I caught Clifford & Kidd's two-woman show at SF Sketchfest last year. Really wonderful character work, super funny stuff. I found myself lamenting the lack of women in sketch comedy while watching their show. The pieces had a very female perspective, though none of them were "about" the characters' genders. Anyway, here's one of their series of sketches featuring two vacant models.
This week's Sound of Young America broadcast looks at a few of our favorite goofs with the theme "Goofaround Gang."
We first hear from comedian Will Franken. Will performs a unique form of solo theater comedy -- essentially performing comedy sketches by himself. He's been voted the best comedian in San Francisco by the SF Weekly, and the "Best Alternative to Pyschadelic Drugs" by the SF Bay Guardian. Will talks about his future, and performs a sketch. Be sure to check below for a "too hot for the radio" sketch from Will.
Our second guest is comedian Paul F. Tompkins. These days, Paul is best known as a VH1 "Fundit," but he's also been a regular on TV series including "Mr. Show," "The Daily Show," and "Real Time with Bill Maher." We talk with Paul about his career in funditry, and about his sideline hosting a cult-favorite stage variety show in Los Angeles.
Our final guests are Tim & Eric, the creators of the Cartoon Network [adult swim] series "Tom Goes to the Mayor." The series is a silly and incisive look at the tiny banalities of American life. They also provide a live demonstration of a favorite musical instrument.
Jordan Morris, "Boy Detective" on Tom Goes to the Mayor
The next Sound of Young America broadcast will feature a return engagement from Tim & Eric, the creators of the wonderful Cartoon Network series Tom Goes to the Mayor. Now, many people don't know this, but former Sound of Young America co-host Jordan Morris interned on the program briefly, and his duties included wearing one of these: I asked T&E what they thought of Jordan's performance at the show, and I offer that audio to you now...
Mere hours after I financially subscribed to your show the true nature of our relationship was shown. I had gladly clicked the Paypal subscription, and, confident in my support of public (?) podcasting/radio, happily laid down to my nightly slumber. Not long after my grey matter had entered deep REM sleep, you, Jesse Thorn, America's Radio Sweetheart, appeared in my subconscious out of nowhere like you were Tony Kushner or something. Bizarrely, however, it wasn't actually you, Jesse. It was a bald and obese version of you. Gross! You, and for some reason I, were at a radio/podcast convention, although it was more like a children's summer camp. You were setting up a TSOYA table on a grass hill as others were setting up other booths (unfortunately no Jimmy Pardo). It was altogether bizarre, though nothing much happened. Why did you choose to enter my mind? When did you get these powers?!
That's not the Tom Hanks film, that's It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, the F/X sitcom. The little-seen show will be running on Fox three consecutive weeks after the Family Guy, starting June 11th.
Philadelphia is sort of a little series that could... F/X picked it up after it's writer/creator/stars made a pilot with their own money and a digicam, and it ran moderately succesfully on the station last year. Hopefully this is a sign that F/X will be supporting the show more, because it's pretty dang good. It's a brighter version of the standard "rag-tag bunch of 20-something pals" sitcom, with some dark subject matter and some real chemistry in the cast. After I watched it, I felt like watching it again (and did), which is pretty rare for me when it comes to TV.
Hopefully I'll get a couple of the guys behind it on the show, I've been talking to F/X about it for a million bajillion years. This one's a sign-and-follow.
Like this post? Click here to subscribe to the blog.
We now have 32 financial subscribers supporting the program on a monthly basis. Their donations total about $150 every single month for the show. We've also received several one-time donations.
These donations have paid our hosting costs the past two months. They've also paid for the equipment, postage, and most of the materials for the big Maximum Fun Club mailing that went out to everyone who filled out the listener survey late last year. I just ordered some postcards, and I'm working on a new batch of stickers and hopefully, soon, a banner for events. T-Shirts are on the horizon, though how soon they come is slightly dependent on my personal financial stability.
A few folks have asked me why I chose to ask for financial "subscriptions" rather than one-time checks. The reason is this: I'm not a fundraiser. A pro tries to get folks in at the bottom, then ratchet their contributions up every year or so. Because I work full-time, produce the show, host it, edit it, support the website and write the blog, I don't have time right now to do that. So I offer these subscriptions that renew themselves (you can cancel at any time), and the subscriptions give the show relatively steady income that I can count on when I'm, you know, spending it.
As this income continues to grow, I'll be using some of it to pay for things that I should have been doing all along, had I not been so (personally) broke. These include attending conventions (both radio and podcasting) to promote the show, the aformentioned shirts, perhaps some events here in the Bay Area or elsewhere, and so on. And, depending on my job situation, pay for me.
So there you have it. If you have any feelings about any of this, please share it, either by email (splangy@splangy.com) or in the comments. If you haven't donated, but you'd like to, why not do so now?
Like this post? Click here to subscribe to the blog.
Today's "Ellen" is a full-length musical, starring Jack Black, According to Eban Schletter, the composer/lyricist. Also featured are Kristin Chenoweth (Broadway star, also was on West Wing), Karen Kilgariff (Girls' Guitar Club), Crissy Guerrero, Laura Milligan & Tracy DeNisis (from Dave Foley's show "The Tribute"), Olivia Olson (from Love Actually) and Jack Sheldon (the voice of much of Schoolhouse Rocks).
Check your local listings. Somebody should computer-tape this.
There's a great piece in the Guardian with a theory about why English-language comedy doesn't translate to German. To paraphrase briefly, it's largely a matter of sentence structure. The strict structure of German, and it's rigorous specificity, make it difficult to give sentences and language double-meanings and "reveals." The author describes how, when translating a show about standup comedy into German, his German partners wanted to transpose it into a theatrical, caberet context:
...this instinct to formalise a genre of comedy we accept as inherently informal is not indivisible from the limitations the German language imposes on conventional British comedy structures. The flexibility of the English language allows us to imagine that we are an inherently witty nation, when in fact we just have a vocabulary and a grammar that allow for endlessly amusing confusions of meanings.
There are also some great German jokes, like this one:
Tabea Rudolph, 26, Stuttgart
There are problems in the woods. The animals of the forest are always drunk, so the fox decides to ban alcohol. The following day, the fox spies a rabbit hanging out of a tree, clearly wasted. The fox ticks him off, and carries on his way. But the next day he sees the rabbit drunk again, and gives him a final warning. The next day, the fox does his rounds and there's no sign of the rabbit, but he notices a straw sticking out of a stream. Wondering what it is, the fox scoops it out, only to find a very drunk rabbit on the other end of it. "How many times do I have to tell you that animals of the forest aren't allowed alcohol?" says the Fox. "We fishes don't give a toss what the animals of the forest aren't allowed to do," says the rabbit.
Will Franken - "Best Alternative to Psychadelic Drugs"
Will Franken was recently voted "Best Comedian" in the San Francisco Weekly and "Best Alternative to Psychadelic Drugs" in the San Francisco Bay Guardian. He performs a remarkable blend of solo theater, standup, and sketch comedy, seemlessly transitioning between characters like a funny version of Robin Williams.
The Apiary has a great recap of Elephant Larry's new show in New York City. Seen above: "One enticing sketch involved the character of Gargamel in the midst of a Smurf-induced postmodern breakdown. 'Who am I really?,' Gargamel wonders aloud, while cycling through the cloudy nostalgia of the cartoons of our youth."
Like this post? Click here to subscribe to the blog.
"Rust, a fungus disease, sapped the
wheat crop. Production of durum wheat dropped from the 10-year average
of 31,547,000 bushels a year to 4,976,000 bushels."
