|
|
Presenting The 25 Funniest People in America. From Conan O’Brien to Stephen Colbert, Tina Fey to Craig Ferguson, let’s count down the names of the entertainers who make us laugh the hardest.
25. AUGUSTEN BURROUGHS
Burroughs’ best-selling memoir Running with Scissors — about being raised by a nutso shrink who studies his poo and rents the back shed to a pedophile — is unbelievably disturbing. And sidesplitting. At first we felt guilty giggling at his adventures with an electroshock therapy machine, but Burroughs knows that laughter is the best antidepressant. Much better than booze, which the author struggles to kick in his equally effervescent follow-up, Dry.
24. CATHERINE O’HARA
After her run on SCTV in the late ’70s, Hollywood didn’t know what to do with O’Hara. Fortunately, Christopher Guest did. In Waiting for Guffman, she and Fred Willard are tracksuit-wearing answers to Ginger Rogers and Fred Astaire; in Best in Show, she’s a onetime floozy with a prize terrier and a torrid past; and in A Mighty Wind, O’Hara shows off a subtler comic touch, proving that humor doesn’t always mean a pie in the face.
23. SARAH SILVERMAN
The Lenny Bruce of the 21st century might be this hot, foul-mouthed, button-punching stand-up. Silverman is ruthlessly funny about topics like sex, the Holocaust, and 9/11, which may be why The Sarah Silverman Program has a permanent slot on our DVR. Oh, and if you hadn’t heard, she’s f—ing Matt Damon.
22. DAVE CHAPPELLE
The fact that Diamond Dave is all but absent from the comedic stage these days doesn’t invalidate his funny. After all, Chappelle’s revered Comedy Central show — on which the wiry comic gleefully engaged in crass T&A humor, swore like a sailor, and mocked everyone in the multiculti rainbow, confronting race in a way that is positively Pryor-esque — is still the best sketch comedy this country has seen in more than a decade. For that alone, he deserves a spot on any list like this.
21. DEMETRI MARTIN
You know what’s funny? Palindromes and anagrams. ”Shut up, Grandma,” you say, but we say shut up yourself and watch Demetri Martin work a stand-up mic. ”A drunk driver’s very dangerous. Everybody knows that. But so is a drunk backseat driver — if he’s persuasive.” The floppy-haired heir to Steven Wright won a prestigious award at last year’s Edinburgh Festival Fringe, taking him from the comedy underground to…the comedy slightly less underground.
20. DIABLO CODY
Not to be partial, but the newly minted Oscar winner showed off her comedic — and emotional — chops with her debut screenplay for Juno. Did we mention it won an Oscar?
19. CRAIG FERGUSON
Late night is the province of the mono-name. Jay! Dave! Conan! Then there’s that Scottish guy, two-name ID required: Craig Ferguson. You know, the one who can’t quite be pinned down. Since taking over CBS’ Late Late Show from Craig Kilborn in 2005, Ferguson has brought a fresh burst of energy to the format. He’s reinvented the opening monologue, doing away with most of the topical jokes and just ad-libbing about his life. Along with fresh energy, he’s brought something else — ratings. Ferguson, 45 and a brand-spanking-new U.S. Citizen, doesn’t get as much media attention as time-slot competitors Jimmy Kimmel or Conan, but with an audience of just under 2 million, the great Scot outperforms the former and has climbed within 500,000 viewers of the latter.
18. JACK BLACK
Black is an entirely new classification of human: the frenetic slacker. Before his turn as doofus band reject/inspirational teacher Dewey Finn in School of Rock, he was the Ritalin-deprived half of Tenacious D (along with his partner, Kyle Gass) and the list-obsessed record-shop shlub in High Fidelity. He is, inarguably, the coolest fusion of music and comedy since Spinal Tap. (And, if Tropic Thunder is as good as we’ve been led to believe, we’ll forgive him that whole Nacho Libre business.)
17. DAVID LETTERMAN
With a receding hairline and a jogger’s grim jowls, Dave is no one’s idea of a hip comic, and he likes it that way. New-school gone old-school, the upstart who first pumped irony into the talk show still rails against the stupidity of the powerful and yet has the charm to melt Julia Roberts.
16. AMY SEDARIS AND DAVID SEDARIS
Big brother is the best-selling author of the sublime autobiographical essay collections Me Talk Pretty One Day and Naked, full of terrific riffs about stuff like his cuckoo-clock North Carolina clan and his midget guitar teacher. Little sis was the rubber-faced star of Comedy Central’s truly strange Strangers With Candy, as well as coauthor of the book Wigfield.
