The Laugh Button

Anyone who is a fan of the hit FX show The League knows that while the cast is very much an ensemble comedy, it is the acidic quips of Rodney Ruxin, played by comedian Nick Kroll that makes the show one of the funniest on TV. Kroll is no slouch to the comedy world, performing stand-up for the better part of a decade in addition to starring in a slew of sitcoms and projects. His sardonic stand-up is complimented by his cast of characters like Bobby Bottleservice who was Jersey Shore before the Jersey Shore, and the flamboyantly fierce Fabrice Fabrice. It’s a busy week for Kroll because his first hour special Thank You Very Cool will premiere on Comedy Central this weekend (Saturday the 29th at 10 pm). We caught up with him to attempt to find out why he’s one of the funniest guys out there.

So, tell me about the new stand up special Thank You Very Cool

The idea for it was to create something that was a fair representation of all the different things that I do right now combining stand-up and characters both live on stage and on film. The goal was to make something that was a representation of the things that I found funny and to collaborate with my friends that I think are really funny, or enjoyed working with, or have always admired. The idea was to create a one man Muppet show basically.

Are their any plans to turn the special into a DVD release?

Oh definitely. It won’t come out for a while because we just shot it in November so the turnaround time was too short but their are plans for a DVD which will be loaded with a ton of other stuff because the show for-air is only forty one minutes and their is probably well over eighty minutes of material that we just couldn’t fit into the for-air special.

Have you ever thought of doing a sketch comedy show that would integrate all of your separate characters?

I always loved doing the characters and hopefully we can work somewhere towards where we can do something like that. We will see what the future holds. I think something like that would be a great opportunity to combine the characters with stand-up.

Where do your costume ideas for your different characters come from?

It all depends. Fabrice was the first live character that I did regularly and obviously he has evolved over the years. I sort of came up with costume ideas as they come and that was for everything, their language, the way they move, the way they act. They continue to evolve similar as a stand-up does. The difference is I know the way I speak but it was interesting leading up to the special it took me a while to figure out how Bobby holds a microphone. Because I just hadn’t figured it out and then literally a couple of days before I was just, “oh this is how he holds the microphone.”

Did you ever break into character unexpectedly without even realizing it?

Yeah, well right now promoting the special by doing these live Bobby appearances in New York and LA, and in Las Vegas Bobby will be appearing at the Palms Night Club and so I find moments where I will slip into it there. The other side of that is the “Oh Hello” character that me and John Mulaney do. Those evolved from us just talking like those guys in life, and we thought we should probably do something with this if we are going to talk like them all the time.

Is there a chance that you’ll get tired of any of the characters and want to retire any of them?

You know the beauty of having two different characters to play with is you work on one for a period of time and then when you get bored of him you put him on the shelf and pull another one out and it feels fresh and new. It’s like working on a set, you build up the material and then when you get it you put the majority of it away and work on the new stuff. And then you don’t do a joke for a couple of months and then you pull it back out and it makes things fun again. It’s nice to always have these kind of options available to you. It keeps everything interesting and fun.

How did you get involved with The League?

Well Jeff and Jackie [Schaffer] who created it were sitting down with various comedians they met or heard about. We had a meeting, this was a while ago, probably eight months before the show started, we sat down and we really hit if off. They didn’t even tell me that the show was about fantasy football because they wanted to keep it under wraps. They are really smart and have an amazing pedigree. Jeff has written for Seinfeld, directed Curb Your Enthusiasm, worked on Bruno and Borat, and Jackie worked on a lot of cool movies. With all of those accolades, the language they were talking made sense, the people they were talking to made sense. I shot a pilot for something else that didn’t go and The League sort of came to life and we all just went to work, it was really fun.

Were you a football fan when you went into the show?

I am a football fan. I am a sports fan. I’m not a fanatic and I’ve never played fantasy football, but doing it we created a league internally and all of us got into it internally except Lajoie, who is essentially the Taco of The League in real life too. Not as a person but in the way he plays fantasy football.

