Comedy Death Ray and I Love Movies This Week

Wow, was this a heck of an amazing show! You really missed out by not going. What's wrong with you? Both shows were at the Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre in Los Angeles.

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I Love Movies

Doug Benson once again proves that he's being robbed by the fools running television for not having the foresight to give him his own show. This week his guests were "Weird Al" Yankovic and Chris Hardwick, and they were fantastic. As always, the show will be available via iTunes or whatever podcatching service you use in a few days, and this is one you won't want to miss. (Despite a tiny chunk of it being three men Twittering at once.)

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Comedy Death Ray

A fantastic show. Hosted by Mike Kaplan, who we have not seen previously, but will now go out of our way to see. Excellent work. Also on deck:

• Dave Anthony
• Charlyne & Armen (seemingly improvised musical act/sniper spitting)
• Rory Scovel (stand-up plus something involving clowns that courtesy prevents us from spoiling)
• Zach Galifianakis (a few jokes, a whole lotta great crowd work)
• Mindy Kaling and B.J. Novak (a conceptual piece about Tom Bergeron's kids)
• Chris Hardwick

Hardwick brought a lot of brand new (to us) material, and never disappoints as a headliner. Mr. Galifianakis was fantastic to see, particularly because his ticket price probably just quintupled since the summer-- great stuff, very funny. We were expecting Hardwick to come out in a yarn beard in-character.

The evening was fantastic, the pacing was great, we're pretty sure you would enjoy it if you were there. Some kid in the front row was taping most of it so it wouldn't be a stunner to see this on the web some day, if we find out about it we'll link to it.

Mostly Unrelated Comedy Blurbs

Looking to kill some time? Here are some snippets which aren't quite big enough to warrant a full news post.

• "Weird Al" Yankovic posted an unreleased snippet of Weezer's "Buddy Holly" on his Twitter feed. Vintage 1995! Listen here.
  
• It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia will be having a direct-do-DVD Christmas special on November 17.
  
• The Kids In The Hall reunited for a Canadian (no word on a US release) miniseries. It's a murder mystery called Death Comes To Town. Will it be funny? Or was that not the point?
  

Road Trip Album Picks: Dr. Demento's 20th Anniversary Collection

WHAT: Collection of some of the best-known comedy and novelty songs of all time
LABEL: Rhino Records
GOOD IF YOU LIKE: Dr. Demento, classic comedy, pop culture nuggets
WHERE TO FIND IT: Widely available at better record stores

The subtitle of this album is "The Greatest Novelty Records of All Time," which is a fair description for this double-disc collection. I've had this in my possession for years, and looking at it then, a lot of it wasn't too funny. On the other hand, some of it was pretty spectacular. The word "Records" is really telling, because pretty much everything here was released during the era of vinyl and this collection dates back to 1991, when CDs were just starting to really replace tapes and licorice pizzas.

"Novelty" is another key word, because a lot of this isn't particularly funny, just required listening for young pop culture fanatics. Regardless of your opinion of the cultural value of the Rocky Horror Picture Show, you can't say that it isn't important to hear "The Time Warp" so you know what it is. The same can be said of "Surfin' Bird," which isn't a comedy track so much as it is something of a garage song that is, to say the least, likely to invite smiles.

Since some of the tracks date back over 50 years, odds are modern ears aren't going to take much delight in Spike Jones and his City Slickers or Ray Stevens due to a lack of context or the fact that they did not age well. On the other hand, the great "Weird Al" Yankovic, Frank Zappa, Tom Lehrer, and Steve Martin appear here, as does Shel Silverstein. Novelty nuggets like "Star Trekkin'" work great as a way to infuriate your fellow passengers, while "Fish Heads" may well be the greatest novelty record ever made. Take that as you will. "Monster Mash" and "Purple People Eater" can be found here too, making this the ultimate snapshot of the best the Dr. Demento radio program had to offer.

Poison tracks include:

• Hello Muddah, Hello Fadduh!
• Witch Doctor
• Junk Food Junkie
• The Battle of Kookamonga

There's little in the way of sketches here, but you'll find a lot of songs you or your parents found amusing at some point in their lives. "Beep Beep," "King Tut," and "Eat It" are all cultural treasures, but I can't guarantee that this two-hour collection of 36 tracks is going to bring a smile to your face unless you enjoy watching others suffer. And really, isn't that the half of the fun when it comes to road trips?

Oh, and I would also give this album my highest possible rating as a gift to any comedy-inclined tweens you may know. They will enjoy parts of it now, infuriate their friends and family with it, and outgrow it before they turn 25 so they can move on to better music and comedy. Really, you're doing them a huge favor.