At least the week of Jan. 30-Feb. 5, 2023, gave us funny videos to watch and share!
Last things first, so to speak: Welcome to my new subscribers! Whether or not you received an email solicitation from me (my first attempt at a self-distributed mass email ever?!?) or you found Piffany through the Substack recommendations and algorithms, or even got here through serendipity…welcome! And thank you! Your support means so much to me.
Our top story in the world of comedy from last week…
Dave Chappelle 4-4 On Grammys-Netflix Releases
On Sunday, Dave Chappelle won his fourth Grammy Award for Comedy Album of the Year, this time for The Closer. Each of his six Netflix specials have won him Grammys now (his 2018 and 2019 wins recognized double-features), and his only nomination that has resulted in loss came last year, when his YouTube release 8:46 was packaged on vinyl with poet Amir Sulaiman on the B side and therefore slotted into the Spoken Word Album category, where Don Cheadle took the Grammy for narrating an audiobook by the late great John Lewis.
At any rate. Say what you will about The Closer. Perhaps a charitable assessment sees it as Chappelle’s argument that civil rights in America is a zero-sum game, so any gain for trans people results in a loss for black people? I don’t know what he’s thinking. Not that I haven’t tried to make sense of Chappelle’s own trans-formation, as well as the never-ending baffling nature of Grammy voters. In this very space, even.
One thing’s for certain. Nobody has ever accused the Recording Academy’s voters of being “woke.” Also, not for nothing, but this is the second consecutive year that the Grammys have invited perhaps the most deserving Comedy Album nominee to participate in the pre-telecast awards ceremony, only to snub them in their category. My apologies on behalf of the Recording Academy to Nate Bargatze last year, and Randy Rainbow this year. Another thing’s for certain: The Recording Academy doesn’t actually care about or listen to actual comedy albums. The category remains dominated by “albums” adapted from performances originally and solely intended for video consumption. So my apologies, again, on behalf of the academy to all of the comedians valiantly joking into the void with their actual audio album releases.
Gone Viral
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So far, so good? Staged or unstaged, as it were, Austin Black is enjoying his moment! The original TikTok from The Laugh Factory in Chicago, where Black performs with the group So Far So Good, has more than a half-million views since going up on Friday, but millions more via Twitter. It’s meant to look like he’s an open mic guy flailing into the void, as it were, in an almost empty club.
Mark Your Calendars
April Fool’s Day, Whitney Cummings is putting out the Roast of Bert Kreischer for free on her OnlyFans account? Here’s the teaser:
In Memoriam
R.I.P. to Robert Orben, the prolific comedy writer who began publishing reference books while still a teenager, eventually sent jokes via actual print newsletters, wrote for Red Skelton and was even a speechwriter for Gerald Ford. Orben was 95. Here’s a piece Drew Friedman wrote about Orben back in 2014.
Also R.I.P. to Terry Taylor. Taylor died last week as a result of injuries from a car accident. He was an assistant coach for a high-school basketball team in Magna, Utah (part of the Salt Lake City metro area), but for comedy people, he used to be the longtime owner, booker, bartender, MC at Giggles Comedy Club in Seattle’s University District. It’s now home to Laughs Comedy Club. As someone who started my own comedy career in Seattle in the 1990s, I had mixed feelings about the guy, the way he ran his club and the way he treated comedians.
FILE UNDER: TOO SOON….? OR JUST IN TIME?
has a heartbreaking take on “ongoing tragedy” Andy Dick.
Meanwhile, Steve-O openly pleaded with Bam Margera to get help via Instagram comments. They’ve both since deleted their comments, but Steve-O had taken Bam with him on tour last month in hopes of keeping him clean and sober and alive.
Industry News and Notes
I would’ve told you more about that AI-inspired reboot of Seinfeld that generated hundreds of thousands of Twitch followers last week, but when I went to link it for you this morning, the Twitch account @watchmeforever was down. Why? “This channel is temporarily unavailable due to a violation of Twitch’s Community Guidelines or Terms of Service.” Forever doesn’t mean what it used to!
ICYMI: Did you see Variety talked to big-time comedy agent Mike Berkowitz?
Trevor Noah’s Day Zero Productions has hired friend of the site Chloe Ifshin as VP of Scripted Television and Eugene Han as Head of Unscripted Development. Congrats Chloe!
Former Whitest Kid U Know Zach Cregger, hot off of his horror flick Barbarian, inspired a bidding war for his second feature, which has landed at New Line. Word is the bidding war upset Jordan Peele, who wanted to produce Cregger’s film, but now instead no longer has the same reps as Cregger?
Rebooting old sitcom IP? Good for business, apparently! NBC has renewed Night Court for a second season, Netflix has renewed That 90s Show for a second season, and Hulu has ordered a revival of King of the Hill with the original cast and creators. The animated series is coming back for a 14th season, and will star original voice talent Mike Judge, Kathy Najimy, Stephen Root, Pamela Adlon, Johnny Hardwick and Lauren Tom. The reboot has been in the works since the 2017 San Francisco Sketchfest, which celebrated the show’s 20th anniversary.
