Published: 9/23/2009
Types: Arts, Performing arts, Comedy
Around this time last year, I was headed up to Michigan wine country with an iPod full of This American Life episodes. No, I wasn't driving a faux-wood-paneled station wagon sipping Earl Grey, but I might as well have been. Have a laugh. Anyway, if you have yet to tune into TAL (Sundays at 11 a.m. o...[MORE]
Published: 7/22/2009
Types: Arts, Performing arts, Comedy
First Lenny Bruce, then George Carlin and now Lewis Black — America continues to rely on comedians to cut through heaps of steaming bullshit (much of which is spouted from our nation's capital). If a comedian's agenda is truth and they can circumvent the cheap transfer of pop-cult baggage, the...[MORE]
By Corey Hall
Published: 12/3/2008
Types: Arts, Performing arts, Comedy
Need a chuckle? As the state, the region and the nation tiptoe 'round the rim of a deep financial abyss, a merry band of rebels in downtown Ferndale is staring down the darkness and thumbing their noses at it. The spanking new Go Comedy! Improv Theater is a full-time professional comedy venue...[MORE]
By Corey Hall
Published: 11/21/2007
Types: Arts, Performing arts, Comedy
Lewis Black is having a bad day. For a legendarily surly comedian whose fame was largely built from exasperated "Back in Black" flameouts on the Daily Show, it doesn't take much to topple him over the edge. A number of annoyances are plaguing Black on the morning we catch up. He's talking from "a...[MORE]
Published: 11/14/2007
Types: Arts, Performing arts, Comedy
Grace Detroit sashays onto the stage at Cliff Bell's wearing a flowing green number that sports wings and antennae. The bug-woman costume isn't her usual wardrobe as hostess and emcee of Torch with a Twist, the cabaret event that takes over the downtown bar once a month. "Torch night" has become...[MORE]
Published: 10/10/2007
Types: Arts, Performing arts, Comedy
D.L. Hughley is one of the funniest men in America right now. Making his name as one of the Kings of Comedy, as captured by Spike Lee in the film of the same name, Hughley's star has only continued to rise with frequent appearances on Real Time with Bill Maher, his new HBO special, Unapologetic,...[MORE]
By Paula Farmer
Published: 5/12/1999
Types: Arts, Performing arts, Comedy
"Something wonderful right away." This, from the title of a book written by Jeffrey Sweet about the Second City, describes the improvisational theater’s creative draw on audiences in Chicago, Toronto and Detroit. Combining ensemble acting ...[MORE]
Published: 10/14/1998
Types: Arts, Performing arts, Comedy
Looking like Aretha Franklin back in her blond days, the comedian peers out at the Dempsey's Place Amateur Night audience and asks all the big girls to show some love. There are a few timid titters, but no one really responds. She steps clo...[MORE]
By Peter Werbe
Published: 10/28/1998
Types: Arts, Performing arts, Comedy
Funnyman Will Durst, who is probably best known to Metro Times readers through his frequently appearing column, was born in Milwaukee. He left for San Francisco in the early 1970s, claiming "comedy was illegal" in his hometown. He...[MORE]
Published: 3/3/1999
Types: Arts, Performing arts, Comedy
The Lizard of Fun has donned a saffron robe and is sitting cross-legged on a woven grass mat. Looking blissfully spiritual, it’s chanting something that sounds like "Detroit-techno-eats-bananas-Detroit-techno-eats-bananas." My nose twitches, ...[MORE]
By Corey Hall
Published: 3/28/2007
Types: Arts, Performing arts, Comedy
In just a few hectic years the bearded face and unwieldy moniker of comedian Zach Galifianakis has appeared in such cinema classics as Bubble Boy and Corky Romano; on TV in Fox’s Tru Calling, ABC’s Jimmy Kimmel Live, his own VH1 series Late World with Zach, and lip synching in the memorable Fiona A...[MORE]
By Corey Hall
Published: 2/21/2007
Types: Arts, Performing arts, Comedy
Sometimes in the lull between auto shows and Super Bowls, or when not squabbling over stadium and casino construction sites, Detroiters tend to forget that our dowdy rust-bucket metropolis has a cultural life as rich and deep as a three-tiered German chocolate cake. And much of that richness h...[MORE]
By Corey Hall
Published: 2/14/2007
Types: Arts, Performing arts, Comedy
To moviegoers of a certain age, he will forever be Biff Tannen, the looming jarhead bully who menaced Marty McFly through three Back to the Future movies and multiple time frames. To others, he's known as the gruff-but-well-meaning Coach Fredricks, the lovable gym teacher, who — despite h...[MORE]
By Corey Hall
Published: 11/1/2006
Types: Arts, Performing arts, Comedy
Ypsilanti's Dreamland Theater is constantly evolving. Billed as "a small theater, gallery and curiosity shop," it's an art space where seemingly incongruous creative elements can get together and mingle. In November alone, the theater will host two separate art exhibitions, puppet shows, comed...[MORE]
By Corey Hall
Published: 10/11/2006
Types: Arts, Performing arts, Comedy
Michael Ian Black may just be the perfect new millennium celebrity, famous for everything and nothing at once. A staggeringly prolific entertainer and a near ubiquitous presence on television, Black nimbly zips from project to project like a kid with ADD. He's been a network series regular (NB...[MORE]
By Corey Hall
Published: 9/13/2006
