Comedy
Billie Eilish Hosts SNL: The Six Best Sketches
Billie Eilish went through a minor but impressive pop-culture rite of passage this weekend on Saturday Night Live: After appearing as musical guest in September 2019, she returned to the show for double duty, hosting and serving as musical guest. This isn’t exclusively the specialty of young, female pop stars—Justin Timberlake has famously done it, as have Mick Jagger, Paul Simon, and a bunch of others—but it does feel like a particular proving ground for that demo, especially in the past decade-plus. Double-duty gals have included Taylor Swift, Britney Spears, Lady Gaga, Ariana Grande, and Miley Cyrus, who (like Britney) has done a double-double, with two separate host/guest stints. (Cyrus must have been on hand to advise Eilish; she actually appeared in a sketch before Eilish herself did...
UK Adaptation of Saturday Night Live in Development
Live from New York — and London — it’s Saturday night! NBC’s long-running sketch comedy series Saturday Night Live could soon be getting an adaptation across the pond with a UK version. Variety has confirmed that the Comcast-backed TV broadcaster Sky is in the early stages of developing a British SNL. Considering Sky and NBC share a parent company in Comcast — and the fact that China, Japan, the Middle East, France, Italy, Poland, Brazil, and Korea have already put their own spins on the format — a UK adaptation was pretty inevitable. Since late night programming isn’t as big in the UK as it is in the US, however, Variety points out that a British SNL is likely to air much earlier than its American counterpart. It was only just recently that Sky began distribu...
And Just Like That… Review: HBO Max Reminds Us Why We Should Never Look Back
[Editor’s note: The following contains spoilers for And Just Like That…, Episode 2, “Little Black Dress.”] The Pitch: The blunt truth of being alive is that there’s no such thing as a happy ending. Everyone has happy and sad moments over the course of their time on this earth, and when the inevitable comes all you can hope for is that it’s not too soon, and that the good outweighed the bad as much as possible. This is an annoying and awful truth, which is just one reason why we’re a culture obsessed with stories, and why the Sex and the City continuation And Just Like That… is both a very welcome trip home to visit old friends, and also an existential crisis in the works. Advertisement A Big Twist: HBO Max deliberately withheld screeners from critics until the moment of the show’s premiere...
Mystery Science Theater 3000 Sets Season 13 Premiere Date
Good news for Mystery Science Theater 3000 fans: The sci-fi comedy series is making its grand return on March 4th, 2022. Season 13 (!) of MST3K will welcome back returning hosts and bots Jonah Heston (Jonah Rey), Tom Servo (voiced by Baron Vaughn), and Cro-o-o-o-o-w (voiced by Hampton Yount). Earlier this year, MST3K creator Joel Hodgson moved operations to a new platform called the Gizmoplex, which now serves as group’s online hub and the permanent home of the show. Thanks to a successful Kickstarter campaign aptly titled “Let’s Make More MST3K & Build The Gizmoplex!,” the show is now thriving network-free (Netflix previously revived the show in 2016). “It reminds me a little bit of SCTV where The Mads are falling all over each other, trying to do new things in the Gizmoplex in the ho...
Don’t Look Up Is a Smug Satire About the End of the World: Review
The Pitch: What would happen if you found out the world was ending and — get this — no one in power was going to do anything about it? That’s the discovery that Michigan State astronomers Dr. Randall Mindy (Leonardo DiCaprio) and Kate Dibiasky (Jennifer Lawrence) make, right after scoping out a nine-kilometer comet that’s about to slam into the Earth in six months’ time. Their entreaties to the aloof President of the United States (Meryl Streep) and her sycophantic failson Chief of Staff (Jonah Hill) fall on deaf ears; they’ll cling to even the .01% chance the two Midwestern hayseeds are wrong. To drum up public support for any effort to deflect the comet, Mindy and Dibiasky go on a whirlwind media tour that takes them from the smug, peppy cohosts of a morning talk show called the Dai...
Tenacious D Announce Summer 2022 US Tour
Tenacious D are taking their comedic-rock awesomeness on the road in 2022, announcing a brief summer US tour. The duo of Jack Black and Kyle Gass are set to melt faces with a seven-date run in June, with support from Puddles Pity Party. The tour kicks off with a June 16th set at the Telluride Bluegrass Festival in Colorado, followed by six headlining shows primarily on the West Coast. Tickets are available via Ticketmaster, with various pre-sales beginning this week. The shows will serve as a belated celebration of Tenacious D’s self-titled debut album, which turned 20 years old this past September. Heavy Consequence recently caught up with Black and Gass via video Zoom to discuss that album, the 15th anniversary of their movie Tenacious D in the Pick of Destiny, their friendship with Dave...
