deeply real project: Reopening Colorado Mexican restaurant Casa Bonita!
PBS, meanwhile, released a new documentary: American Masters: Groucho & Cavett, on the relationship between late comedy legend Groucho Marx and legendary talk-show host Dick Cavett. Find it online or via a PBS station near you!
Fun Things To Do In NYC
This week’s show(s) I plugged in The New York Times: Jenny Gorelick’s New Years Eve comedy party and variety show at Union Hall in Park Slope, Brooklyn. Tonight’s also the last dance for Carolines on Broadway — although that really was last night with headliner Dave Attell, as the NYE situation in Carolines is tough even without the lease ending tonight because Times Square gets gated up for the rowdy revelers.
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Thanks for reading!
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