What’s your league’s name in real life?

This past year was “Basic Cable Actor’s Wife” which was sort of a joke at Stephen Rannazzisi. The other year it was “Ruxin Kroll.” But the other names in the league were like “Fear Boner,” “Vinegar Stroke,” “I Shit When I Cum.” A bunch of the show jokes.

Now how much of the Ruxin character is actually you?

We’re all a bit like our characters, because of the amount of improv there’s aspects of us in each character. I would say that Ruxin is a lot more unhappy sort of obsessed with conspiracy than I am. Obviously the insults he comes up with are coming out of my mind.

So what you’re saying is don’t cross you?

*laugh* Well the joke we keep making is that he [Ruxin] is basically the most unlikable person on television so the idea that people seem to be okay with him is really fascinating to me.

I’m not going to lie he is pretty much the main reason why I watch the show every week.

That is so kind of you. We’re actually really generous cast with one another. Peter will come up with a joke and think it’s something more for Ruxin, or Mark will think of something and think it’s really more for Kevin or vice versa. Everyone just tries to figure out what the best version is for each other.

You’re at a point in your career where you’re established and now touring with younger comedians, what’s it like not being the young guy anymore but not the crusty old guy yet?

I guess when athletes are in their league for more than seven years they become a veteran. I love it, and in doing a couple of these interviews, the more I realize that I just love doing comedy. I love collaborating with different people and going on the road with different people and turning on a show and see a friend on it. Or see any movie or comedy show and see someone I’ve worked with. I love where comedy is right now because of the Internet and because of blogs, and podcasts, and Twitter. There are just so many ways to get your word out and develop stand-up and comedy. I just think we are in such a great time to be doing it and I feel very privileged that I came up when I did and work with all of these people right now.

What comedians are you really into now?

I mean I wouldn’t even be able to answer that fairly. Louis C.K. makes me laugh harder than anyone alive, I was on the road with [Mike] Birbiglia, and what he is doing right now with his storytelling is unparalleled. There are younger guys like Joe Mande, Jenny Slate, and Max Silvestri, that are all great. There is just a ton of new stuff that people are doing that is super exciting. My buddy John Daly makes me crack up with his posts on Twitter and all of his videos on Funny or Die. I could go on, I mean these are all my buddies who I think are fucking hilarious.

Now you had a lot of shows and unfortunately a lot didn’t work out. Which is your favorite show that failed?

This is going to sound cheesy but none of them failed for me, they were all learning experiences as you go. Caveman was my first show ever and obviously it was sort of infamous but I learned how to act on that show and we did some really funny stuff on it. If people go back and watch it on Youtube and all the episodes are up there including the un-aired ones I am really proud of it. That’s the obvious answer I think and every job you do makes you better.

We’d like to thank Nick Kroll for taking time out of his schedule to talk to us, you can find more information about him at www.nickkroll.com. His Comedy Central special Thank You Very Cool premieres this weekend on Comedy Central.

Original Article

Nick Kroll’s stand-up special Thank You Very Cool will premiere this Saturday on Comedy Central at 10 pm EST. For anyone who doesn’t already know Kroll is the hilarious comedian behind characters like Bobby Bottleservice, Fabrice Fabrice, and Ruxin on FX’s hit comedy show The League.

We were able to get our hands on a few clips from this Saturdays special as well as an exclusive web-only Fabrice Fabrice clip.

PS. - We’ll be interviewing Kroll later today so look for that to run later this week.

Original Article

Emerson recalls his travels, triumphs, and tribulations as a comedian working hard and paying their dues in a highly competitive market. He originally filed this report for the website Gaper’s Block but allowed us to share it as well.