Types: Arts, Performing arts, Comedy
In nearly two decades of furious Hollywood social climbing, Jamie Kennedy has had his share of peaks and valleys; he earned two Golden Raspberry nominations for 2005's stink-bomb flick Son of the Mask, and he also had the somewhat dubious distinction of having the top-selling hip-hop album in ...[MORE]
By Corey Hall
Published: 8/23/2006
Types: Arts, Performing arts, Comedy
Gilbert Gottfried lives a double life. By day he's a popular voice-over actor for commercials and children's cartoons, by night he's a hilarious, foul-mouthed comedian. Since 2000 he's been the voice of the AFLAC duck, he's spent more than a decade as host of the USA Networks' Up All Night, an...[MORE]
By Corey Hall
Published: 8/9/2006
Types: Arts, Performing arts, Comedy
As the legendarily acerbic newspaper man H.L. Mencken once said, "Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want and deserve to get it good and hard." That's a maxim clearly taken to heart with equal vigor by both politicos and entertainers. Mencken also famously noted, "No...[MORE]
Published: 4/19/2006
Types: Arts, Performing arts, Comedy
For years, wait a minute, decades, the comedy market has been so saturated with sitcom-aspiring white dudes with mullets and black guys with the name Wayans somewhere on their CV, that it's easy to forget that going out for a night of stand-up comedy should be a reality-shifting experience. Th...[MORE]
By Corey Hall
Published: 3/29/2006
Types: Arts, Performing arts, Comedy
You could say that Lisa Lampanelli has a mouth like a sailor, though there has likely never been a sailor on the seven seas as funny, rude or delightfully obscene. In fact, most sailors would get a motherly mouth-swabbing for the stuff she spouts on stage. A self-described insult comedian, Lampane...[MORE]
By Corey Hall
Published: 3/8/2006
Types: Arts, Performing arts, Comedy
To poor souls who think Jay Leno's nightly monologue is the state of the art, it may come as a bit of a shock to find there's more to "gay comedy" than Brokeback Mountain jokes. Though there have long been gay comedians on the scene, for decades they were confined by an informal closet, an und...[MORE]
By Monica Price
Published: 11/16/2005
Types: Arts, Performing arts, Comedy
Stand-up comedian Jason Stuart is looking for Mr. Right.So far, he says, he’s met “Mr. Right Now,” “Mr. Maybe,” and even “Mr. Mom.” But he’s hoping a visit to the Motor City will change all that. “I love Detroit men,” Stuart gushes over the pho...[MORE]
Published: 11/2/2005
Types: Arts, Performing arts, Comedy
If going to see a 258-year-old Italian comedy sounds boring, you haven’t seen commedia dell’arte. This robust physical comedy, considered the mother of modern slapstick, has more in common with Abbot & Costello than The Two Gentlemen from Verona. In it, masked actors must express...[MORE]
By Corey Hall
Published: 10/19/2005
Types: Arts, Performing arts, Comedy
George A. Romero’s horror classic about the undead, rising from the grave to dine on the flesh of the living, has been terrifying audiences for decades. But, apparently, what it really needed all along was a few toe-tapping musical numbers. So now, a magical night of singing, dancing and ...[MORE]
Published: 9/28/2005
Types: Arts, Performing arts, Comedy
Only a generation ago, the medical field was held in high esteem. From Sinclair Lewis’ Arrowsmith to the wacky but noble savages of M.A.S.H., doctors and researchers have enjoyed stellar reputations. But in the age of HMOs and pharmaceutical giants, it seems that this longstanding good wi...[MORE]
Published: 9/21/2005
Types: Arts, Performing arts, Comedy
For the last several years, sitcoms have been a plateau in heaven for stand-up comedians. You log a few years on the road, start surfacing here and there on basic cable, and before you can say “Norm McDonald,” you have your own show. But a milquetoast half-hour of safe-mode laughter p...[MORE]
Published: 8/24/2005
Types: Arts, Performing arts, Comedy
Unlike its former theater-style downtown location, Second City’s new digs are in a strip mall, upstairs from an Andiamo restaurant. Let’s be honest, the move from Detroit to Novi has knocked the comedy club down a few notches on the “urban cred” scale. (It’s not just u...[MORE]
Published: 8/17/2005
Types: Arts, Performing arts, Comedy
MB44 ... it’s about having fun, but it’s no joke! • Lenny Bruce — Thank You Mask Man (Fantasy) :: No, thank you. • Andrew Dice Clay — The Diceman Cometh (American) :: Now, more than ever. • Vaughn Meader — The First Family (Cadence) :: He looked like JFK...[MORE]
By Corey Hall
Published: 7/20/2005
Types: Arts, Performing arts, Comedy
Behold Richard Jeni: the world’s most famous unknown comedian. Maybe you’ve heard his name before but you can’t place his face. He’s not flashy, lewd or loud. And he’s highly unlikely to disappear and turn up in a South African rehab center. Where you’ll find Jeni ...[MORE]
By Corey Hall
Published: 6/15/2005
Types: Arts, Performing arts, Comedy
The average Steven Wright joke goes something like this: "Everywhere is walking distance if you have time." Lines like that — a staple of Bartlett's and the "senior quote" section of high school yearbooks — have made Wright a very famous guy. His wit lends itself almost equally to lau...[MORE]
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