Over the last few years, Netflix has swiftly established itself as the new destination for televised stand-up, supplanting old mainstays like Comedy Central, and even the venerable institution of the HBO hour-long special, as the place where up-and-coming comics (and established arena-headliners) go when they want to…
Ah, summer—the hottest time of the year everywhere but in TV land. At least, it was until Netflix set a goal of 1,000 original releases by the end of 2018. But fear not: The A.V. Club is offering life preservers for those who are adrift in this sea of content, starting with the best of scripted and nonscripted series.…
You know what they say about heroes: They either die early, or live long enough to damn near kill themselves making a movie about Don Quixote, and then spout off a bunch of toxic bullshit about how they’re suddenly a trans black woman. That old axiom was never truer than in the case of director and Monty Python alum…
The sanitized, dead-eyed milieu of corporate America will never not be a prime subject for satire, as evidenced by the enduring legacy of comedies like The Office and Office Space. Still, no amount of satire can capture the numbing mundanity of the office better than stock photography, which is, like any corporation,…
Back in 2016, we reported that George Carlin’s daughter Kelly Carlin had donated his “archives” to the National Comedy Center in New York for a “museum experience” that was still in the works at the time. Now, that museum experience has grown into an actual museum, and the National Comedy Center is preparing to open…
You don’t need us to tell you that the world is grim out there at the moment, full as it is of racism, xenophobia, violence, misogyny, and more. Frequently, we look to our various comedians to lighten the burden for a minute, but what are they supposed to do when the cheerfulness supply runs low, huh?
Prince’s archives are the stuff of legend, but what about Mitch Hedberg’s? We’ll soon find out, as in a guest column in today’s The Hollywood Reporter, Hedberg’s widow, Lynn Shawcroft, reveals that she’s spent the last eight months diligently digitizing a huge archive of unreleased material from the late comedy…
Displaying her typically blunt yet thoughtful sense of humor, Cameron Esposito has just released a new special titled Rape Jokes, the proceeds of which will be donated to the National Sexual Assault Telephone Hotline (RAINN). The hour-long special is already streaming on Esposito’s website, but you can buy it for a…
Laughter is somehow different now. Blame Trump, blame outrage culture, or blame the terrifying rise of public shaming, but rarely does a week go by that some public (or even not-so-public figure) makes a joke that ignites a flurry of angry tweets and thinkpieces. Does this response fall under the umbrella of the First…
It’s Memorial Day here in the United States, which, as longtime readers of the site already know, means we’re taking the day off from Newswire for some rest and relaxation. It’s also the birthday of Zelda Rubinstein, the beloved 4'3" character actress with the childlike voice famous for her role as spunky-yet-motherly…
Julia Louis-Dreyfus is going to need a bigger awards shelf: The 11-time Emmy winner will have to clear some space, as Deadline reports that she’s this year’s recipient of the Mark Twain Prize for American Humor. The prize, which has been given out every year since 1998 by the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing…
Longtime A.V. Club readers may remember Joel and Stephen Levinson as two of the masterminds behind 2776: A Musical Journey Through America’s Past, Present, And Future, a 2013 musical comedy album that saw, among other delightfully absurd tracks, Neko Case singing about Star Wars and Aimee Mann serenading David Wain…
Dystopia-watchers had another anxious weekend, as attendees of the White House Correspondents Dinner heard jokes from host Michelle Wolf about press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders being an unapologetic liar and traitor to women and decided to wag their fingers at Wolf for referencing eye makeup and comparing Sanders…
As he once made the transition—circa 2007 or 2008 or so—from “beloved TV creator” to “Yeah, what?,” Ricky Gervais spent early 2018 transitioning his public persona from that elaborate public shrug to an even-more-exasperated “Ugh, god.” Lately, for instance, the comedian has been harshly criticized for his most recent…
Welcome back to Trailer Happy Hour, where all the day’s trailers gradually accrete like an audio-visual sargassum, the better to take in as many promos and teasers as possible in one simple, safe place. Today, we’ve got a new Netflix special from the funny Blart man, a monstrous biopic about a feminist literary icon,…
TJ Miller’s ongoing fall from comedy grace just reached a new level of bizarre, as Variety reports that the ex-Silicon Valley star was arrested last night at New York’s LaGuardia Airport for calling in a fake bomb threat last month. The United States Attorney for the District of Connecticut says that Miller was…
A little more than three years ago, Santa Fe’s self-described “court jester” Christian Englander was so incensed by Dave Chappelle’s onstage ribbing of his “sensitive” artist friend, that he decided to defend said friend’s honor. Did this self-styled wag fire back some quips about Chappelle’s relevance, or explain…
For the first season of their podcast 372 Pages We’ll Never Get Back, RiffTrax head honcho Michael J. Nelson and writer Conor Lastowka decided to lay off of riffing on movies for a bit and focus on the local library by taking on Ernest Cline’s 2011 sci-fi ode to ‘80s pop culture and all things geeky, Ready Player One.
Get ready for more of The Comeback Kid (in a sense): Netflix has just announced a new stand-up special from John Mulaney. A press release teased the upcoming John Mulaney: Kid Gorgeous At Radio City, which was filmed during Mulaney’s sold-out, seven-night run at Radio City Music Hall earlier this year. It’ll stream…
Yesterday, Donald Trump announced that Bush-era war hawk John Bolton would be his new National Security Advisor, and people are, understandably, freaking out. Luckily, a new anti-war anthem just debuted that, like the great protest songs of the 1960s, appeals directly to the moral conscience of the human race. “War…
