New York Times |

Many movie fans and critics were surprised when “Bridesmaids” did not receive an Academy Award nomination for best picture. Of the nine movies that did, only “Midnight in Paris” was a comedy.

The last time a comedy won best picture was in 1978 with “Annie Hall.” And many films like “This Is Spinal Tap” (1984) and “There’s Something About Mary” (1998) have been completely ignored by the Academy.

Why don’t comedies get more respect?

 Video Clips: Eight Decades of Laughs (If Not Oscars) »

The event, produced by Andy Engel, Gotham’s Director of New Talent, is geared towards people who are seriously thinking about a career in stand-up comedy as well as professionals who wish to use stand-up comedy to improve their speaking, writing or office presentation and other skills. The workshop will cover all the basics of getting started in stand-up comedy plus a Q&A session with the speakers who include such industry players as Chuck Nice, Cory Kahaney, Harrison Greenbaum, Karen Bergreen, Jimmy Faila and the event producer, Engel, who also runs the Manhattan Comedy School.

Due to the expected level of interest in the workshop, the organizers recommend that attendees check-in at the venue by 11:30 a.m. on the day of the event.

For more event information call (212) 462-3200

At the “How to be Funny in 140 Characters or Less” panel Wednesday, I watched the full life cycle of a humorous trending topic on Twitter — from its creation, to peak, then death — all within less than an hour.

The event was part of Social Media Week NYC, and was led by Lizz Winstead, writer and political satirist forThe Daily Show; Jon Friedman, writer, comedian and producer; and Julieanne Smolinski, writer and editor.

“How to be funny on Twitter is always tricky, because no one can make you funny. But people can make what you think is funny a little more accessible,” says Winstead.

More …

More…

More…

ComedyBeat chats with Engel in a candid, no-holds-barred exchange on some really big issues in the world of contemporary comedy from the training of rookie comics to the sea change gripping the industry today:

How long have you been in the comedy industry?

Andy Engel: I have been doing New Talent shows since 1993; that is 19 years in New York City. I started out at Carolines Comedy Club. I was there until [September] 2008. I produced New Talent Shows…I created the New Talent Shows there in 1993.

What kind of work do you do today?

Andy Engel: I do two things. One, I run and operate the Manhattan Comedy School and if somebody who has never done comedy before wants to try it, it’s a great place to start. We get a lot of professionals who are successful in their day jobs and they’re not going to quit their day jobs but maybe want to improve their public speaking or whatever aspect of their job they could use help with… and some of those people, for example, enjoy doing my New Talent Shows so much they do it again and again…there are people who do it with me for years because they love doing standup, its very, very addictive…it’s the most fun you could have with your clothes on. It’s an amazing experience…there’s nothing else to compare it to. The other people who take my class are people who want to pursue standup comedy as a career. So, I get people who have totally different motivations but the class at my comedy school is really perfect for both of them.

How’s your work at the New Talent Shows connected with your work at the [Manhattan Comedy] School?

Andy Engel: Well, they are connected in a very nice way. A lot of people take my class and when they’re done with the class they often get the opportunity to do one of my New Talent shows, which is a great opportunity. By the way, Jim Gaffigan just got offstage a few minutes ago on my show and I’m expecting Judah Friedlander to pop in, too. And it’s a really special treat when you’re starting out [as a new comic] and you bring your friends and they see Jim Gaffigan and they see Judah Friedlander. And Jerry Seinfeld does the show, too. He’s been on there at least four times.  Plus, the new comics can make a DVD which is the best quality DVD in the city [New York City] and the DVDs have launched countless careers. There’s no rule as to how fast you get it but the sooner somebody gets onstage here [Gotham] and gets used to all the unique qualities of the club, like the physical size, the microphone, all those things, the easier it is for them to get that great tape which is what they’re aiming for basically, if that makes sense.

How do the training opportunities for young comics today compare to say, 30 years ago?

