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Spit Take Saturday: Craig Ferguson

14622604_201306031410_265x265_padWelcome to Spit Take Saturday, courtesy of Brown Paper Tickets’ Comedy Doer Julie Seabaugh and her professional comedy criticism site The Spit Take. Julie’s goal with the site is to “elevate the public perception of stand-up comedy to that of a legitimate art form, and to enable comedy criticism be taken as seriously as that of theater, film, music, food, even video games. No a**-kissing. No bias. No mercy. Just honest, unfiltered, long-form reviews written by professional, knowledgeable comedy critics.” 

Every week Julie will select an entry from the site to be included on our blog and hand-pick some related events happening that week that she feels all you comedy lovers out there will appreciate.

So, without further ado, let us introduce you to this week’s Spit Take Saturday!

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If there’s anyone more deserving of the term “cheeky,” that person should promptly track down Craig Ferguson and strip the smiley-faced belt from his jolly Scottish midsection. Ever since Ferguson took over hosting duties for CBS’s The Late Late Show in 2005, he’s nightly brought viewers into his gently pompous world of crude animatronics and winking asides, broadening his American résumé beyond his bit role as the dick boss on The Drew Carey Show to include all manner of sparkly-eyed mugging.

** WARNING! This video contains language that may be offensive to some viewers. **

I’m Here to Help is the antidote to that. Both richer and harsher than the cutesy Late Late Show monologues, which years ago began to stray into a sort of in-joke schtick, Help reinforces Ferguson’s true mastery of a crowd. Sure, his public image is reflected during the credits of Help, which present a black-and-white montage of Ferguson as jet-setting rock star, complete with an entourage and private jet. Recorded at Washington, D.C.’s Warner Theatre, Help also features pre-show audience testimonials of Ferguson’s mesmerizing effect on his fans.
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Spit Take Saturday: Andy Kaufman

Andy_Kaufman_-_Andy_and_His_Grandmother-330x330Welcome to Spit Take Saturday, courtesy of Brown Paper Tickets’ Comedy Doer Julie Seabaugh and her professional comedy criticism site The Spit Take. Julie’s goal with the site is to “elevate the public perception of stand-up comedy to that of a legitimate art form, and to enable comedy criticism be taken as seriously as that of theater, film, music, food, even video games. No a**-kissing. No bias. No mercy. Just honest, unfiltered, long-form reviews written by professional, knowledgeable comedy critics.” 

Every week Julie will select an entry from the site to be included on our blog and hand-pick some related events happening that week that she feels all you comedy lovers out there will appreciate.

So, without further ado, let us introduce you to this week’s Spit Take Saturday!

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If Andy Kaufman were still alive, and some believe he still may be (Tony Clifton notwithstanding), one can only wonder what he’d make of Andy and His Grandmother. Chicago indie label Drag City is billing it as the first-ever release of an Andy Kaufman record, so on the scale of posthumous releases it easily rates a 10 for rarity (note: all Tupac albums are 1s or 2s).

In true Kaufman style, it’s not a comedy album in either the stand-up sense or the audio-sketch sense. But given his renown for a certain type of conceptual prank that has come to bear the unfortunate moniker of “anti-comedy,” it’s fair to ask if Kaufman would have wanted anything to do with this relatively straightforward, 17-track sampler, since it was culled from a staggering 82 hours of micro-cassette material that Kaufman recorded between 1977 and 1979 (during his Saturday Night Live fame but pre-Taxi and wrestling with ladies).
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Spit Take Saturday: Aisha Tyler

9780062223777_p0_v4_s260x420Welcome to Spit Take Saturday, courtesy of Brown Paper Tickets’ Comedy Doer Julie Seabaugh and her professional comedy criticism site The Spit Take. Julie’s goal with the site is to “elevate the public perception of stand-up comedy to that of a legitimate art form, and to enable comedy criticism be taken as seriously as that of theater, film, music, food, even video games. No a**-kissing. No bias. No mercy. Just honest, unfiltered, long-form reviews written by professional, knowledgeable comedy critics.” 

Every week Julie will select an entry from the site to be included on our blog and hand-pick some related events happening that week that she feels all you comedy lovers out there will appreciate.

So, without further ado, let us introduce you to this week’s Spit Take Saturday!

_______________________________________

“I am not a psychologist,” Aisha Tyler writes, “but I do know some sh*t about people.” In her new book, Self-Inflicted Wounds: Heartwarming Tales of Epic Humiliation, Tyler uses her own experiences to discuss the human experience at large, writing in great detail about some of the most traumatic events of her life. The caveat, though, is that the 30-something events Tyler discusses are all of her own doing. These self-inflicted wounds, Tyler relates, made her the person she is today—someone who embraces her own failures and shortcomings in order to learn from them. They hurt in the moment, Tyler acknowledges. In fact, they burn “like a mouthful of napalm on an empty stomach.” But they also “forge character. They burnish your edges and make you the person you are.” And for that, it’s imperative they are examined.

