John Belushi’s Improvised Screen Test for Saturday Night Live (1975)

in Comedy, Television | March 13th, 2012

In this rare footage from 1975, a 26-year-old John Belushi warms up with some eye­brow cal­is­then­ics before doing his sig­na­ture Mar­lon Bran­do impres­sion in a screen test for a new late-night tele­vi­sion pro­gram called Sat­ur­day Night Live. He got the part, of course, and his star rose rapid­ly along with the show’s. By 1978 Belushi could boast of hav­ing the num­ber one late-night tele­vi­sion show (SNL), the num­ber one movie (Ani­mal House) and the num­ber one musi­cal album (The Blues Broth­ers’ Brief­case Full of Blues). But sad­ly it all came crash­ing down 30 years ago this month–on March 5 1982–when he died of a drug over­dose. In this clip we remem­ber the young Belushi: cocky, tal­ent­ed, with a bril­liant future ahead of him.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Father Gui­do Sar­duc­ci Pitch­es “The Five Minute Uni­ver­si­ty”

William S. Bur­roughs on Sat­ur­day Night Live, 1981

The Stunt That Got Elvis Costel­lo Banned From Sat­ur­day Night Live

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Jim Henson Pilots The Muppet Show with Adult Episode, “Sex and Violence” (1975)

in Comedy, Television | February 24th, 2012

In the ear­ly 1970s, Jim Hen­son was wor­ried that the Mup­pets were becom­ing type­cast as chil­dren’s enter­tain­ment. So in Decem­ber of 1974 he pro­duced a pilot episode for The Mup­pet Show and gave it a name that was about as far away from Sesame Street as you could get: “Sex and Vio­lence.”

The half-hour pilot was first broad­cast on ABC in March of 1975. It’s a fast-mov­ing series of vignettes, fea­tur­ing a mot­ley cast of characters–many of whom would become famil­iar in lat­er years–appearing and reap­pear­ing through­out. Sam the Eagle, Sgt. Floyd Pep­per, The Swedish Chef, Statler and Wal­dorf, and a wrestler named The San Fran­cis­co Earth­quake all make an appear­ance. At one point, Ker­mit the Frog propo­si­tions a female with the line, “I might be able to get you a job on an edu­ca­tion­al show for kids.” The sto­ry, to the extent there is one, cen­ters around prepa­ra­tions for a “Sev­en Dead­ly Sins Pageant.” Alas, the pageant nev­er quite gets off the ground. As Sam the Eagle sage­ly asks: “Do we real­ly want to get into a ‘dead­ly sins’ sit­u­a­tion?”

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Relat­ed Con­tent:

Pup­pet Mak­ing with Jim Hen­son: A Primer

Jim Henson’s Zany 1963 Robot Film Uncov­ered by AT&T: Watch Online

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

in Comedy, Life | February 18th, 2012

There’s prob­a­bly not a standup come­di­an big­ger than Louis CK right now. His FX tele­vi­sion show, Louie, earned him two Emmy Award nom­i­na­tions in 2011, and his recent com­e­dy spe­cial, Live at the Bea­con The­ater, made his­to­ry when CK dis­trib­uted the show via the web (not HBO) and net­ted $1,000,000 in sales in a mat­ter of days.

Louis CK is rid­ing a good wave. But times weren’t always so easy. Back in 2010, CK spoke at a trib­ute to George Car­lin (host­ed at the ven­er­a­ble New York Pub­lic Library) and revis­it­ed his ear­ly days in the pro­fes­sion. For years — actu­al­ly 15 long years — CK per­formed the same old act and spun his wheels. Then he looked to Car­lin and turned his career around. As you might expect, the sto­ry is laced with some pro­fan­i­ty. (Come on, it’s Louis CK talk­ing about George Car­lin!) But, when you strip the lan­guage away, you get a good life les­son. Per­se­ver­ance counts. But so does per­spec­tive, get­ting the right per­spec­tive.

Louis CK’s talk appears above. You can find the full Car­lin trib­ute here. And don’t miss a very relat­ed video where Car­lin describes the turn­ing point in his own life — the moment when he learned “not to give a shit” and his com­ic genius came into full bloom.

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David Lynch Falls in Love: A Classic Scene From Twin Peaks

in Comedy, Television | February 14th, 2012

They say a man falls in love through his eyes, a woman through her ears. In this scene from Twin Peaks, David Lynch pours on the ear-shat­ter­ing charm. The scene is from episode 25 of the sec­ond and final sea­son (1991). Lynch makes a cameo appear­ance as Gor­don Cole, the hard-of-hear­ing region­al bureau chief of the FBI, who has arrived in town to help agent Dale Coop­er (Kyle MacLach­lan) with an inves­ti­ga­tion. When the two men stop by at the Dou­ble R Din­er for a bite to eat, Cole is instant­ly smit­ten by the pret­ty wait­ress, Shelly John­son (Mäd­chen Amick). “Excuse me, Coop,” he says suave­ly, “while I try my hand in a lit­tle counter Esperan­to.” What hap­pens next is a miracle–or maybe just a phe­nom­e­non.