“It would be pretty cool if mermaids were real, because I could stop fucking all these manatees.” - Kevin Hogan

Schubas
3159 N. Southport
773-525-2508
First Sundays of the month, 8pm sign-up, 9:30 show

“You’re not funny,” says the skinny, lisping frat spud. He breaks into my birth control joke. This guy is not a comedian. Normally, open-mic comedians love “civilians,” real audience members who show up just to watch. Civilians are few, and they’re a better litmus test for material, for many complex reasons, than fellow comedians.

But this drunken asswipe has been antagonizing us all night. I first noticed him downstairs, after I signed up and during the long wait before showtime. His voice carried as he shouted at his friends about “bitches.” Now, he’s breaking into everyone’s set and refusing to leave or shut up.

And after he breaks into mine, everyone else finally wants blood. Another group of civilians lays into him about his striped shirt and wallet chain. He offers a fist bump, as though it’s all good and we’re all buddies. His fist bump is declined. Another comedian tells him to go choke himself. It is now the heckler versus everyone else in the room. I’ve lost the room’s attention. My set is totaled.

When I tell people I do stand-up comedy, I usually get one of two responses: “Tell me a joke” or “How do you deal with hecklers?” The first is so irritating, on so many levels, that I’m tired of mocking it. To the second, I say that I rarely get heckled. It’s just not particularly common, and it’s usually the work of drunks who think they’re helping. When it happens, it’s vital to go off-script and somehow neutralize it without being too cruel and alienating everyone.

I have about half a second to do this at Schubas, and I miss my window. The prick leaves, but any momentum I had is kaput, and the balance of my set is pretty much ignored. I fall asleep thinking about how I could have schooled the dude.

As of a couple of months ago, I’m temporarily back in Chicago after living in Los Angeles for three years and immersing myself in stand-up. In LA, I became a fixture at open mics, rewarded with camaraderie and the occasional booking. The stand-up scene in Chicago is an alien landscape, one I’m determined to navigate. So I’m starting over from scratch.

“Black people over here. White people over here. It’s like the 1950s. Every time this happens, Obama smokes a cigarette.” - Todd Massey

The Shit Show at Shambles
2050 W. Division
773-486-0200
Mondays, 7:30 sign-up, 8:30 show

The first “Best Joke” award of the night, as determined by an audience chant, goes to Bridget, a relatively older “Christian comic” with a teenage daughter “on the verge of whoredom.” She receives a bottle of Winking Owl, the store-brand wine from Aldi.

Rasa Gierstikas founded The Shit Show in October 2009. Turned off by the austerity of much open-mic sausage making, she aims for a fun, convivial vibe. She created an “applause” sign (which comedians can hoist if they feel a solid performance is tanking for no good reason) and awards cheap prizes to new comedians. (After my first set at Shambles, I got a “Beware of Dog” sign that remains on my desk.)

As in most cases, the hosts do a minute or so between each comedian. Co-host Ever Mainard has an odd, gradually mesmerizing onstage persona. She never really finishes a… thought, she just… kind of… trails off and… then, finally hits you with… … …a killer punchline.

I do all right. Passably. I call back another comedian’s premise and get a laugh. My new year’s resolution joke gets a laugh. I have a bad chest cold and my voice is shot, but in a friendly environment, I can plow through it and get a few chuckles before four minutes expire.

“When I first moved here, I’d walk up to people on the street and say words to them. Now, if someone comes up to me, I don’t care who it is, I just say, ‘No!’” - Aaron W.

Quencher’s
2401 N. Western
773-276-9730
Mondays, 9pm sign-up, 10pm show (maybe)

Open mics draw many sorts. There are young comedians working out raw ideas, some of whom vanish, some of whom flourish. There are seasoned performers experimenting with new bits and honing their chops for their next booked gig. There are “local characters” doing unstructured monologues, getting some attention. And there are outliers — performers who are so strange that it’s hard to figure where else they might fit in.