What’s always interesting about comedians writing books is that the dynamic between them and their audience shifts greatly: it becomes more direct, less inferential. The stories, themes and ideas comedians previously discussed onstage are now indelibly preserved in black and white, often translating what was a therapeutic art form for themselves into what amounts to a self-help book aimed squarely at the reader.

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Spit Take Saturday: Dylan Moran at Just For Laughs Chicago

0910_dylan_h_208595tWelcome to Spit Take Saturday, courtesy of Brown Paper Tickets’ Comedy Doer Julie Seabaugh and her professional comedy criticism site The Spit Take. Julie’s goal with the site is to “elevate the public perception of stand-up comedy to that of a legitimate art form, and to enable comedy criticism be taken as seriously as that of theater, film, music, food, even video games. No a**-kissing. No bias. No mercy. Just honest, unfiltered, long-form reviews written by professional, knowledgeable comedy critics.” 

Every week Julie will select an entry from the site to be included on our blog and hand-pick some related events happening that week that she feels all you comedy lovers out there will appreciate.

So, without further ado, let us introduce you to this week’s Spit Take Saturday!

Irish comedian Dylan Moran drew a packed house at his Friday night Just for Laughs performance at Park West. Fans of the sardonic standup lined up around the block for the chance to see the creator and star of Black Books, who performed a generous set of close to two hours, including a highly demanded encore.

Despite the cheekily underwhelming, “Let’s do a show…or something!” kicking off Moran’s show, he quickly endeared himself by displaying a surprisingly keen grasp of Chicago culture and geography, and proving himself quite fond of the city with “buildings so big you have to drive around them.” References to Wicker Park and Logan Square (Okay, he called it Logan Park, but he still gets props for trying) and a clear appreciation for Chicago’s Italian beef/sausage combo were a welcome change from out-of-town performers who seem to not even know where they are.
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Spit Take Saturday: Anjelah Johnson at Just For Laughs Chicago

just for laughsWelcome to Spit Take Saturday, courtesy of Brown Paper Tickets’ Comedy Doer Julie Seabaugh and her professional comedy criticism site The Spit Take. Julie’s goal with the site is to “elevate the public perception of stand-up comedy to that of a legitimate art form, and to enable comedy criticism be taken as seriously as that of theater, film, music, food, even video games. No a**-kissing. No bias. No mercy. Just honest, unfiltered, long-form reviews written by professional, knowledgeable comedy critics.” 

Every week Julie will select an entry from the site to be included on our blog and hand-pick some related events happening that week that she feels all you comedy lovers out there will appreciate.

So, without further ado, let us introduce you to this week’s Spit Take Saturday!

Threats of a torrential derecho kept some Chicagoans home instead of braving the storm and put a damper on the Just for Laughs-branded pedicabs that shuttled fans around the city. But they didn’t stop eager Anjelah Johnson fans from lining up with their umbrellas and galoshes outside The Vic Theatre, the former vaudeville venue on Chicago’s north side, to snag good general-admission seats for the former MADtv cast member’s Wednesday night performance.

Nashville-based opener T.C. Cope had an undeniably energetic stage presence, but it wasn’t enough to compensate for his dated material. Large, stagnant chunks devoted to Tickle Me Elmo, O Brother, Where Art Thou? and a SeaWorld drowning that happened in 2010 made it feel as though Cope hadn’t read a newspaper or been online much recently. He showed versatility with his Luther Vandross impression and preached the efficacy of R&B as an aphrodisiac, but somewhere along the line he meandered, reaching the halfway point of Toby Keith’s “Angry American” before it became difficult to remember how the joke began in the first place. The crowd seemed to like Cope well enough nevertheless, though perhaps Johnson’s younger, hipper fans weren’t his usual audience.
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Spit Take Saturday: Richard Pryor

RichardPryorOTL_10_8col-330x220Welcome to Spit Take Saturday, courtesy of Brown Paper Tickets’ Comedy Doer Julie Seabaugh and her professional comedy criticism site The Spit Take. Julie’s goal with the site is to “elevate the public perception of stand-up comedy to that of a legitimate art form, and to enable comedy criticism be taken as seriously as that of theater, film, music, food, even video games. No a**-kissing. No bias. No mercy. Just honest, unfiltered, long-form reviews written by professional, knowledgeable comedy critics.” 

Every week Julie will select an entry from the site to be included on our blog and hand-pick some related events happening that week that she feels all you comedy lovers out there will appreciate.

So, without further ado, let us introduce you to this week’s Spit Take Saturday!

In trying to pinpoint what made Richard Pryor so compelling, writers and documentarians often steamroll over the man’s visceral gifts. At a gut level, Pryor’s ideas, word choice, delivery and body language were (and many would argue, remain) unmatched in stand-up comedy, not just revolutionary in their power but untouchable in their effortlessness and honesty. As a result, we often get eggheaded treatises on race relations, the poisoned chalice of fame or whatever trend in comedy Pryor’s legacy is currently hitched to.