15. WILL FERRELL
See, there’s this man-child who latches onto Will Ferrell in most every role he plays — and good luck getting the little guy to let go. As a result, we are treated to inspired displays of dolt-trapped-in-the-headlights hijinks, be it in the form of Old School’s keghead Frank the Tank (who goes from repressed to regressed to undressed) or Talladega Nights’ Ricky Bobby, the dumbest, most earnest NASCAR driver on the circuit — who’s also the most comfortable with his sexuality.
14. RICKY GERVAIS
Okay, so he doesn’t spend all that much of his time in America. We don’t care. Whether as the creator of The Office and Extras, a supporting actor in movies like For Your Consideration or Night at the Museum, or doing killer stand-up (as seen most recently in Grand Theft Auto IV), he’s still as funny as the dog’s bollocks.
13. ELLEN DEGENERES
DeGeneres, whose career seemed all but kaput a few years ago, has earned back adoration simply by being her affably dry self on the Emmy-winning The Ellen DeGeneres Show. Whether it’s her circuitous monologues, her deadpan celebrity interviews, or that vocal turn as Dory in Finding Nemo, she remains one of the cleanest, coolest funny ladies around.
12. DAVID CROSS
All conversations about his genius start here: Along with Bob Odenkirk, he created the cunning HBO sketch series Mr. Show, which routinely put SNL to silly shame. And not only does Cross work little miracles in supporting roles (remember his role as feckless freak-job Tobias on Fox’s Arrested Development?), he can drop some pretty fearsome stand-up (who else talks about being raped by the Virgin Mary?). Simply put, this dude never kowtows for his funny.
11. CONAN O’BRIEN
Smarty-pants isn’t usually a compliment, but O’Brien wears them so well. When this Harvard geek isn’t riffing on Muammar Gaddafi in his monologue, he’s making absurd innovations in low-brow comedy. Now, let’s see if those absurd innovations will play on The Tonight Show….
The Top 10 are after the jump!!
10. KRISTEN WIIG
The Saturday Night Live scene-stealer has found her stride in her third season, thanks to breakout characters like the Target clerk and the obsessively competitive Penelope, as well as spot-on impressions of Jamie Lee Curtis and Suze Orman.
9. LARRY DAVID
Because he’s a balding, neurotic, self-consumed, multimillionaire malcontent who reacts to most social interactions as if he just took a whiff of some really bad cheese. Because the only thing he hates more than these situations is himself. Because he’s the most hilariously doomed white-guy antihero we’ve ever seen, and has no problems taking on every sacred cow. Because we have no idea how much of this Larry David — from the HBO comedy Curb Your Enthusiasm — is swiped from the real Larry David. And because both Larry Davids co-created one of the best comedies ever, Seinfeld.
8. AMY POEHLER AND WILL ARNETT
The funniest married couple on the list. (Sorry, Judd Apatow and Leslie Mann.) When they’re apart (she, on Saturday Night Live and in Baby Mama; he, late of Arrested Development and currently guesting on 30 Rock), they’re great. But when they’re together, as when they played brother-and sister figure skaters in Blades of Glory, they’re resplendent. So let’s get those crazy kids together more often, shall we?
7. MATT STONE AND TREY PARKER
Now in their eleventh season of South Park, these potty mouths with a purpose continue to remind us what full creative control gets you: moments so wrong, they’re right (Ben Affleck falling in love with Cartman’s hand comes to mind). Added bonus: The ninth season episode, ”Trapped in the Closet” contains the most sober explanation of the background of Scientology you’ll ever hear.
6. CHRIS ROCK
Television failed him (Saturday Night Live didn’t know what to do with his bright-bulb humor, and his HBO talk show couldn’t contain him). The movies didn’t get him (though this is as much Rock’s fault as anyone’s, given he wrote and directed his most recent starring vehicles, the underperforming Head of State and I Think I Love My Wife). But on the stage, Rock is a man on a mission, mercilessly tackling race, religion, money, and relationships. And his missionaries are legion.
5. STEVE CARELL
Sometimes, it hurts so good. The pain, the discomfort, the agony of watching Carell’s Michael Scott work himself into another awkward scenario on NBC’s The Office…and almost work himself out. And the fact that we don’t hate Michael — on the contrary, we feel a warm, chocolatey pity for him — is a testament to Carell, who leavens the bald incompetence with wide-eyed awe.
