Russell Brand and Tracey Ullman Sing the Wonders of “Asstrology” in Eric Idle’s What About Dick?

in Comedy | November 2nd, 2012

Mon­ty Python alum­nus and Spa­malot cre­ator Eric Idle’s new musi­cal What About Dick? tells the sto­ry of the “birth of a sex toy invent­ed in Shag­is­tan in 1898 by Deep­ak Obi Ben Kings­ley” (Eddie Izzard). It’s also about the decline of the British Empire as told by a piano (Idle). Oh, there’s quite a bit more, but I won’t rehearse the plot—let’s get right to a clip, shall we? In the above num­ber, “What About Asstrol­o­gy,” Aunt Mag­gie (Tracey Ull­man) and the young Dick (Rus­sell Brand), who live togeth­er in an Edwar­dian nov­el, sing about her meta­phys­i­cal tal­ent for read­ing the future on people’s bums. The exchange begins: “What is it exact­ly that you do?” to which Ull­man responds in Cock­ney, “I’m an aaassss read­er.” Then they launch into song. Yes, it’s as ridicu­lous as it sounds, and as fun­ny (if that’s what you’re into), and par­takes of the Pythons’ unique abil­i­ty to skew­er the pre­ten­sions of reli­gion, new age goofi­ness, and hocus pocus of all kinds with clas­sic music hall humor and flat­u­lence jokes.

So mark your cal­en­dars: this Novem­ber 13 is “Dick Day,” when What About Dick? is avail­able for dig­i­tal down­load, and you’ll want to get your hands on it (sor­ry). Idle ratch­ets up his pro­fane silli­ness with a cast “you’ll nev­er see… togeth­er again doing some­thing like this.” Idle has assem­bled the finest minds of British com­e­dy for a show he calls “Oscar Wilde on acid or like Down­ton Abbey, only fun­nier”: Brand, Ull­man, Idle, Bil­ly Con­nol­ly, Tim Cur­ry, Eddie Izzard, Jane Leeves, Jim Pid­dock, and Sophie Win­kle­man. If this cast doesn’t make you shoot out of your chair and yell Hooray for Dick! or some­thing like that, you’re clear­ly not the prop­er audi­ence for this show.

Go ahead, watch the trail­er right above and vis­it the offi­cial site for updates and more awk­ward, off-col­or Britishisms.

Josh Jones is a doc­tor­al can­di­date in Eng­lish at Ford­ham Uni­ver­si­ty and a co-founder and for­mer man­ag­ing edi­tor of Guer­ni­ca / A Mag­a­zine of Arts and Pol­i­tics.

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New Animated Film Tells the Life Story of Monty Python’s Graham Chapman

in Comedy, Film | October 24th, 2012

John Cleese, Eric Idle, Ter­ry Jones, Ter­ry Gilliam, and Michael Palin have all entered their late six­ties and ear­ly sev­en­ties in rea­son­able pro­duc­tiv­i­ty. Gra­ham Chap­man, how­ev­er, “self­ish­ly dropped dead in 1989,” thus tak­ing on the offi­cial title of “the dead one from Mon­ty Python.” That comes straight from the press mate­ri­als pro­mot­ing A Liar’s Auto­bi­og­ra­phy: The Untrue Sto­ry of Mon­ty Python’s Gra­ham Chap­man, the high­ly non­tra­di­tion­al biopic that recent­ly made its debut in the Unit­ed King­dom. The elab­o­rate pro­duc­tion com­mand­ed the visu­al tal­ents of no few­er than four­teen sep­a­rate ani­ma­tion stu­dios and the vocal tal­ents of no few­er than five Pythons, Chap­man him­self includ­ed. Short­ly before his pass­ing, Chap­man record­ed him­self read­ing the text of his auto­bi­og­ra­phy A Liar’s Auto­bi­og­ra­phy (Vol­ume VI), and that audio track pro­vides the basis of the ver­i­ta­ble kalei­do­scope of aes­thet­ic sen­si­bil­i­ties and lev­els of comedic taste you can glimpse in the trail­er above. Oh, and the film’s in 3D.

