A while back, I began posting some of my favorite of comedy bits by Albert Brooks, mostly his inspired, lunatic appearances on The Tonight Show. This all came about after watching the HBO documentary on him. The documentary mentions that Brooks never used material from his act when he appeared on talk shows, but always came up with new material for the performance. And they are just total joys. This one is from his "Home comedy Kit." In this case, it's his "kit that he says he's selling for people who want to do impressions but don’t know how.
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Once again, we have one of the better episodes for the Strike Force Five podcast – which is no small thing since all 12 episodes were wonderful, at times hilarious.
For those new to Strike Force Five, the five hosts of talk shows – Stephen Colbert, Jimmy Fallon, Jimmy Kimmel, Seth Meyers and John Oliver – teamed up during the recent Writers Guild strike to do a weekly podcast. The point was to raise money for each of their staffs. As I’ve noted, what stands out from the podcasts is how much the hosts seem to truly like and respect the others – though being comedians have no trouble ridiculing the others, at times mercilessly, including relentlessly bringing up past derision from previous weeks, not letting foolish misdeeds be forgotten. This is Episode 9, and they make a slight change for it, inviting a guest to participate. And that guest is David Letterman. He’s very funny here…as are they all. But something else is different from the episode. When Jon Stewart guested, which I posted here, it was a sort of boisterous roundtable, with everyone joining in with funny stories and chiding one another, all the while holding Stewart in great respect. With David Letterman, it’s more a case of them all holding him in awe. And so, as a result of that, while the show remains very funny, it’s not as funny as the others – but that’s also its strength. That’s because David Letterman famously doesn’t like praise and talking about himself, so he rarely does interviews. But here, though he’s not being “interviewed,” all the other hosts want to know tons of things about him and repeatedly launch questions his way. Periodically, Letterman starts to feel awkward and changes the subject to asking questions to the others. And that brings out good, additional stories from them – but it rarely lasts long because it gets them thinking about how their own stories relate to Letterman and turn things back to him. The result is that this, in many ways, turns into the “interview” of David Letterman that no one gets. And it's a fun, interesting, very funny one. I can’t embed the podcast, which was done for Spotify, but here’s a link to the episode on the Strike Force Five website. This is just too good -- not only terrifically written, but also wonderfully presented. And deserves not to slip through the cracks. So, we turn these pages over this morning for 90 seconds to Seth Meyers from two nights ago. And good for passing along to anyone who might have forgotten who Trump is. As such, it's a near-perfect companion piece to the job that President Biden did in his State of the Union Address reminding people about who Trump...(sorry, I mean his "predecessor")...is. If you missed Last Week Tonight with John Oliver this past Sunday (HBO is now delaying their videos of the show until Thursdays...), the Main Story is on Boeing -- which leads into its merger with McDonnell-Douglas. It's a wonderful report. Very funny, through, but detailed and fascinating and at times scathing (with, it seems, good reason.) I truly don't know what's going on with SNL. Their opening sketch was entirely about (once again, as they've done week after week after week) trashing President Biden as old. Never mind that they still haven't done one quip on the show about Trump (who is the same age) echoing Adolf Hitler or saying he wants to be a dictator. Or showing dementia.
The sketch included referencing him as the guy "people call 'Sleepy Joe.' " No, "the people" don't call him that -- Trump, they guy who was found liable for the equivalence of rape, calls him that! These days, though the show can be funny, I fast-forward through it, hoping it finds its compass. By the way, to be clear, I don't mind SNL doing "Joe Biden is old" jokes. (Though this went far beyond that and was not only an entire sketch -- but came at the very opening of the show.) What I personally mind and find inexplicable -- knowing that democracy is quite literally at stake, and especially since their core audience is young, the segment of the public least likely to engage in politics and vote -- is them not yet even referencing that Trump has echoed Hitler or said he wants to be a dictator. And virtually nothing on Trump being just as old and HBO has changed its policy of releasing the Main Story video from Last Week Tonight with John Oliver on Mondays, the day after the broadcast. Now, they are releasing it on the Thursdays following. So, if you didn't see the show this past Sunday, here 'tis. The Main Story was on Internet scams, specifically a scam that goes by the notable name of "Pig Butchering." (No, this has nothing to do with animals, but the victims of the scam.) The story is extremely interesting, and often very funny. (And Oliver is more self-effacing in his ridicule of himself than usual.) But it does take a darker turn when diving deeper into the scam. |
AuthorRobert J. Elisberg is a political commentator, screenwriter, novelist, tech writer and also some other things that I just tend to keep forgetting. Feedspot Badge of Honor
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