4. JON STEWART AND THE ‘DAILY SHOW’ TEAM
The Daily Show with Jon Stewart is the most consistent laugh machine on TV — and the only news source for scores of cynics and slackers. It’s not often that a comedy show can tackle politics, embrace a cogent point of view, and still maintain its anarchic spark. The scribes at The Daily Show pull it off four nights a week. As the heart and soul of the show, Stewart is evenhanded but never meek; as an interviewer, he can make his guests comfortable even as he’s taking them apart. Then there’s his gang of ”correspondents,” who soldier straight-facedly into the great American absurd and take no prisoners. Empirically speaking, there’s nothing funny about what’s going on in the world right now. Yet here we are each week, chortling.
3. TINA FEY
It takes a certain self-confidence to play a woman who accidentally dates her third cousin, erroneously assumes her neighbor is a terrorist, and gets called the C-word by a colleague (especially when said character is based on you). ”I love going to those uncomfortable places,” says Fey, who stars as 30 Rock’s workaholic TV maven and is also the NBC show’s creator and exec producer. ”I’ll go down any weird avenue.” Maybe this year’s surprise Emmy win for best comedy will empower Fey to pursue some dreams for her alter ego. ”Liz Lemon could do an international adoption for a Russian baby and get the paperwork wrong with the European dates and somehow end up with a huge, muscular 13-year-old. Yeah, I could see that.” Hopefully we will too.
2. STEPHEN COLBERT AND THE ‘COLBERT REPORT’ TEAM
The once (and, we’re sure, future) presidential nominee, author, and dedicated windbag also happens to be one of the smartest satirists working today. Heck, if all the dude had on his resume was the legendary 2006 White House Correspondents Dinner, he’d go down in comedy history. But week-in and week-out, Colbert takes aim at the political-industrial complex — and I don’t care if there’s no such term — and spins the facts into truth. Or truthiness. Whichever’s easier.
1. THE JUDD APATOW POSSE
Can you even remember what movie comedy looked like before writer-director-producer Judd Apatow and his ever-expanding comedy clan (including Seth Rogen, Leslie Mann, Jonah Hill, and Paul Rudd) came along last summer with two stiff shots of cathartic humor — the oops-she’s-preggers romp Knocked Up and the high school raunchfest Superbad? Today, when studio execs have a comedy that feels flat or formulaic, the call goes out to ”Judd it up” — sweet irony for a man once best known for critically beloved flops like TV’s Freaks and Geeks. ”It was always my dream to become a verb,” Apatow deadpans. ”That’s what I wrote in my high school yearbook.”
source: [entertainment weekly]
« Hide it
Rock is under fire once again for his alleged rape debacle. No charges were ever filled and a lawsuit filled by Monica Zsibrita was dropped. Chris, while still married, engaged in a one night stand with Zsibrita in 1998. Later the mistress for the night claimed that Rock forced himself on her. The issue then went to the police. After details that Monica had saved a tissue with Chris’ semen on it, he phoned Pellicano to discuss the next step in getting him off the hook.
 
Somehow, the detective managed to get his hands on the police report and the conversation that followed was recorded. Of course the 31 minute tape has made its way to the Huffington Post.
14:00
Pellicano (reading from report): “He tried to pull out and ejaculated on her thighs. She immediately got up and went to the bathroom where she cleaned up with a Kleenex. She put the Kleenex in her pocket.”
14:55
CR: I’ve been so set up…
AP: Did you come on her thighs?…
CR: I had a rubber on. I probably took it off right when I was getting ready to come. I probably came on her ass.
22:00
AP: Did you stick it in her? Without a rubber?
CR: No
24:45
AP: Now we got to go get this thing legally, which means we gotta subpoena it.
25:50
CR: It never stops
AP: It’s gonna stop. I’m going to make it stop.
30:05
CR: Rape is just fucking, buzz, you know?… Once you’re accused of rape, you’re just FUCKED, you know?
AP: That’s why i want to blacken this girl up, totally. I want to make her out to be a lying, scumbag, manipulative cocksucker… Stupid bitch
CR: I’m fucked. I’m better getting caught with needles in my arm. WAY better. Needles, with pictures, there’s Chris Rock shooting heroin. Much better blow to the career.
It is like a crash course in crisis management. Remember to stick to your guns like Eddie Murphy. Always say you were just trying to be a good Samaritan by giving the tranny hooker a lift.
Source: Chris Rock and Anthony Pellicano’s Secret Phone Call [The Huffington Post]
Chris Rock and his wife Malaak released a statement proclaiming victory in his paternity suit on Monday, but the woman filing the suit, Kali Bowyer, is refusing to give up despite the negative DNA test. Bowyer said:
 “We are taking a second test, due to his (Rock’s) history of past paternity tests.”