The notion that a tale like Chap­man’s life demands a pack of tellers has a prece­dent in the book, which famous­ly cred­its five authors: Chap­man him­self, his part­ner David Sher­lock, The Hitch­hik­er’s Guide to the Galaxy mas­ter­mind Dou­glas Adams, crime writer David Yal­lop, and Alex Mar­tin. Those at all famil­iar with Chap­man should feel pleased to see rep­re­sent­ed in the trail­er a seem­ing­ly appro­pri­ate mix­ture of har­row­ing for­ma­tive wartime expe­ri­ence, sex­u­al adven­ture, obvi­ous fab­ri­ca­tion, and sheer drunk­en­ness — and that does­n’t yet take into account all that Mon­ty Python busi­ness. The trail­er’s final moments cred­it its absur­di­ty-lov­ing, pipe-smok­ing sub­ject with call­ing A Liar’s Auto­bi­og­ra­phy “the best movie I’ve been in since I died.” That takes it out of com­pe­ti­tion with the beloved Mon­ty Python and the Holy Grail and Mon­ty Python’s Life of Bri­an in which Chap­man liv­ing­ly starred, but it still looks like a for­mi­da­ble effort. And the sur­viv­ing Pythons might tell you, it’d sure­ly hold its own against Yel­low­beard.

Relat­ed con­tent:

Mon­ty Python’s Best Phi­los­o­phy Sketch­es

Mon­ty Python Live at the Hol­ly­wood Bowl: The Com­e­dy Clas­sic

Alan Watts and His Zen Wis­dom Ani­mat­ed by Cre­ators of South Park

Col­in Mar­shall hosts and pro­duces Note­book on Cities and Cul­ture. Fol­low him on Twit­ter at @colinmarshall.

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Cartoonist Kate Beaton Plays on Literary Classics — The Great Gatsby, Julius Caesar & More

in Books, Comedy, Literature | October 19th, 2012

Lis­ten, Old Sport, as far as that Leonar­do DiCaprio Gats­by movie goes, I haven’t seen it. But I’ll bet a swim­ming pool of gin it’s nowhere near as  fun­ny as car­toon­ist Kate Beat­on’s 3‑panel takes on F. Scott Fitzger­ald’s clas­sic nov­el.

Of course, F. Scot­t’s orig­i­nal was­n’t exact­ly what one would call a knee slap­per — where­as Beat­on’s com­ic col­lec­tion, Hark! A Vagrant, mer­its a per­ma­nent spot in one’s bath­room library. Beat­on’s take on The Great Gats­by is by no means a lit­er­al adap­ta­tion, but her mean-faced, ven­om-tongued cre­ations get it spir­i­tu­al­ly right. They also do a num­ber on Bronte, Jane Austen, Niet­zsche and Shake­speare’s Julius Cae­sar, to name but a few of the author’s oth­er lit­er­ary tar­gets. (See her archive here.) Not bad for a Cana­di­an with degrees in His­to­ry and Anthro­pol­o­gy. Is it wrong to think Zel­da would approve?

At any rate, it’s high time some­one blew the lid off of what’s behind the eyes of Dr. T.J. Eck­el­berg. Grat­i­fy­ing, too, to see Tom and Daisy’s child get­ting some long past due con­sid­er­a­tion. Now that I think about it, our com­pul­sion to keep beat­ing on boats against the cur­rent is kind of fun­ny. Top draw­er stuff, Old Sport, top draw­er stuff.

Find works by F. Scott Fitzger­ald in our col­lec­tions of Free Audio Books and Free eBooks.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Phi­los­o­phy Made Fun: Read the Free Pre­view Edi­tion of the Action Philoso­phers! Com­ic

- Ayun Hal­l­i­day is the author of a half dozen some books includ­ing No Touch Mon­key! And Oth­er Trav­el Lessons Learned Too Late.

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Muhammad Ali Plans to Fight on Mars in Lost 1966 Interview

in Comedy, History, Random | October 19th, 2012

Per­haps you remem­ber the short ani­mat­ed film, I Met the Wal­rus. It revis­its the moment when Jer­ry Lev­i­tan, a 14-year-old kid, slipped into John Lennon’s Toron­to hotel room in 1969 and asked the Bea­t­le for an inter­view. And he got one. The film pro­vides all the proof you need.

Now here’s a nice com­pan­ion sto­ry. It’s the sum­mer of 1966, and 17-year-old Michael Ais­ner approach­es Muham­mad Ali, then the heavy­weight cham­pi­on of the world, and asks him to appear on his high school radio show. The kid per­sists and even­tu­al­ly lands the inter­view. The audio seg­ment, rarely heard until now, reminds us what makes Ali so charis­mat­ic and endear­ing. The champ answers some of Ais­ner’s ques­tions seri­ous­ly. But he also launch­es into a hilar­i­ous riff about how he plans to take a space­ship to Mars, bat­tle the Mar­t­ian champ (named some­thing like Win­nekawana­ka) and there­by win the “Uni­ver­sal Title.” Pret­ty price­less. The com­plete audio seg­ment appears here.