Thomas Harty is, at least for now, an outlier. He’s only done stand-up for a couple of months, and his comedy career could go any number of ways. But right now, he’s an outlier. And the open mic at Quencher’s is his wheelhouse, his place to unpack his more complex ideas.

Most comedy open mics allow three to seven minutes, rarely more than five. The Quencher’s mic focuses heavily on music, and since musicians get three or four songs per set, averaging about 15 minutes, comedians also get 15 solid minutes. The Q sells $1 Blatz cans and $2 cherry vodka shots, in case that helps.

Tonight, Harty doesn’t hit many hard punchlines, but he does expound on the etymology of “karaoke,” the inner workings of the Church of Scientology, the Pre-Socratic philosopher Thales of Miletus, and how he got a CIA t-shirt. It’s the most informative stand-up set I’ve seen in a while.

After Harty’s set and the kalimba stylings of Matthew Sheldon, I do about nine minutes, including a lot of ad libbing, crowd interaction, and unfiltered stream-of-consciousness rambling. I get almost no laughs, but that’s OK — it’s a sedate, crunchy crowd, and I don’t expect the ovulation joke to go over. (I’m cutting it out of my set after this, anyway. If it dies three times in a row, scrap it.) It’s not my favorite tape, but there’s some stuff in there I might be able to expand on.

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“I’m kind of a hoarder. My friends make fun of me. But I’d rather have a dead cat and not need one… than need a dead cat and not have one.” - Samuel Wilbur

Toilet humor at Cole’s
Cole’s
2338 N. Milwaukee
773-276-5802
Wednesdays, 7:30pm sign-up, 9:30 show

Samuel Wilbur started doing open mics three years ago in Minneapolis, and is now one of the sharpest new talents on the Chicago circuit. His favorite mic is Wednesdays at Cole’s in Logan Square, which has “probably the smartest crowd in the city.” But he hasn’t always struck oil here. The first time he went up, “I was like the thirtieth comic to go, and the crowd had winded down quite a bit, so I thought I would try and get their attention by leading off with a child-porn joke. It fell completely flat — who would have thought! — and I completely lost the audience after that. I jumped into some of my more polished material, but there was nothing I could do to win them back. So as I got off stage, I told the audience to go fuck themselves.”

Among local stand-ups, Cole’s is apparently the most popular open mic in Chicago, and not the least controversial. The sign-up sheet has appeared as early as 7pm, it fills up fast, and it’s sometimes almost 10pm before the start of the show proper.

“We’ve tried to start the sign-up later,” says relentlessly enthusiastic co-host Cameron Esposito, a familiar act at booked shows around town. “Folks made their own lists. We scrapped those and folks got mad. Then we tried taking attendance of the people there at the start of the mic and giving those people priority. That was a mess, too. So we are sticking with the imperfect system we’ve got now because it seems to have led to the least backlash.”

“Also,” she adds, “there is a point at which comics kind of just have to suck it up and wait their turn.”

If it’s an introduction to the arbitrary, cutthroat business of show, it’s at least a festive one. Proceedings begin a bit after 9pm with the house band Foz the Hook, featuring the Tom Waits-inspired shtick of pianist and Cole’s regular Bjorn Skaptason. Foz inevitably closes with the signature anthem “Drunk Astronauts.” Then the comedians get up.

Esposito hosts one half of the show, sprinkling in personal anecdotes and spurring the audience to cheer; righteous drinker Adam Burke hosts the other. Sets are usually short. The bar in the front gets packed and thunderous. Antsy comedians chat amongst each other as they wait their turns, talking over performers. It’s a good exercise in vocal projection.

I do, once again, all right. Nothing great; nothing shameful. Very briefly, I riff with an older comic I saw earlier, who sang the Pussycat Dolls’ “Don’t Cha” in the styles of Dylan and Sinatra and turns out to be a prick. The Blue Line drowns out one of my weaker punchlines. I roll my eyes, turn around and get a laugh. Writing effective jokes is a precise art, but even with solid material, the worst danger is being afraid to veer from the script. The greatest skill is calling situations as they go down.