Andy Engel: There are more clubs today than 30 years ago, and if you’re talking about doing standup there are a lot more material that somebody can study today than they could 30 years ago and it’s very easy…anybody with a computer has a library of comedians and their material so….it’s pretty amazing how much material you can get at your fingertips to see instantly, to learn from or to get inspired from…whereas 30 years ago, you’d have to buy a record or get a record or go to a library. Now a young kid not living in New York City has phenomenal access to this incredible Internet library of comedy talent. So, in a sense, you could say it is easier today to start to learn. But when you come down to it, it’s still all about hard work, hard work…thousands of hours of stage time. It’s still hard work, you still to get up and do it often even when you don’t feel well…even when you have a bad day…and that’s what separates the men from the boys. So, it’s still the same today as it was 30 years ago in that respect…that hasn’t changed…you and a microphone in front of an audience. What has changed is that if you’re really funny today, you can get that out on the Internet very fast.

How is the industry today different from the way it was in the past?

Andy Engel: Obviously, the Internet has changed everything. You could see somebody’s set instantaneously now, within 60 seconds after you turn the computer on. Before, you had to physically get a VHS of somebody. Now casting moves a lot faster because of that. If you’re funny, you can post something on the Internet now, obviously on YouTube, and if people like it, it can go viral in a day and a million people know who you are which is pretty amazing. That’s a dramatic change from 20 years ago. If you’re a 14 year-old kid in Arkansas and you’re creative and funny and smart, you can be seen and heard, that’s a beautiful thing. That didn’t happen 20 years ago, that kid would have to make his movie, come to New York, find an agent, probably get rejected the first time he sends it to a major agency in the city.
Also, today, people can get a few friends together and hire a cameraman and create a comedy series with several videos on a particular subject…you know nothing stops you from creating a comedy channel today, if you have the time and the money and the creativity and the smarts. You couldn’t do that 20 years ago…, you just couldn’t.
Plus, I think that comedy is more accessible now because of, for example, my [comedy] school and all the other schools, and Comedy Central. ..Kids get exposed to comedy when they are in their tweens… before they’re even teenagers…you know, they are seeing very good comedy on HBO or Showtime. If you were 13 about 30 years ago, you didn’t see an uncensored comedy routine at the age of 13 unless your parents were unusual and they take you to a club or they take you to Vegas or something.

Corporations are everywhere these days. What, if any, role did they play in all of this?

Andy Engel: Well, there are too many greedy corporations taking advantage of young performers before they have power…and they just take advantage of people horribly and they do, they don’t pay young comics what they are worth or any kind of fair, respectable wage in a lot of instances. But when you become really big as a comic, you then get [bargaining] power and the situation reverses and the comic gets paid incredible money. What Louis CK did about a month ago was revolutionary. I think it was a really smart good move on his part to release his DVD for $5 and to cut out the middleman. I think that’s what happened in the recording industry a few years ago and apparently a lot of comics are going to follow Louis’ lead. And they are going to cut out the middleman and price their work at a reasonable price. I think that corporate greed has just run amuck. I think Louis is a trailblazer not only comedically [sic] but in terms of just cutting out the middleman. I think what Louis [CK] did symbolizes that people don’t want to pay the $20 now they are paying $5. I just think that’s going to be a trend setter.

If some one starts out today in comedy, is he more likely to have the chance to make a living as a comedian than 30 years ago?

Andy Engel: Well, let’s put it this way: Now if you don’t make it as a comedian, you could make it doing something on the Internet that’s humor related. There are comedy sites that are funny…I don’t know how many are making money but there’s certainly the potential there that you didn’t have 30 years ago. The internet gives a lot more funny people opportunities even if it’s not traditional standup.

Do you have a guiding philosophy about comedy?

Andy Engel: Yeah, I tell people…don’t steal…, don’t pander, and try to do material so personal that if somebody stole it they’ll just know it’s your material because it’s so unique and personal that only you could have done it…do stuff that you care about, that makes you sad, makes you angry. Just do stuff that you care about.

Do you have any heroes in the game?

