In Honor of Louis C.K.‘s Well-Deserved Emmy Nomination

in Comedy | July 14th, 2011

Con­grat­u­la­tions to the come­di­an Louis C.K. whose half-hour F/X show Louie was just nom­i­nat­ed for an Emmy Award (full list of nom­i­nees here). To cel­e­brate, here’s one of our favorite of his riffs from a 2009 appear­ance on the Conan O’Brien show. (Speak­ing of Conan, don’t miss his Dart­mouth grad­u­a­tion address.)

We love Louis for many rea­sons, not the least of which is that he can build a killer, harangue-free rant around lines like “the foun­da­tions of cap­i­tal­ism are crum­bling.” Enjoy.

Sheer­ly Avni is a San Fran­cis­co-based arts and cul­ture writer. Her work has appeared in Salon, LA Week­ly, Moth­er Jones, and many oth­er pub­li­ca­tions. You can fol­low her on twit­ter at @sheerly.

by | Permalink | Make a Comment ( 1 ) |

Christopher Walken Reads “The Three Little Pigs”

in Comedy, Literature, Video - Arts & Culture | July 12th, 2011

You’ve heard him read Lady Gaga, you’ve seen him rem­i­nisce with his fel­low lov-ahs on Sat­ur­day Night Live, and you’ve heard him sub in for Leonard Lopate on the radio. But we’re not sure if any of Christo­pher Walken’s appear­ances can beat his dement­ed spin on “The Three Lit­tle Pigs.” Mr. Walken’s read­ing of the poten­tial­ly ter­ri­fy­ing sto­ry is unchar­ac­ter­is­ti­cal­ly jol­ly (he’s going for laughs, not chills), and we freely rec­om­mend it for chil­dren. Espe­cial­ly chil­dren from Brook­lyn.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Wern­er Her­zog Reads “Go the F**k to Sleep” in NYC (NSFW)

Sheer­ly Avni is a San Fran­cis­co-based arts and cul­ture writer. Her work has appeared in Salon, LA Week­ly, Moth­er Jones, and many oth­er pub­li­ca­tions. You can fol­low her on twit­ter at @sheerly.

by | Permalink | Make a Comment ( 6 ) |

Doonesbury Confronts Creationism in the Classroom

in Comedy, Current Affairs, Education | July 11th, 2011

Gar­ry Trudeau has tak­en on cre­ation­ism before. He’s doing it again, this time com­ment­ing on the oxy­moron­ic “Louisiana Sci­ence Edu­ca­tion Act,” which allows the teach­ing of cre­ation­ism in the pub­lic class­room. You can view Trudeau’s car­toon in full, and in high res here.

by | Permalink | Make a Comment ( 3 ) |

Stephen Fry on Philosophy and Unbelief

in Comedy, Philosophy, Religion | July 4th, 2011

Come­di­an Stephen Fry has the clas­sic British intel­lec­tu­al voice, much like philoso­pher Bryan McGee. It turns out that he knows some­thing about phi­los­o­phy, and this clip is a short­ened ver­sion of a longer video called “The Impor­tance of Unbe­lief.”

A more gen­tle ver­sion of George Car­lin, Fry’s views appear heart­felt while par­tak­ing of seri­ous irony. He claims that in order to prop­er­ly appre­ci­ate our present lives, “even if it isn’t true, you must absolute­ly assume that there is no after­life.” Choos­ing his posi­tions to argue as much for their rhetor­i­cal audac­i­ty as any­thing else, he argues for poly­the­ism in favor of monothe­ism, and he treats the issue of the divine pres­ence in nature by ref­er­enc­ing the life cycle of a par­a­sitic worm. He seems an apt voice to add to the new athe­ist debates, at least as amus­ing as Dawkins and much more­so than Sam Har­ris. This clip is added to our col­lec­tion of 250 Cul­tur­al Icons.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Stephen Fry: What I Wish I Had Known When I Was 18