Relat­ed con­tent:

David Lynch’s Sur­re­al Com­mer­cials

David Lynch’s Eraser­head Remade in Clay

David Lynch Talks Med­i­ta­tion with Paul McCart­ney

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Werner Herzog Has a Beef With Chickens

in Comedy, Film, Random | February 8th, 2012

It’s part of the beau­ty of Wern­er Her­zog. His films engross us, and the direc­tor pro­vides the enter­tain­ment on the side. You have seen him take a bul­let dur­ing an inter­view in LA. You’ve heard him read “Go the F**k to Sleep” in New York City. And, of course, you’ve watched him eat his shoe (lit­er­al­ly!) after loos­ing a bet to fel­low film­mak­er Errol Mor­ris. Well, today we give you the lat­est, great­est Her­zog moment — his 40 sec­ond dis­course on why he has a beef with chick­ens. h/t Coudal.com

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Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar Read in Celebrity Voices

in Comedy, Literature | February 2nd, 2012

Last sum­mer, actor Jim Meski­men pro­duced a viral video where he imper­son­at­ed 25 famous fig­ures recit­ing Clarence’s mono­logue from Shake­speare’s great his­to­ry play, Richard III. Woody Allen, Jack Nichol­son, Jim­my Stew­art — they all made an appear­ance.

Now, Meski­men returns with a new cast of char­ac­ters, and this time he’s read­ing lines from Marc Antony’s famous speech in Julius Cae­sar.

If you live in LA, you can see the impres­sion­ist per­form live at The Act­ing Cen­ter on Feb­ru­ary 17 & 18 at 8 p.m. Enjoy.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Nine Imper­son­ations by Kevin Spacey in Six Min­utes

F. Scott Fitzger­ald Reads Shake­speare

William S. Bur­roughs Shoots Shake­speare

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The Muppets Strike Back at Fox!

in Comedy, Politics | January 30th, 2012

In Fox’s world, noth­ing good is ter­ri­bly safe. Even the lov­able Mup­pets fall under with­er­ing attack.

Last month, Fox Busi­ness spent sev­en min­utes (below) unrav­el­ing the left wing con­spir­a­cy in the lat­est Mup­pet movie. Then the Mup­pets, not tak­ing things lying down, struck back. Appear­ing at a press con­fer­ence in Lon­don last week, Ker­mit the Frog and Miss Pig­gy rebutted Fox’s charges in one com­ic minute. It’s a pret­ty fun­ny clip. But the best part is watch­ing a major news out­let argue with pup­pets.

If you need some­thing to make you feel bet­ter about the world, don’t miss Jim Hen­son’s 1969 primer on how to make your own pup­pets, using noth­ing oth­er than house­hold items. H/T SF Gate

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Nine PAC Ads from Stephen Colbert Spoof U.S. Election System

in Comedy, Current Affairs, Politics | January 24th, 2012

When the Supreme Court, in its infi­nite wis­dom, decid­ed that cor­po­ra­tions enjoy the free speech rights of indi­vid­u­als, it took a bad cam­paign finance sys­tem and made it worse. Sud­den­ly, free-spend­ing PACs, rep­re­sent­ing pow­er­ful busi­ness inter­ests, could flood our cam­paign finance sys­tem with unprece­dent­ed amounts of mon­ey and dis­tort the way we elect lead­ers in the Unit­ed States. In the ear­ly days of the Repub­li­can nom­i­na­tion process, we’re already see­ing the results. Super PACs, some­times receiv­ing $5 mil­lion from one indi­vid­ual, are run­ning attack ads — lots of attack ads — in pri­ma­ry states. And the real del­uge has yet to come. Just wait until next fall.

What to do about the sanc­tioned dis­tor­tion of our polit­i­cal sys­tem? It’s hard to be opti­mistic when fix­ing the prob­lem would real­is­ti­cal­ly require a con­sti­tu­tion­al amend­ment. But that’s what Lawrence Lessig (Har­vard law pro­fes­sor and founder of Cre­ative Com­mons) is try­ing to do. Appear­ing at Google (see below), Lessig describes how spe­cial inter­ests cor­rupt our polit­i­cal sys­tem, and what we can do to stop it. But even Lessig will admit that it’s an uphill bat­tle.

That leaves us with the next best solu­tion: turn a joke of an elec­tion sys­tem into a good joke. Enter Stephen Col­bert. The come­di­an has cre­at­ed his own Super PAC (run by Jon Stew­art) that comes com­plete with its own TV ads. The par­o­dy above — an attack ad on attack ads — makes its point pret­ty effec­tive­ly. You can watch eight more Col­bert PAC com­mer­cials here, and make a dona­tion to his PAC here. And, if you’re feel­ing gen­er­ous, you can show your sup­port for Open Cul­ture here.

Break­ing News: Stephen Col­bert ends qua­si-pres­i­den­tial cam­paign

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