Renewing Reboot, a meta commentary on same? Not so much. Hulu cancelled this show after only one season.
Otherwise continuing in development or operations:
Family Feud with Steve Harvey as host will keep going through at least 2025-26
FOX’s upcoming Animal Control cast now includes Maria Gabriela de Faría alongside Joel McHale, Vella Lovell, Ravi Patel, Michael Rowland, Grace Palmer, Gerry Dee, Kelli Ogmundson, and Alvina August.
FOX also is developing Rock Camp, a single-cam from Steve Basilone, Jeff Rowe and David Fishof, founder of Rock and Roll Fantasy Camp. That checks out.
Also at FOX, potentially: A multi-cam starring Patricia Heaton, with Carol Leifer and Andy Gordon writing about her as a take on Martha Stewart, only if after her prison sentence, she wasn’t still rich and instead had to go live with her sister in Tennessee.
Last week was FOX Week: They’re also developing a single-cam, Guards, with comedian Nore Davis and writer Crystal Jenkins attached, about security guards at a gated community.
Over at Amazon…they’re developing a single-cam for Anthony Anderson as a Miraculous car salesman; they also acquired rights to Peter Farrelly’s next film, Ricky Stanicky, which stars John Cena, Jermaine Fowler and Zac Efron.
And Will Smith and Martin Lawrence have announced they’ll team up once again for a FOURTH Bad Boys flick. Insert slap-happy cops joke here.
Last Week’s Specials
New on Amazon Originals
Nate Bargatze: Hello World! (read my review in Decider)
New on YouTube (self-released unless otherwise noted; excluding old specials released on the platform, and anything under a half-hour)
Seaton Smith: Live At Madison Square Garden (opening for John Mulaney)
Faris Hytiaa: Send Help (via Storyhive)
Brandon Brickz: Live at The Comedy Store (via Four by Three)
Rodney Norman, A.J. Hapenny and Terron Jackson: Stand-Up For 22 (via The Minus 22 Foundation)
B.T.: Just Try (via Helium Comedy Studios)
Sylas Szabolcs: They Said There Would Be Jobs ROMANIAN IN GLASGOW
New on Amazon (for rent/sale)
Steve Hofstetter: The Recipe (currently unavailable in the U.S., tho???)
THIS WEEK: 17 (Previous subtotal: 28) Running total for 2023: 45 stand-up specials!
P.S. In another reminder that the comedy industry lacks cohesion or standards, it’s not entirely easy to keep up with the increasing output of self-released comedy specials — or even those distributed by labels or production studios — because neither the streaming platforms nor the artists nor the studios adhere to any reasonable standard to find them. I’m using three different search methods on YouTube to try to catch ‘em all. Amazon has no comedy-specific category, and for whatever reason, my search for new comedy specials on Amazon doesn’t even turn up their own new Original from Bargatze?!? Moreover, the Too Much Comedy era also means plenty of comedians are flooding the spaces with their old specials, hoping to catch a second wave, or with repackaged clips.
Late-Night Roundup
Jono Zalay performed on The Late Late Show with James Corden
ALSO…
Saturday Night Live enjoyed their best episode of Season 48, by far. Helped that Pedro Pascal is such an affable actor and host! (Read my recap in Decider) It felt as though the writing staff spent last week looking at old film to remember why so many of us used to love SNL, because revisiting old feelings worked out really well. Or perhaps they knew that they might not be able to rely on their editing crew much longer, as a strike may be imminent. At least two cast members wore CONTRACT NOW T-shirts during the good-nights.
After years of my complaining how they’d forgotten the greatness of “fake ads,” they went ahead and made Wing Pit, which ranks up there with Colon Blow and Taco Town. The final sketch, Lisa From Temecula, is now a new generation’s version of the infamous Debbie Downer break.
“Wing Pit” written by Streeter Seidell, Colin Jost, Jake Nordwind and Gary Richardson
“Lisa from Temecula” written by Alex English, Gary Richardson and Michael Che
Fun Things To Do In NYC
This week’s show(s) I plugged in The New York Times: There’s an embarrassment of riches to be found this month at SoHo Playhouse, largely thanks to several comedians finding rich material out of things most of us might otherwise find embarrassing.
Ophira Eisenberg’s “Leaving A Mark: A Comedy About Scars” debuted over the weekend, in which the host of the former NPR trivia show, “Ask Me Another,” gets into the gory details, emotionally and physically, behind the lingering evidence of her own bodily injuries. With special guests and audience participation each night. Also playing: Gastor Almonte Presents “The Sugar,” about coming to terms with his diabetes (9 p.m. Fridays through Feb. 17); in Sam Morrison: “Sugar Daddy,” the comedian deals with the aftermath of losing his older boyfriend to Covid-19 (7 p.m. Wednesday-Saturday through Feb. 17); and Gabe Mollica’s “Solo: A Show About Friendship” returns for the month (9 p.m., varied dates through Feb. 25).
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