“If I were more creative, I could come up with better reasons to kill myself.” - Rachel Kaboff

The Big Fancy Open Mic
777 N. Green
312-733-6000
Thursdays, 8pm sign-up, 8:30 show

The “talent” may be debatable, but the show runs like a Swiss watch. Organized and hosted by scene veteran/gadfly Dave Odd, the show consists of strictly timed three-minute sets, The lineup order is determined (as at most of the better known open mics in Los Angeles) by a drawing. It’s held in the Chicago Center for Performing Arts, and it’s one of the few venues for unknown Chicago comedians that isn’t a bar.

Odd openly antagonizes the local comedy establishment and prides himself on promoting unrefined new talent. He does a polished set at the top of the show and then never reappears, letting the comedians introduce each other to keep things on schedule and, with luck, wrap before the CCC’s 11pm curfew.

I get the impression that Rachel Kaboff is, on her good days, an entirely competent stand-up. Tonight, however, she is an outlier.

She opens with an insomnia joke, fumbles it, and gets thrown off. Badly. The next three minutes consist of protracted silences, bitter self-recrimination, suicide references and painful, painful awkwardness. None of this appears intentional; if it is, it’s the most dangerous sort of performance art. More likely, it’s a regular stand-up set that has spun out of the performer’s control.

Having frequented open mics for years, I find myself caring less and less about the performer’s intentions. I think that “bombing,” a collapse of the performer-audience feedback loop, is, whatever its cause, always its own form of performance art.

I can only speak for myself, but comedians strike me as a generally unhappy bunch, gravitating to comedy for lack of a more dignified calling, attempting to make sense of their frustrating lives and spin shit into gold. I look to comedians to make me laugh at my own depression and fear, but sometimes witnessing depression and fear in their raw form can be just as affecting. While she admittedly fails at stand-up for tonight, Kaboff creates the evening’s most powerful theater.

“I like your socks!” someone says. The audience claps in encouragement.

I don’t do anything memorable with my three minutes, and I forget to hit “record” on my Dictaphone, so I can’t go back and overanalyze. I don’t get many laughs or any big ones. But I’m as energized as I’ve been all week. I’m getting back into the rhythm of this. For now, it seems well worth a trudge through the snow.

“The best form of birth control is a shitty personality.” - Grant Ryan

Lucky Number Grill
1931 N. Milwaukee
773-235-7761
Fridays, 8:30pm sign-up, 9:30 show

The Lucky Number open mic, hosted by the affable, impeccably dressed Justin “J-Dub” Worthington, is another one with a liberal policy on time — essentially, if you’re doing all right, you can go until you’re done. So it’s another good place to experiment and work out the kinks in fresh material.

Well, often it is. Tonight, however, the Bucktown restaurant is packed with civilians, ingesting grease and Pabst and chattering loudly. Dan Sharp, a friendly comedian I’ve just met, pores over his notebook and anxiously reconsiders his entire set list.

I go up. I project. I believe. I sell my punchlines. I riff with the crowd and ad lib fluidly as I go. Nuts to you guys. Don’t laugh. Ignore me. Talk to each other. It matters not. I am on tonight. One guy doesn’t want to riff with me? It’s all good. This other guy seems to think I’m funny.

My laughs are few and far between, but eight minutes feels like three. I step off, still juiced, and cross a couple of lines out of my notebook. J-Dub breaks out his acoustic guitar and plays a mock Lite-FM ballad, in the execrable style of John Mayer, with explicit lyrics. It kills.

If you’d like to check out some open mics for yourself, Bad Slava is a good place to start — it is the least unreliable national directory of comedy mics. But, in this weird little underworld, all bets are off. Obey Slava’s catchphrase is “call before you haul,” always.