Andy Engel: Lewis Black, Brian Regan, Paul Mooney, and Greg Giraldo [now deceased]

Why do you like them?

Andy Engel: Each one I’ll answer differently…I mean they are all brilliant, incredible comedic minds.

What do they have in common?

Andy Engel: They’re all original…they all have their own original, very, very specific persona, voice and attitude that they own which nobody can take from them, ever. They’re unique and special.

To contact Andy Engel, go to: aengelcomedy@nyc.rr.com, or visit www.manhattancomedyschool.com.

More…

By Paul Brownfield, The New York Times | “I’ve really been in my head this last week,” a morbid-sounding comedian said on his podcast recently. “Every time I think I’m out of the woods with my depression and my self-obsession, I manage to backslide, and then that makes me even more depressed.”

The podcasting comedian (wait for it) confessed that a cable TV show he had co-hosted for many years was about to go off the air. He was frightened. “I’m afraid to admit to myself that I’m sad, and I’m scared that I’m not going to work again.”

But then (still waiting for it . . .) he made an insight about his depression. He spoke of his “fear that I’m not going to have enough money, which is connected to believing that I’m alone.”

This podcast, called “The Mental Illness Happy Hour” and hosted by Paul Gilmartin, is filed on iTunes under Self Help, even though Gilmartin is a comedian and many of his guests are comedians. And no wonder: the tone of the show plays to the trope that all comedians are in actuality broken people who are willing to expose their brokenness for our light amusement.

More …

Here’s what happened: In the summer of 2010 basketball star LeBron James visited an orthodox Jewish rabbi named Yishayahu Yosef Pinto for spiritual guidance as he struggled to make a big decision on commercial endorsement deals. On an episode of his show in August 2010, Kimmel made a joke about the James –Pinto visit by showing a video clip of the event alongside a YouTube video of a rabbi named David Sondik, known on YouTube as the “Flying Rabbi.” The Sondik video was meshed with a video of Kimmel himself sitting in a car and talking to Sondik [the Flying Rabbi] who was standing at the window of Kimmel’s car and supposedly counseling Kimmel in incomprehensible sounds and wild manic gestures. Kimmel set up the joke as a way to communicate to his viewers that what LeBron James (who didn’t speak any Hebrew) did on his visit to Rabbi Pinto (who himself didn’t speak any English) made no more sense than what Kimmel himself had done with the Flying Rabbi.

For his part, Rabbi Sondik didn’t find the joke funny, so he sued both Kimmel and ABC seeking damages for defamation, invasion of right of publicity, misappropriation of likeness and for copyright infringement. Sondik claimed that by portraying his voice, picture and likeness as that of Rabbi Pinto he was made to “look foolish” and was cast as a “laughing stock.”

A win for Sondik could have a pretty major impact on how far comedians on late night TV could go in running any video clips as part of a joke on people and events in the society. This could present a classic “slippery slope” situation for comedians: it would mean that every time comedians do it as part of their monologue, they have to worry about whether they have crossed the line into the lawsuit zone where folks like Sondik might be waiting for them. As it happens, this practice has become so well established as an aspect of late night TV satire that audiences have come to take it for granted on the Leno, Letterman, Conan and other shows.

But Sondik obviously ended up losing and so late night TV satire as we know it will go on. The reason Sondik lost his case is pretty much the same reason that most people would not even launch a lawsuit like that to begin with. And the court made it crystal clear to him. The court basically said that the segment that Sondik was griping about was really just an attempt by Kimmel to make a satire of Lebron James’ meeting with Rabbi Pinto, an event that by itself was either ‘newsworthy or a matter of public interest’. And since Sondik’s suit was kind of heavy on the right of publicity and misappropriation of likeness talk, the court shot that down by stating that the Kimmel video clip had not been not meant for ‘commercial use’. The logic here is that newsworthy stuff and commercial stuff don’t usually run in the same stream.

