Articles Tagged with #comedy
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Personal Essays
Everything’s Amazing and Nobody’s Happy
Before he was America’s favorite philosopher comic, he was just another comedian out on tour. And she was the journalist he wanted to meet.
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New York, New York
Wrestling With Andy Kaufman
The hoax at the Andy Kaufman Award show led to speculation the notorious comic faked his death—a joke that wouldn’t have been out of character. When a fresh-faced Glamour editor mingled with him the year before he died, Andy talked about disappearing.
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Spoofs & Satire
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Wed
To wed or not to wed? There’s the rub. Revisiting Tom Stoppard’s classic in the era of gay marriage.
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Divine Comedy
I Shall Be Heard
Andy Kaufman performed for more than just laughs—in fact, his goal often seemed to be something entirely different. A budding comic chases Andy’s ineffable comedy.
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Roundtables
Here’s the Thing About Silver Linings
The Oscars are consistently irrational, but we wanted more for David O. Russell’s fantastic Silver Linings Playbook. Film critics David Haglund, Pasha Malla, and Michelle Orange discuss why the movie so divided critical opinion, and became such a hit with audiences.
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Punchlines
Dark Material
There is a brand of humor with an inherent meaning so dark that, even though we may wish we hadn’t laughed, we’re programmed to think it’s funny. An explanation of a joke about a pedophile.
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Anatomy of a Scene
Standup Comity
If a person tells a joke in a forest and doesn’t get a laugh—that’s how you know he or she’s a true comic. A report from the 2011 International Society for Humor Studies Conference, where so-called experts of comedy submit themselves to professionals to be critiqued.
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Excerpts
The Funny Man
When asked, focus groups describe the funny man as “untalented, successful, bad husband and father.” He had been at the top, but is now heading toward the bottom. An excerpt from John Warner’s forthcoming novel, The Funny Man, published by Soho Press.
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Spoofs & Satire
What’s On?
With more than 70 TV show premieres this fall, who has time to watch them all? Or even know what any of them are about? With no prior knowledge of the shows’ premises, here are some guesses.
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Punchlines
Cosa Nostalgia
How Hyman Roth’s quip in The Godfather: Part II picks up on a cinematic pastime, and exposits layer upon layer of information about his character.
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Letters from Tel Aviv
Situation: Comedy
Language students rely on local television shows for vocabulary and instruction. But not all Three’s Company remakes should be trusted. Surveying Israeli TV from Orthodox Jewish sitcoms to comedy that equally offends Jews, Arabs, and sheep.
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Punchlines
Erogenous Gaps
Humor happens when an audience fills in the gaps—at its best, those gaps are packed layers deep with meaning. An explanation of an 18-word Mitch Hedberg joke.