“It’s so wild. And it’s, in a lot of ways, one of the craziest things I’ve gotten to be a part of, and one of the most inappropriate things I’ve gotten to be a part of.” [UPBEAT MUSIC] In the trailer for the new animated series ‘#1 Happy Family USA,’ …
Andy Kaufman became one of the most influential comedians ever in a brief amount of time — really only a decade, from his first national television appearance to his death from lung cancer in 1984 at 35. In between, his comic stunts blurred the lines of reality and fiction and …
On an evening in mid-January, there were bouquets piled outside of Linda Lavin’s trailer on the Disney lot in Burbank, Calif. Nearby, on a soundstage, a black ribbon was wrapped around her caricature. Lavin had died on Dec. 29, at age 87. Now the creators and cast of “Mid-Century Modern,” …
Marty Callner, a pioneering director of comedy specials who set the template for the genre at HBO in the 1970s before going on to make music videos infused with humor during the early heyday of MTV, died on March 17 at his home in Malibu, Calif. He was 78. His …
Phil Hanley stood in a womb-like studio, psyching himself up to record the final section of his memoir. Peppermint tea, check. Hands in meditation position, check. Sheaf of highlighted, color coded pages printed in extra large type, check. But when Hanley leaned into the microphone to read from “Spellbound,” his …
An early scene in the coming season of HBO’s “The Righteous Gemstones” showcases the newest product in a long and somewhat troubled line of consumer goods from the fictional first family of televangelism. These “luxury” enclosures, called Prayer Pods, offer sanctuary from the din and prying eyes of public spaces, …
Inside a spacious room on Manhattan’s West Side, rehearsal for the latest Broadway revival of David Mamet’s “Glengarry Glen Ross” was full of macho bluster and trash talk. And that was before the actors started running their scene. It was a Friday morning, and the show’s British director, Patrick Marber, …
After a half-century of comedy and music (and what at times felt like an equal amount of buildup and hype), how do you at last kick off a prime-time 50th anniversary special for “Saturday Night Live”? Calmly and serenely, it turns out. The long-awaited “SNL50: The Anniversary Special” opened on …
In the days after Donald J. Trump was declared the winner of last year’s presidential election, Allison Reese began having some strange interactions with strangers. “People at my coffee shop were looking at me and approaching me as if I had died, which is kind of funny to me,” said …
‘Show and Tell With Liza Treyger’ Feb. 7 at 10 p.m. at Union Hall, 702 Union Street, Brooklyn; unionhallny.com. Hot off the heels of the debut of “Night Owl,” her hourlong comedy special on Netflix, Liza Treyger is presenting this showcase in which her funny friends joke about their most …