Long story short, Kimmel ended up making this one a cakewalk. What this confirms yet again is just how very difficult it is to win against a comedian for something done in the way of a joke. For starters, pretty much everyone understands that a comedian is just making a joke and therefore is not dealing with matters of fact in the real world. In this very case, any average late night TV viewer who saw that particular video clip would likely not have thought that Kimmel in fact met with the Flying Rabbi the way that Lebron James met with Rabbi Pinto. In short, comedians do splice stuff together in a funny way just to make people laugh and folks do get the joke on that. Simple as that!

Considering the media buzz and speculations about LeBron James’ next career move in the NBA at the time of the meeting with Pinto, his decision to meet with Pinto was obviously both newsworthy and a matter of public interest. And such events are fair game for comedic gags. The way the court saw it, the meeting between James and Pinto was the main focus of the video clip by Kimmel rather than the Sondik bit in the clip. In this way of looking at it, it is obvious that not even LeBron James himself or Rabbi Pinto, for that matter, could have won a lawsuit against Kimmel for the video clip that Sondik sued about.

And speaking of matters of public interest, one might perhaps wonder whether it is fair that Sondik, who claims to be a private guy, should be dragged into a joke being made by Kimmel about public figures. To be sure, most folks would agree that LeBron James being a public figure should bear the consequences of any newsworthy events that his actions could generate. And for that matter, so should Rabbi Pinto for getting involved with a public figure like James in a newsworthy event. But it may be fair to say that Sondik was simply dragged into the whole thing and, as he claims in is lawsuit, made a “laughing stock” of. Is it fair?

Perhaps, not quite, but in America, parody is so heavily protected by the First Amendment that sometimes even innocent bystanders (and private persons) are swept along by its broad brush. In those situations when it all gets a bit messy, there is no protection for anyone against being made into a “laughing stock” or being made to “look foolish.” Yet, the First Amendment has its place and most Americans probably feel grateful that it exists, despite its occasional rough edges.

And one more thing: Sondik claims that Kimmel did not obtain his permission prior to pulling his image from YouTube and making it a part of the video clip used in the joke. Well, one can only say that this claim is pretty idle and doesn’t seem to have a prayer in the law, because the copyright claim here belongs instead to YouTube, and not to Sondik. So, in making this particular claim, Sondik simply came across as just a busy body who is saying something that lies in the mouth of somebody else. Needless to say, this claim was a non-starter. But the law is hardly wrinkle-free: for instance, if you put the proprietors of YouTube in Sondik’s shoes, Kimmel could be looking at some real sticky stuff on his hands, unless he got all his authorizations he needed for his video clip. So, by giving voice to this copyright claim, Sondik may well be trying to wake up some sleeping dogs for a possible legal offensive against Kimmel.

But here’s the final picture: thanks to the protection of parody under the First Amendment, yet another comedian wins a shoving match against folks who don’t like his sense of humor. And surely, the beat goes on for Jimmy Kimmel.

PRWEB, LOS ANGELES | The RA comedy troupe is up to something fishy. Well, something sushi, actually. On February 7, content creation and marketing agency Raging Artists presents “RA Dog Comedy,” a live show to be taped as part of a new Web series called “Beyond the Brick Wall.” Comics and company principals Juicy Diaz, Ernie Noh, and Hursh Rephun will appear in the lineup  [see video in ComedyBeat slider], which also includes Andie Bolt, Mike Citera, Andy Dugan, and Rich Aronovich. The event will take place at new Melrose hot spot, Saba Sushi - offering a rare, hot combo of comedy, sake, and kosher sushi.

“We immersed ourselves in standup as a writing exercise, and fell in love with the medium,” said Juicy, who has poured audiences a “hot cup of truth” about race, religion, and family in multiple shows at The Ice House, Flappers, and HaHa Cafe, among other venues. “We also realized that as we have a unique perspective on standup, the creative process, and the comedy business, we wanted to share that via a Web series.” “A rebellious Web series,” added Ernie, who’s appeared in West Coast comedy spots from LA to San Diego and Oakland; he shares anecdotes and insights as a member of the Korean community — and is candid about his Asian member.

More …