Dillon Francis to Write, Star In Adult Animated Comedy Series On FailArmy
Dillon Francis is taking his channel-surfing sensibilities to the big screen as the star of a new social media-based streaming series. The show, titled Couch Kings, will see the hit-making DJ working alongside his childhood best friend, Eric Hamilton. The series, consisting of four initial episodes, goes live on FailArmy’s social media channels this week. Each animated episodes represents a day in the life of Francis and Hamilton as they navigate a series of wacky, absurd, and sometimes gut-busting scenarios all originating from the comfort of their home sofa. Fittingly, FailArmy’s vast library of bloopers, missteps, and pranks will serve as the through-line for the entire series. The genesis of Couch Kings actually arrived a couple years ago with the test-run of a s...
Netflix Is a Joke Fest Featuring Dave Chappelle, John Mulaney, Larry David Debuting in Spring 2022
After being pushed back due to COVID-19 concerns, the inaugural Netflix is a Joke: The Festival is now going down next spring from April 28th through May 8th across Los Angeles. Taking place across 25 venues, the comedy festival’s lineup is stacked with huge stars, many of whom already have Netflix specials or shows. Dave Chappelle will lead a showcase on April 28th at Hollywood Bowl, while John Mulaney and Bill Burr will each headline a show at the Forum. Meanwhile, Tina Fey and Amy Poehler will hold a conversation at the YouTube Theater, and Gabriel “Fluffy” Iglesias will make history as the first standup comedian to ever perform at Dodger Stadium. Other big names include David Letterman, Conan O’Brien, Jerry Seinfeld, and Chris Rock. There will also be an LGBTQ+ Celebration event s...
John Mulaney Announces 2022 “From Scratch” Tour
As John Mulaney prepares for the final performance of his 2021 “From Scratch” tour, the comedian has announced a fresh slate of dates for 2022. Our former Comedian of the Year will return to the road beginning March 11th in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania. The 33-date trek seems designed to rack up the frequent flyer miles, with a performance in Ohio being followed by a stop in Maine, a two-night stand at the Foxwoods Casino in Connecticut giving way to a run through Texas, and what could have been one extended California leg interrupted by layovers in Denver, CO, Omaha, NE, and Saint Paul, MN. Ticket presale begins Tuesday, December 7th via Ticketmaster. Use code ‘BELLS’ to buy your tickets early, or wait until Friday, December 10th for the general sale. Check out the full itinerary below, and...
Spotify Nukes Thousands of Comedy Tracks in Battle over Royalty Rights
On Wednesday, November 25th, after business hours closed and Americans looked forward to a long Thanksgiving weekend, Spotify suddenly took down thousands of comedy tracks by Robin Williams, John Mulaney, Mike Birbiglia, Jeff Foxworthy, and more. The move appears to be an aggressive response to new organizations trying to collect literary royalties on behalf of comedians. On November 27th, Birbiglia tweeted, “Random question: Does anyone know why some of the Comedy Central albums got taken off Spotify? 3 of mine are gone, some of Mulaney’s, one of Attell’s, but then some are still there— like Hedberg. Anyone know about any rights things happening behind the scenes with comedy albums?” Earlier this year, Birbiglia signed with Spoken Giants, a rights administration company formed in 2019 to ...
Even After 15 Seasons, It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia Keeps Getting Better
The Pitch: Think back to what you were doing in the year 2005. It’s pretty unlikely that your life then was the same as it is now — different friends, different pop culture, different kinds of work keeping you busy. Maybe your then-toddler is now getting ready for college, or maybe you were yourself still basically a child. But since 2005, one thing remains constant: The gang behind It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia have continued to make their FXX show, and do it better than so many of the comedies out there today. The secret behind this pretty wild degree of success can be very easily attributed to the fact that the series has very deliberately, especially in the last five or so years, matured to a degree. Not that the gang running a crappy Philly bar has grown up — though several of the...
Dave Chappelle’s High School Moving Forward with Plans to Rename Theater in His Honor
Dave Chappelle’s high school is moving forward with plans to rename a theater in his honor despite a contentious meeting between the comedian and some of the school’s students during an event last week. The Duke Ellington School of the Arts in Washington, DC “stand[s] behind our decision to honor the wishes of our co-founder, the late Peggy Cooper Cafritz, to name the theatre after Chappelle,” reads a statement from the school released on Monday. Last week, Chappelle made an unannounced visit to his alma matter ahead of the Thanksgiving holiday. During a Q&A with students, the comedian faced questions about his recent Netflix special, The Closer, which included controversial comments about the transgender community. Advertisement Related Video Politco, which was the first to report new...