Original Article

The Beastie Boys are prepping the released of a new album, Hot Sauce Committee Pt. 2 but what they’re also prepping is a short film that is acting as a sequel to their classic video “(You Gotta) Fight for Your Right (to Party!)”. If you think about it, the original video did leave a lot of questions unanswered, what happened at the end of the pie fight? Did the nerd’s parents ground them for throwing a party? Do not fear, Adam Yauch (MCA) will remedy this and answer these burning questions.

Though he spent the last few years fighting throat cancer (which he recently stated he’s beating) it hasn’t slowed the Beastie Boy down, Yauch just so happened to write a short film “Fight For Your Right Revisited” that will debut at Sundance Film Festival, act as a sequel to the original vid, and eventually be a music video for a song off the new album. Got it all so far? ‘Cause there’s more…

A cast of A-list comedians and actors will appear in the film with some of them even playing the rap trio themselves. Beginning with Seth Rogen, Elijah Wood, and Danny McBride portraying Mike D, Ad Rock, and MCA. In addition to this impressive lineup, Will Ferrell, John C. Reilly, and Jack Black will also appear in the short film. Needless to say, this thing cannot come fast enough.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eBShN8qT4lk[/youtube]

UPDATE: Moviefone is reporting an even bigger cast for this short.

Not only will all three Beastie Boys (Mike D., Adam Yauch and Adam Horovitz) be appearing as cops, but some other names on the cast list include Susan Sarandon, Stanley Tucci, Rainn Wilson, Rashida Jones, Will Arnett, Ted Danson, Roman Coppola, Amy Poehler, Alicia Silverstone, Steve Buscemi, Jody Hill, Jason Schwartzman, Kirsten Dunst, Maya Rudolph, Orlando Bloom, Will Ferrell, John C. Reilly, Jack Black, Martin Starr, David Cross, Chloe Sevigny, Laura Dern …. deep breath … Milo Ventimiglia, Adam Scott, Mike Mills, Shannyn Sossamon, and Mary Steenburgen. Phew. [Moviefone]

UPDATE: A trailer is now live!

Original Article

Last night Patton Oswalt dropped by The Daily Show to talk to Jon Stewart about his new book, Zombie Spaceship Wasteland.

The interview took a weird turn once Oswalt got on the topic of how his book was made, turns out it takes a factory of prisoner ghostwriters working around the clock to make things happen. Oh and another factoid he gave us, all the white supremacist gangs have the corner on humor books locked down. Patton Oswalt, teaching the youth of America.

Original Article

UPDATE: May 2012. Rize of the Fenix

Pack your bowl and put on your rocking out pants…The D is back!

Tenacious D, the greatest band in the world, and collaboration between Jack Black and Kyle Gass announced they are in the midst of recording a new album that will probably be released in 2011.

According to Black they are already halfway through recording the album but that the full release won’t come out until later in the year. It’s good to see JB and KG getting the wheels rolling with The D again since they are hilarious, which seems to be in direct contrast to Black’s movies as of late.

For anyone wondering what the new tracks are going to be about, the duo is living up to their title of everyone’s favorite sexy fat dudes, Black told Spinner the album will “be about love, there are gonna be some songs about sex, and there’s gonna be songs about food.”

If anyone is hoping the new album to be accompanied by another Tenacious D movie, please stop hoping for things. After the poorly received success of their last big budget movie/album combo,The Pick of Destiny, the duo is only focusing on the music. It doesn’t mean some kind of movie deal is out of the question, according to Black the new album is, “strictly a musical endeavor, but I would not rule out another film. Although it would probably be on the lower-budge.”

Good, The D has always shined as a small budget underdog and their movie could have been a really cool indie stoner film that was watched in every college dorm room across the country. Instead, it attempted to be a bigger, broader comedy than it probably should have, rendering it in neither (unfortunately). Regardless, we’re going to prep our bodies for the new record by doing at least one cock push-up until release date.

Original Article