Sometimes comedy illuminates hard truths with a pointed urgency that other means can’t quite achieve. Sometimes comedy is just funny. This series of posts is mostly about the former instances, but the latter is valuable, too. On this day that has been dominated by continuing discussions of the U.S. president elect’s infantile anger towards one of the undisputed heroes of the Civil Rights Movement and celebrity imbeciles offering condescending lectures on proper social discourse, I was reminded on one of Larry Wilmore’s more inspired contributions back in the day he was the “Senior Black Correspondent” on The Daily Show. And that was … Continue reading Laughing Matters: Larry Wilmore on Martin Luther King Jr.

Sometimes comedy illuminates hard truths with a pointed urgency that other means can’t quite achieve. Sometimes comedy is just funny. This series of posts is mostly about the former instances, but the latter is valuable, too. Because as much as I want to reserve this feature for slinging profundities about the hidden insights of well-crafted comedy, or simply indulge in a little nostalgic reminiscing, sometimes I just have to concede that something I’ve stumbled upon made me laugh harder than I have in ages. And so we come to white bear on the ice. Previous entries in this series can … Continue reading Laughing Matters: White Bear Mitsubishi commercial outtakes

Sometimes comedy illuminates hard truths with a pointed urgency that other means can’t quite achieve. Sometimes comedy is just funny. This series of posts is mostly about the former instances, but the latter is valuable, too. NBC programmed a lot of disasters on Friday nights in the fall of 1983, including a show about a talking orangutan and the notorious Manimal. And yet it was a show that arrived as a mid-season replacement on that night which proved to the biggest dud of them all. Amazingly, it was produced by Lorne Michaels, the creator and current producer of Saturday Night … Continue reading Laughing Matters: Steve Martin, “Billie Jean”

Sometimes comedy illuminates hard truths with a pointed urgency that other means can’t quite achieve. Sometimes comedy is just funny. This series of posts is mostly about the former instances, but the latter is valuable, too. Now, more than ever, we need the Peace Through Dramatization Players. “Shakespeare?” “Dickens?” “No, good guesses, though.” Man alive, do I miss Late Night with David Letterman. Previous entries in this series can be found by clicking on the “Laughing Matters” tag. Continue reading Laughing Matters: “Hungry Are the Damned”

Sometimes comedy illuminates hard truths with a pointed urgency that other means can’t quite achieve. Sometimes comedy is just funny. This series of posts is mostly about the former instances, but the latter is valuable, too. When I was a kid, Saturday nights were a sketch comedy goldmine. At least one robust vein is obvious: the programming night is right there in the title. Saturday Night Live endured some complicated seasons during the nineteen-eighties, but it was also the decade that saw the likes of Eddie Murphy, Billy Crystal, Martin Short, and Christopher Guest pass through Studio 8H, and all … Continue reading Laughing Matters: Monty Python’s “Argument Clinic”