By Greta Pistaceci
I first came across Ergo Phizmiz a few years ago, though I am not exactly sure where—the British artist’s cover of the entirety of the Velvet Underground’s White Light/White Heat was available as a free download somewhere or other online (I have a feeling this was probably the WFMU blog, or one that might have linked to his personal website).
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By Julie Finley
I hate most commercials. Probably 99 percent of them! I especially hate commercials with those goddamned whining wuss-bags playing an acoustic guitar, or a whispery girl with a ukulele. Fuck that bullshit!
In the midst of having to suffer through that torture, I noticed a few diamonds in the roughage. . . and let me just say these are brilliant, and whoever came up with these advertising concepts has my unyielding respect for going against the current shitty trends in commercialism.
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By Adam McIntyre
The latest effort/persona from Drew (of Toothpaste For Dinner, Married To The Sea, and others): Crudbump.
Bathe in its magnificence. . . wait, did you hook up a subwoofer? I told you to hook up your subwoofer. Pretty sure I did tell you. You’re going to need it.
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By Laura L.
The moment I saw the commercials for the new movie Hot Tub Time Machine starring Rob Corddry, John Cusack, and. . . two other guys, my friends and I jumped at the chance to see it. Not because it looked to be a fine piece of cinema, but as fans of Mystery Science Theater 3000, we love making fun of craptastic movies. For the record, we have all also been to public showings of The Rocky Horror Picture Show, a movie I cannot watch on my own because, let’s face it, it’s not that great on its own. [Blasphemy!—Ed.]
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By Lisa Anderson
The Evil Mad Scientist is a familiar figure in popular culture, and is found most often in science fiction, horror, or superhero tales. Evil Mad Scientists are not to be confused with their more benevolent counterparts, like Emmett Brown of Back to the Future. While the Evil Mad Scientist can be a figure of great terror, when this archetype is used for comic effect the results can be hilarious. Following are five of the best examples.
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By Michelle Patterson
One of Andy Richter’s strengths as a comedic actor is something he was just born with: his cherubic face. What the majority of his performances exhibited—in his other (sadly) failed television shows and various film roles—was a wholesome, dimpled mug offset against a usually sardonic soul or secret freak-of-nature. It’s an old show business trick (see Jack Benny and even Dick Van Dyke) but it works.
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By Jesse Roth
Bopping along through the 1990s, I found myself immersed in a rather enjoyable childhood. I was growing in all the same ways my elementary-aged kid peers were, while also straddling the fence between juvenile pleasures and my desire to feel more grown-up. This divide applied almost everywhere in my life, from musical tastes to imagining that I was living a twenty-something life like my idols on MTV and other teen/adult-friendly fare. At this same juncture in life, I was also refining my sense of humor, discovering what made me laugh beyond the physical comedy I enjoyed in cartoons, Three Stooges shorts, and the very early Woody Allen films (such as Take the Money and Run) my family had introduced to me.
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By Hanna
Most of Ireland’s cultural presence in Western countries is undeniably depressing. Even such light-hearted fare as Breakfast on Pluto features repression of sexuality by the church, the IRA, terrorism, and attacks on women for having children out of wedlock.
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By Matt Keeley
Perhaps the oddest thing about comedian and writer/director Chris Morris’s lack of popularity outside of the UK is that he’s peripherally involved in things that ended up being quite huge in the States.
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By Jimmy Ether
To misappropriate one of my favorite quotes, writing about comedy is like dancing about architecture. It’s difficult to articulate what it is about something that really makes us laugh. Like music, humor touches us deep down at the core. It reaches into our baser instincts where fear, sexual desire, and the cravings for candy reside. On paper, a skit appears to be trite silliness. The analysis obscures the subversive nature of great comedy in which it fights to acknowledge the world and our lives as a ridiculous, nonsensical mess—and then laugh at it.
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