Stephen Fry Gets Ani­mat­ed about Lan­guage

Mark Lin­sen­may­er runs the Par­tial­ly Exam­ined Life phi­los­o­phy pod­cast and blog. He also per­forms with the Madi­son, WI band New Peo­ple.

by | Permalink | Make a Comment ( 4 ) |

Steve Martin Releases Bluegrass Album/Animated Video

in Comedy, Music | June 15th, 2011

Once again, we’re remind­ed of Steve Mar­t­in’s many tal­ents — come­di­an, movie star, New York­er writer, play­wright, magi­cian, and, yes, ban­jo play­er too. In June 2009, Mar­tin hooked up with the Steep Canyon Rangers, an Amer­i­can blue­grass band, on Gar­ri­son Keil­lor’s A Prairie Home Com­pan­ion. (Lis­ten to mp3 here.) Lat­er in 2009 and ear­ly 2010, Mar­tin made more appear­ances with the band, per­form­ing (among oth­er things) the first song ever writ­ten for hymn-deprived athe­ists. Now comes a new CD, Rare Bird Alert, which fea­tures 13 tracks, includ­ing “Jubi­la­tion Day” (watch ani­mat­ed video above) and King Tut, a blue­grass ver­sion of his 1978 clas­sic. Enjoy…

by | Permalink | Make a Comment ( 1 ) |

Jimmy Fallon Nails the Bob Dylan Impersonation

in Comedy, Music | May 24th, 2011

He looks like Bob Dylan. He sings like our birth­day boy Bob Dylan. And yet he’s cov­er­ing per­haps the cheesi­est 80s sit­com theme song ever made — which makes it all the more hilar­i­ous…

by | Permalink | Make a Comment ( 2 ) |

Peter Sellers Performs The Beatles “A Hard Day’s Night” in Shakespearean Voice

in Comedy, Literature, Music | May 24th, 2011

Back in 1964, Peter Sell­ers (aka Chief Inspec­tor Clouse­au in The Pink Pan­ther films) made a cameo appear­ance on “The Music of Lennon and McCart­ney,” a tele­vi­sion pro­gram pro­duced at the height of Beat­le­ma­nia. The schtick? To read the lyrics of A Hard Day’s Night in a way that com­i­cal­ly recalls Lau­rence Olivier’s 1955 per­for­mance of the open­ing solil­o­quy from Richard III. It starts famous­ly “Now is the win­ter of our dis­con­tent …” (See full text here.)

On a very relat­ed note, don’t miss:

Peter Sell­ers Reads The Bea­t­les’ “She Loves You” in Four Voic­es

Fol­low us on Face­book, Twit­ter and Google Plus and share intel­li­gent media with your friends. Or bet­ter yet, sign up for our dai­ly email and get a dai­ly dose of Open Cul­ture in your inbox.

 

by | Permalink | Make a Comment ( 7 ) |

George Carlin’s “Modern Man” Rap

in Comedy | May 21st, 2011

Forty years after George Car­lin first stopped by The Tonight Show (1966), he made one of his last appear­ances, deliv­er­ing a rap/poem that’s clas­sic Car­lin, a hyp­not­ic riff on mod­ern life and soci­ety. The lyrics appear right below.

I’m a mod­ern man,
A man for the mil­len­ni­um,
Dig­i­tal and smoke free.
A diver­si­fied mul­ti­cul­tur­al post­mod­ern decon­struc­tion­ist,
Polit­i­cal­ly anatom­i­cal­ly and eco­log­i­cal­ly incor­rect.
I’ve been uplinked and down­loaded.
I’ve been inputted and out­sourced.
I know the upside of down­siz­ing.
I know the down­side of upgrad­ing.
I’m a high tech lowlife.
A cut­ting edge state-of-the-art bicoastal mul­ti­tasker,
And I can give you a giga­byte in a nanosec­ond. (The rest after the jump…)
(more…)

by | Permalink | Make a Comment ( 7 ) |

« Go Back — More in this category... »
Quantcast