Come­di­an Daniel Tosh, who isn’t known for his sen­si­tiv­i­ty, to say the least, has a seg­ment on his show Tosh.0 called “Web Redemp­tion” in which he allows peo­ple who became the butt of inter­net jokes to reclaim their dig­ni­ty. One might refer to the sea­son finale of Jer­ry Seinfeld’s free web series Come­di­ans in Cars Get­ting Cof­fee as some­thing of a “web redemp­tion” for his guest, Michael Richards, Sein­feld’s Kramer. Like Tosh, Richards had a high­ly-pub­li­cized and very ugly moment onstage at the Laugh Fac­to­ry in response to some heck­lers. I can’t say that I’ve felt a lot of sym­pa­thy for either of these guys, both raked over the inter­net’s coals. But does this final episode of Seinfeld’s breezy series redeem Michael Richards? Maybe a lit­tle? Well, it’s def­i­nite­ly fun to watch these two rem­i­nisce about their Sein­feld days, espe­cial­ly my per­son­al favorite episode, “Ken­ny Rogers’ Roast­ers.”

And it’s also very touch­ing. Seinfeld’s loy­al­ty and con­cern for his friend after that infa­mous melt­down always seemed gen­uine, and here Jer­ry’s gen­eros­i­ty of spir­it ele­vates him to some­thing of a per­son­al cheer­leader for the ram­shackle Richards—represented in this episode by the car Jer­ry choos­es: a rusty, beat-up 1962 VW van that dou­bles as a pick­up. My favorite exchange, hands-down, gives us a glimpse into the two come­di­ans’ souls: Jer­ry, sage of the every­day, and Richards, the man­ic absur­dist. Richards, a lit­tle shy or just clown­ing around, puts on a wig and dark glass­es:

Richards: “you should put on a hat and some sun­glass­es”
Sein­feld: “Oh, Michael, free your­self. We’re just rain­drops on a wind­shield.”
Richards: “I wan­na know who’s wip­ing me off!”

It’s got­ta be the kind of ban­ter you can’t script. Or maybe I choose to believe that. Once they sit down for cof­fee, Richards real­ly turns it on. He’s a bril­liant raconteur—tells the great­est chess sto­ry I’ve ever heard. No spoil­ers; you’ve got to see it.  Maybe it redeems him just a little–you decide.

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.

A while ago we brought you a hilar­i­ous series of record­ings of the British comedic actor Peter Sell­ers read­ing The Bea­t­les’ “She Loves You” in four dif­fer­ent accents. Today we have a brief clip from a tele­phone call by Sell­ers on the set of Stan­ley Kubrick­’s 1964 film Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Wor­ry­ing and Love the Bomb (in which Sell­ers played three dif­fer­ent roles). Here he demon­strates the nuances of a few of the many accents around Great Britain. From cock­ney to upper class and from Lon­don to Edin­burgh, it’s clas­sic Sell­ers all the way.

Relat­ed con­tent:

Peter Sell­ers: His Life in Home Movies

Peter Sell­ers Per­forms The Bea­t­les in Shake­speare­an Mode

Record­ed and aired last year, HBO’s Talk­ing Fun­ny is an hour long, unscript­ed sit-down with four of the biggest names in comedy—Ricky Ger­vais, Jer­ry Sein­feld, Chris Rock, and Louis C.K.. If you’re famil­iar with the work of any or all of these guys, you know you’re in for a lit­tle pro­fun­di­ty and a lot of pro­fan­i­ty. This is def­i­nite­ly, I repeat, not safe for work, and not safe for any­one who takes offense eas­i­ly. They go to some pret­ty nervy places, but that’s what we’ve come to expect from these four. Well, three actu­al­ly. Sein­feld comes in for some good-natured rib­bing for an entire career of work­ing “clean,” drop­ping an f‑bomb maybe once or twice in his act, ever.