Fol­low us on Face­book and Twit­ter, and share the cul­tur­al good­ness with your friends!

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Amazing Fact: Spaghetti and Ukulele Strings Actually Grow on Trees

in Comedy, Television | October 16th, 2012

Back in 1957, on April Fools Day, the British tele­vi­sion pro­gram Panora­ma report­ed on “a bumper spaghet­ti har­vest” in south­ern Switzer­land. The boun­ti­ful crop could be attrib­uted to the mild pre­ced­ing win­ter and the dis­ap­pear­ance of the nasty spaghet­ti wee­vil. After the broad­cast, hun­dreds of peo­ple called the BBC, want­i­ng to know how they could grow their own spaghet­ti trees. The BBC replied, “Place a sprig of spaghet­ti in a tin of toma­to sauce and hope for the best.”

If spaghet­ti can grow on trees, then why can’t ukulele strings do the same? In North­ern Italy, they’ve appar­ent­ly been grow­ing uke strings on “string wil­lows” since at least the 16th cen­tu­ry. It all comes down to find­ing the right bal­ance between sun and rain. That’s what ensures that the strings are nei­ther too soft nor too brit­tle, pro­duc­ing the fine tone that lets Jake Shimabukuro play his uke ever so beau­ti­ful­ly.

via Boing­Bo­ing

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Behold Charles Laughton Delivering the Gettysburg Address in its Entirety in Ruggles of Red Gap

in Comedy, Film, History, Video - Arts & Culture | October 13th, 2012

The Get­tys­burg Address is the sort of elo­quent speech school­child­ren were once expect­ed to com­mit to mem­o­ry, much as they were required to bring apples for the teacher and dip each oth­ers’ pig­tails in ink. Nowa­days, with ever more his­tor­i­cal ground clam­or­ing to be cov­ered, it’s real­ly only those cel­e­brat­ed open­ing lines that tend to stick. No doubt they’ll show up in the Stephen Spiel­berg-direct­ed Lin­coln bio-pic slat­ed to open lat­er this fall.

Stray back in time for a real refresh­er course, cour­tesy of erst­while Hunch­back of Notre Dame and Shake­speare­an wun­derkind, Charles Laughton. His soup-to-nuts recita­tion of the cel­e­brat­ed speech is the unex­pect­ed high­light of Rug­gles of Red Gap, a 1935 screw­ball West­ern that time has rel­e­gat­ed to the semi-shad­ows. It’s a beau­ti­ful­ly under­stat­ed per­for­mance that man­ages to illu­mi­nate the mean­ing of each and every word. (It also makes me more for­giv­ing of the film’s ear­ly min­utes, when Laughton’s por­tray­al of a very prop­er Eng­lish but­ler suc­cumbs to a sil­ver-can­de­labra-up-the-hein­er lev­el of broad­ness.)

Just as impres­sive is direc­tor Leo McCarey’s deci­sion to set the scene atop a gid­dy vaude­ville rou­tine fea­tur­ing a saloon full of clue­less cow­boys and bar­keeps. It’s a ton of fun.

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Comedian Tig Notaro’s “Truly Great” Cancer Stand-up Set Now Available on Louis C.K.‘s Website

in Comedy, Life | October 11th, 2012

Until a cou­ple months ago, it was kind of an open secret that Tig Notaro is one of the smartest, fun­ni­est female comics work­ing today. Notaro had a fierce­ly loy­al fan­base, a No. 1 pod­cast with writ­ing part­ner Kyle Dun­ni­gan (Pro­fes­sor Blastoff) and made reg­u­lar appear­ances on some of the usu­al com­e­dy cir­cuits, live and tele­vised (Com­e­dy Cen­tral Presents, The Sarah Sil­ver­man Pro­gram). She was doing pret­ty well, but had nowhere near the pro­file of, say, Louis C.K. Then some­thing extra­or­di­nary hap­pened. First, her life fell apart, and then her career blast­ed off: What changed? She got can­cer. Just the lat­est twist, a brush with death, in the life of a “mas­ter of the art of coun­ter­in­tu­itive com­e­dy.”