“There is a protective order regarding the results, so I will let my lawyers deal with the current situation. As for the second DNA test, Chris, myself and our lawyers have to meet for mediation within 20 days. If he agrees to take the DNA test then, I see him do it and it comes back negative, I’ll move on.”
“I never said Chris Rock is 100 per cent the father of my child, but, due to the dates and the information I received from doctors when my son was born, I’m 99 per cent sure Chris Rock is the father. He looks exactly like Chris’ brother Tony - it’s a very distinctive resemblance.”
She should call up Maury Povich. He’d clear it up real fast, and he’d probably throw in a test for Tony.
Source: starpulse
Constance Rice,* a civil rights attorney in Los Angeles, has the smartest take I’ve yet seen on the Don Imus “nappy headed hos” controversy.
More to the point, Imus should only be fired when the black artists who make millions of dollars rapping about black bitches and hos lose their recording contracts. Black leaders should denounce Imus and boycott him and call for his head only after they do the same for the misogynist artists with whom they have shared stages, magazine covers and awards shows.
The truth is, Imus’ remarks mimic those of the original gurus of black female denigration: black men with no class. He is only repeating what he’s heard and being honest about the way many men — of all races — judge women.
Just as black comedians who make mean jokes about Asians and Latinos don’t see themselves as racists, I’m sure that Imus doesn’t see himself as a racist either. He reveres blues artists such as B.B. King and Ray Charles. He praises American icons such as Jackie Robinson and Martin Luther King Jr. He clearly likes former Tennessee Rep. Harold Ford and has interviewed Sharpton a few times. He treated Lani Guinier with uncharacteristic respect during her guest appearance to discuss her latest book.
His sympathy for the Katrina victims came through. And after the James Byrd dragging-lynching in Texas in 1998, Imus did not joke. In serious tones that couldn’t hide his sorrow or disgust, he quietly remarked that it was unwise for black people to ever trust whites.
After listening to him for 10 years, I’ve concluded that Imus is not a malevolent racist. He is a good-natured racist. And the streak of decency running down his self-centered, mean persona is sometimes pretty wide.
That captures Imus perfectly, I think.
I used to listen to the show a quite a bit during my morning commute and have seen the MSNBC simulcast a handful of times. My general take is that he’s a weird dude. He’s simultaneously a self-centered jerk who berates his staff and will ramble on for weeks on end about some perceived slight and a guy who devotes considerable time, energy, and money in trying to ease the suffering of kids with cancer and other debilitating diseases. He’s both a Neanderthal and a patron of the arts. He’s a naive rube and an incurable cynic. Most bright, talented folks are a bundle of contradictions, I guess, but Imus is much more so than most.
Some of the show’s humor, especially that by executive producer Bernard McGuirk, is undeniably racial but probably no more “racist” than that of Lenny Bruce or Red Foxx or Richard Pryor or Chris Rock or Dave Chapelle or Carlos Mencia. No doubt, we’ve learned time and again, it’s different when a member of an ethnic group makes a joke about his own kind than when an outsider does. Yet Rock, Chapelle, Mencia, and others make plenty of jokes about other races without getting nearly the condemnation of Imus.
And, unlike Imus, their material is all pre-scripted. With the exception of some recorded bits, Imus does four hours of off-the-cuff talk every morning.
Duncan Black, taking exception to similar comparisons made by Howard Kurtz on CNN, is dubious of the logic that, because “other people have used the word ho in other contexts” Imus shouldn’t be condemned for it. But Kevin Drum is right:
A slur aimed at specific people is obviously different than a generic slur in a rap song, but it’s not that different. If one is offensive, so is the other, and it’s hard to argue that the cesspool of misogyny in contemporary rap has no effect on the wider culture. It’s not that this excuses what Imus did. It’s just the opposite. If we’re justifiably outraged by what Imus said, shouldn’t we be just as outraged with anybody else who says the same thing, regardless of their skin color?
You’d think.
Imus has been, rightly so, condemned for using racial and gender slurs to describe some decent women whose only sin, apparently, was being less physically appealing to the Imus staff than their counterparts on the Lady Vols. But I don’t see why that’s much worse than rappers and comedians–who are much more influential with our young people than the geezerly Imus–constantly using that language to apply to women generally.
At the same time, though, effective humor is often edgy. Bruce, Pryor, Rock, and others used humor to positively impact the discussion of the incredibly sensitive issue of race. We don’t want to outlaw words that make people angry, nor put topics that make them uncomfortable off the table.