So, if you can take the strong lan­guage that pops up occasionally–albeit in very reflec­tive and hilar­i­ous ways that I argue dif­fuse ten­sion and aren’t in the least bit mean-spirited–then you will be reward­ed by a con­ver­sa­tion between four high­ly accom­plished actors and come­di­ans who love to talk about their craft, com­pare war sto­ries, decon­struct their com­ic per­son­ae, and express gen­uine appre­ci­a­tion for each other’s work. But as soon as the con­ver­sa­tion seems to get too heady or sen­ti­men­tal, it’s back to sick humor and insults. There’s some­thing of the inse­cure ten-year old boy in each of these guys, who tend to use com­e­dy as a defen­sive weapon to fend off pain and sad­ness with­out run­ning away from either one; it works dif­fer­ent­ly in each com­ic, and it’s fas­ci­nat­ing to watch.

Ger­vais is espe­cial­ly thought­ful about his respon­si­bil­i­ty to the audi­ence (after some ini­tial brava­do), which comes as some sur­prise con­sid­er­ing his usu­al role as an obliv­i­ous ass. Sein­feld, the elder states­man, gets some def­er­ence from the oth­ers, but even at 57 is still boy­ish and slight­ly corny. Rock and C.K. are two of the smartest comics of their gen­er­a­tion and also two of the most pro­fane, but again, I think they pull it off because they are also two of the most hon­est and least threat­en­ing men to ever grace a stage—C.K. the self-dep­re­cat­ing sad sack and Rock the diminu­tive class clown with a per­pet­u­al imp­ish grin. Make up your own mind about the touchy sub­jects, or avoid them alto­geth­er, but over­all, I think each of these come­di­ans comes across as lov­able pre­cise­ly because they’re will­ing to be them­selves, vul­ner­a­bil­i­ties, child­ish insults, sweaty male ids, and all. They might make it look easy, but this is work for pro­fes­sion­als.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

How the Great George Car­lin Showed Louis CK the Way to Suc­cess (NSFW)

“Learn Eng­lish With Ricky Ger­vais,” A New Pod­cast Debuts (NSFW)

Come­di­ans in Cars Get­ting Cof­fee: Jer­ry Seinfeld’s News Series Debuts on the Web

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.

If ever there was a gold­en era to enjoy com­e­dy, it’s now, a moment when come­di­ans and those who love their work have hearti­ly exploit­ed near­ly every form of media new­ly gen­er­at­ed by the inter­net. At times I won­der if the medi­um of pod­cast­ing does­n’t owe its very exis­tence to those fun­ny men and women — the ear­li­est high-pro­file exam­ple being Ricky Ger­vais, col­lec­tive­ly with his writ­ing part­ner Stephen Mer­chant and oracle/object of ridicule Karl Pilk­ing­ton  — who imme­di­ate­ly under­stood its poten­tial. Some come­di­ans pod­cast so well that you’d almost believe they had just been wait­ing for the tech­nol­o­gy to arrive. Alas, it arrived in the mid-2000s, too late for Mitch Hed­berg to make use of it. Though we’ll nev­er know how or if Hed­berg, who died in 2005, would have pod­cast, we can at least still call up his comedic spir­it at a momen­t’s notice through the mir­a­cle of inter­net video.

Though Hed­berg has gone, his fans’ inter­est in his uncon­ven­tion­al per­sona, sen­si­bil­i­ty, and deliv­ery haven’t. A new doc­u­men­tary web series called Mod­ern Come­di­an has even put out a whole episode ded­i­cat­ed to him, based upon an inter­view with his wid­ow Lynn Shaw­croft. She describes Hed­berg as “a huge pro­po­nent of day­dream­ing,” which seems only to begin to describe his way of life and work. If you missed out on Hed­berg dur­ing his life, don’t miss out on him dur­ing this wave of posthu­mous pop­u­lar­i­ty. Just above, you’ll find embed­ded a five-minute stand-up set that should give you a glimpse of the dis­tinc­tive angles from which Hed­berg viewed exis­tence. And the next time a whole bunch of inter­net com­e­dy enthu­si­asts insist that you sim­ply must check out a strange young ris­ing tal­ent, cer­tain­ly don’t make the same mis­take I did eight years ago and tell your­self you can always catch him lat­er.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

“Learn Eng­lish With Ricky Ger­vais,” A New Pod­cast Debuts (NSFW)

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