The can­cer, of course, was bad. But the four months lead­ing up to her diag­no­sis includ­ed a series of improb­a­bly awful events that could send the aver­age per­son into a depres­sive coma: she con­tract­ed pneu­mo­nia, then a near-fatal bac­te­r­i­al infec­tion, then her moth­er died sud­den­ly, then she went through an emo­tion­al breakup. All fol­lowed by… can­cer. So what’s the upside? Well, she is can­cer free now and appar­ent­ly doing well after a dou­ble mas­tec­to­my. But what made an impact pro­fes­sion­al­ly was the way she han­dled the com­pound­ing of per­son­al crises: she kept show­ing up, mak­ing great com­e­dy. And last August, instead of can­cel­ing an appear­ance at the L.A. club Largo, Notaro went onstage on the day she was diag­nosed with stage 2 breast can­cer, and deliv­ered a poignant, dead­pan mono­logue: “Hel­lo, I have can­cer. How are you?”

Louis C.K., who was there that night, tweet­ed that Notaro’s act was among the “tru­ly great, mas­ter­ful standup sets” he had seen in his 27 years in the busi­ness. Lat­er on his web­site C.K. wrote:

I was cry­ing and laugh­ing and lis­ten­ing like nev­er in my life. Here was this small woman stand­ing alone against death and sim­ply report­ing where her mind had been and what had hap­pened and employ­ing her gor­geous­ly acute stand-up voice to her own death.

C.K.’s noto­ri­ety sent Notaro trend­ing all over the inter­net, but the per­for­mance wasn’t made pub­lic, which only increased inter­est. Now, the uncut record­ing of that night has been released as her sec­ond com­e­dy album, Live, and it’s avail­able on C.K.’s web­site for the small price of $5.00. You can hear a short pre­view of the set above.

These days, Notaro’s first album Good One is No. 2 (in com­e­dy) on iTunes, she has a book deal, and is begin­ning a reg­u­lar gig on Com­e­dy Cen­tral. Reporters come call­ing fre­quent­ly. Notaro spoke to NPR’s Fresh Air a cou­ple days ago and told her sto­ry of that night. C.K. fol­lowed up in the same pro­gram with his ver­sion of events. Notaro’s inter­view is clas­sic her—she’s a nat­u­ral­ly gift­ed sto­ry­teller who seems to rise above mis­for­tune with envi­able poise and wit.

Josh Jones is a doc­tor­al can­di­date in Eng­lish at Ford­ham Uni­ver­si­ty and a co-founder and for­mer man­ag­ing edi­tor of Guer­ni­ca / A Mag­a­zine of Arts and Pol­i­tics.

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Steve Martin, “Home Crafts Expert,” Explains the Art of Paper Wadding, Endorses Bob Kerrey

in Comedy, Current Affairs, Politics | October 8th, 2012

Fed up with polit­i­cal ads? Had enough? Nev­er want to see anoth­er one as long as you live? Con­sid­er watch­ing just one more. Because this one is fun. No, real­ly! Steve Mar­tin, who made prop com­e­dy respectable, endors­es his friend Bob Ker­rey for Nebras­ka Sen­a­tor by pos­ing as a “Home Crafts Expert.” This is the most unob­tru­sive, watch­able piece of polit­i­cal adver­tis­ing I’ve seen, one that trades on what every­one knows to be true—political ads are annoy­ing and dull and politi­cians are not often the most like­able peo­ple. Martin’s ad avoids these pit­falls, and it also makes a very sub­tle point, per­haps with­out even intend­ing to: pol­i­tics is the busi­ness of the every­day (or should be any­way), as essen­tial to us as the com­mon house­hold items we rely on all the time but take for grant­ed.

Now it’s true, of course, not every can­di­date has, or needs, celebri­ty friends. But no mat­ter your pol­i­tics, Martin’s endorse­ment of Ker­rey works as an exam­ple of how polit­i­cal adver­tis­ing could be done dif­fer­ent­ly.

After you’ve watched the ad, you might want to wan­der over to NPR and lis­ten to Mar­tin dis­cuss his 18 years as a stand-up com­ic and his move into act­ing and writ­ing, expe­ri­ences he details in his mem­oir, Born Stand­ing Up.

Josh Jones is a doc­tor­al can­di­date in Eng­lish at Ford­ham Uni­ver­si­ty and a co-founder and for­mer man­ag­ing edi­tor of Guer­ni­ca / A Mag­a­zine of Arts and Pol­i­tics.

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