It’s perfectly reasonable for the corporation that pays Imus’ check to want to protect its image and avoid alienating its advertisers and audience. At the same time, it’s been clear for a quarter century or more that this is who Imus is. Firing him for something Rice correctly notes “doesn’t even come close to one of his meaner riffs” would be much more egregious than his remarks.
UPDATE: Calvin Cordozar Broadus, Jr., perhaps better known by his nom-de-rap “Snoop Dogg,” has weighed in on the controversy.
Snoop frequently refers to women as “b**ches” and “hos” in his music, but he insists Imus’ use of the term was unacceptable and the 66-year-old DJ should be taken off the air.
The Doggystyle star says, “It’s a completely different scenario.”
“(Rappers) are not talking about no collegiate basketball girls who have made it to the next level in education and sports. We’re talking about hos that’s in the ‘hood that ain’t doing s**t, that’s trying to get a n**ga for his money. These are two separate things.”
“First of all, we ain’t no old-ass white men that sit up on MSNBC going hard on black girls. We are rappers that have these songs coming from our minds and our souls that are relevant to what we feel. I will not let them muthaf**kas say we are in the same league as him.
Kick him off the air forever.”
Via Steven Taylor, who observes, “To be honest, Snoop’s right–he and Imus aren’t in the same league. Snoop and his ilk are worse in terms of propagating racist and sexist stereotypes and attitudes in our culture.” As if to prove this, the AP provides “Snoop Dogg Hit With Gun and Drug Charges.”
You can’t make this stuff up.
_________
*As an aside, Drum reports that Constance Rice is a second cousin to Condoleeza Rice, who she admires personally even though she doesn’t share her politics. I suspect they’d agree on this particular issue, though.
OTB
Comedian Richard Jeni has died in an apparent suicide.
Richard Jeni, a standup comedian who played to sold-out crowds, was a regular on the “Tonight Show” and appeared in movies, died of a gunshot wound in an apparent suicide, police said Sunday. Police found the 45-year-old comedian alive but gravely injured in a West Hollywood home when they responded to a call Saturday morning from Jeni’s girlfriend, Los Angeles Police Officer Norma Eisenman said. Eisenman said the caller told police: “My boyfriend shot himself in the face.” Jeni died at a nearby hospital. Eisenman said suicide had not been officially confirmed and the investigation was continuing.
Jeni regularly toured the country with a standup act and had starred in several HBO comedy specials, most recently “A Big Steaming Pile of Me” during the 2005-06 season. Another HBO special, “Platypus Man,” won a Cable ACE award for best standup comedy special, and formed the basis for his UPN sitcom of the same name, which ran for one season. Jeni’s movie credits included “The Mask,” in which he played Jim Carrey’s best friend, “The Aristocrats,” “National Lampoon’s Dad’s Week Off,” and “An Alan Smithee Film: Burn, Hollywood, Burn.” He had guest appearances in the TV shows “Everybody Hates Chris,” “Married: With Children,” and updated versions of the game shows “Hollywood Squares” and “Match Game.”
The Brooklyn-born comic first received national attention in 1990 with the Showtime special “Richard Jeni: Boy From New York City.” Two years later, his “Crazy From the Heat” special attracted the highest ratings in Showtime’s history. Jeni became a frequent guest on “The Tonight Show” during Johnny Carson’s reign and continued to appear after Jay Leno took over as host. He also wrote comic material for the 2005 Academy Awards, which was hosted by his friend Chris Rock.
Sad. And quite bizarre.
OTB
49TH ANNUAL GRAMMY AWARDS PREFORMERS:
Christina Aguilera
Beyoncé
Chris Brown
the Dixie Chicks
Gnarls Barkley,
Wyclef Jean,
John Legend,
John Mayer,
Corinne Bailey Rae,
Rascal Flatts,
the Red Hot Chili Peppers,
Lionel Richie,
Smokey Robinson, Shakira,
Justin Timberlake (solo performance and with the winner of the “My GRAMMY Moment” competition),
the Police,
TI,
James Blunt, and
Carrie Underwood.
PRESENTERS:
Joan Baez,
Natasha Bedingfield,
Tony Bennett,
Lewis Black,
the Black Eyed Peas,
Nicolas Cage,
Ciara,
Ornette Coleman,
Melissa Etheridge,
Nelly Furtado,
Terrence Howard,
Jennifer Hudson,
Samuel L. Jackson,
Queen Latifah,
Pink,
Rihanna,
LeAnn Rimes,
Chris Rock,
Nicole Scherzinger (of the Pussycat Dolls),
Seal,
David Spade (”Rules of Engagement”),
and Stevie Wonder.
The 49th Annual Grammy Awards take place this Sunday, February 11th.
|
|