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Spit Take Saturday: Allan Sherman

sherman-312x470Welcome to Spit Take Saturday, courtesy of Brown Paper Tickets’ Comedy Doer Julie Seabaugh and her professional comedy criticism site The Spit Take. Julie’s goal with the site is to “elevate the public perception of stand-up comedy to that of a legitimate art form, and to enable comedy criticism be taken as seriously as that of theater, film, music, food, even video games. No a**-kissing. No bias. No mercy. Just honest, unfiltered, long-form reviews written by professional, knowledgeable comedy critics.” 

Every week Julie will select an entry from the site to be included on our blog and hand-pick some related events happening that week that she feels all you comedy lovers out there will appreciate.

So, without further ado, let us introduce you to this week’s Spit Take Saturday!

Most casual comedy fans know Allan Sherman as the guy who wrote the summer camp parody song “Hello Muddah, Hello Faddah.” Or at least they’ve heard it somewhere, in a commercial or on the radio, even if they couldn’t identify Sherman by name. In Overweight Sensation, Mark Cohen argues for a much more robust legacy, one that puts Sherman at the forefront of opening up American society to ethnic humor.



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Spit Take Saturday: Pete Holmes

holmes-330x330Welcome to Spit Take Saturday, courtesy of Brown Paper Tickets’ Comedy Doer Julie Seabaugh and her professional comedy criticism site The Spit Take. Julie’s goal with the site is to “elevate the public perception of stand-up comedy to that of a legitimate art form, and to enable comedy criticism be taken as seriously as that of theater, film, music, food, even video games. No a**-kissing. No bias. No mercy. Just honest, unfiltered, long-form reviews written by professional, knowledgeable comedy critics.” 

Every week Julie will select an entry from the site to be included on our blog and hand-pick some related events happening that week that she feels all you comedy lovers out there will appreciate.

So, without further ado, let us introduce you to this week’s Spit Take Saturday!

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Pete Holmes is a “friendly fellow,” he says, unable to contain his giddy chuckles. He’s “the kind of guy that likes to get to the airport a couple hours early, get a few white wines in me and start telling old people they still got it.” And if your name’s Anna, he’s calling you “Banana.” The You Made It Weird host is a silly, silly man.



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Spit Take Saturday: Jim Gaffigan

Dad-is-Fat_photo_medium-311x470Welcome to Spit Take Saturday, courtesy of Brown Paper Tickets’ Comedy Doer Julie Seabaugh and her professional comedy criticism site The Spit Take. Julie’s goal with the site is to “elevate the public perception of stand-up comedy to that of a legitimate art form, and to enable comedy criticism be taken as seriously as that of theater, film, music, food, even video games. No a**-kissing. No bias. No mercy. Just honest, unfiltered, long-form reviews written by professional, knowledgeable comedy critics.” 

Every week Julie will select an entry from the site to be included on our blog and hand-pick some related events happening that week that she feels all you comedy lovers out there will appreciate.

So, without further ado, let us introduce you to this week’s Spit Take Saturday!

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The name of Jim Gaffigan’s book on parenting comes from one of his two sons. The author is presumably Jack, the oldest, since Michael would have been little older than one at the time of Gaffigan’s writing. It’s hard to keep track of them all, since Gaffigan has five kids, a fact that surprises and challenges him, and also makes him very sleepy. And if it seems difficult to keep track of them in a book, imagine keeping track of them on the way to the park, walking or riding the subway, or even within a New York City apartment. That’s Gaffigan’s life as a father and the experience he chronicles in Dad Is Fat.



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Spit Take Saturday: Moontower Comedy & Oddity Festival

moontower-330x439Welcome to Spit Take Saturday, courtesy of Brown Paper Tickets’ Comedy Doer Julie Seabaugh and her professional comedy criticism site The Spit Take. Julie’s goal with the site is to “elevate the public perception of stand-up comedy to that of a legitimate art form, and to enable comedy criticism be taken as seriously as that of theater, film, music, food, even video games. No a**-kissing. No bias. No mercy. Just honest, unfiltered, long-form reviews written by professional, knowledgeable comedy critics.” 

Every week Julie will select an entry from the site to be included on our blog and hand-pick some related events happening that week that she feels all you comedy lovers out there will appreciate.

So, without further ado, let us introduce you to this week’s Spit Take Saturday!

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Any serious comedy fan who’s ever white-knuckled South by Southwest will both note and appreciate Moontower Comedy & Oddity Festival‘s comparative laser focus. Instead of an entire downtown clogged with spring breakers throwing elbows between literally hundreds of stages, the second annual Austin event features a dozen venues, with ten located no more than seven blocks apart. Instead of sponsorship capital from Monster Energy, Pepsi and Doritos brand-imaging a war over attendees’ very souls, do-gooder local outfits like Fun Fun Fun Fest and Comedy 102.7 radio hang unobtrusive thought-balloon signs to the side of small stages. (Both SXSW and Moontower happily agree to share IFC for now.) Most essential, instead of all-out debauchery, Moontower is about talent discovery.



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