Comedy

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Comedy

A Christmas Story Live!

December 1, 2017 Kellie Freeze

We triple dog dare you not to smile when FOX’s musical production of A Christmas Story Live! brings the beloved Christmas film — complete with nostalgia, pink bunny pajamas and the Bumpus’ dogs — right into your living room. The 1983 cinematic classic A Christmas Story tells the tale of an imaginative boy’s yearning for a very special gift, “an official Red Ryder carbine-action, 200-shot, range model air rifle.” The film inspired a Tony-nominated Broadway musical, which, in turn, forms the backbone of this live TV event. “Everyone knows about the leg lamp and ‘You’ll shoot your eye out!’” says […]

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Comedy

The Carol Burnett 50th Anniversary Special: We Talk 50 Years of Funny with the Comedy Icon

December 1, 2017 Lori Acken

In 1967, Carol Creighton Burnett stepped onto CBS Television City’s Stage 33, chatted up the audience, performed sidesplitting skits, tugged her left ear and made history. The 34-year-old stage and TV actress honed her knack for physical comedy as a regular on The Garry Moore Show, parlaying her popularity into a variety show of her own. Surrounded by a crack ensemble of laugh-getters — Vicki Lawrence, Harvey Korman and Lyle Waggoner, plus frequent guest star Tim Conway — Burnett made The Carol Burnett Show must-watch, feel-good TV that earned the weekly series 25 Emmy awards. Fifty years later, it lives […]

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Comedy

‘At Home With Amy Sedaris’: The Funnywoman Gets Comically Crafty on truTV

October 24, 2017 Lori Acken

Amy Sedaris, a former member of Chicago’s legendary Second City comedy troupe, is best known from hilarious turns in cutting-edge laughers like Strangers With Candy and Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt and memorable guest turns on a roster of other comedies. But the North Carolina native is also proudly devoted to all things domestic, an obsession she’s chronicled in signature Sedaris fashion in a pair of comic tomes, I Like You: Hospitality Under the Influence and Simple Times: Crafts for Poor People. Her new truTV series At Home With Amy Sedaris is a combo of both books’ kooky-meets-useful(ish) content and an homage to […]

Comedy

‘Curb Your Enthusiasm’ Is Back. Are You Happy Now?

September 22, 2017 Ryan Berenz

If you bug him long enough, you can get Larry David to do anything — even a new season of Curb Your Enthusiasm. “I don’t really miss things, people that much. But I was missing it, and I was missing these idiots,” David says, referring to his costars. “So I thought, ‘Yeah, what the hell?’ And I got tired of people asking me, ‘Is the show coming back?’ I couldn’t face that question anymore, and I wasn’t ready to say, ‘No, never.’ And I kept saying, ‘Oh, you know, maybe. Who knows?’ So I thought, ‘Yeah, I won’t have to […]

Comedy

A Young Rapper Runs the Town in ABC’s Uplifting ‘The Mayor’

September 15, 2017 Ryan Berenz

As recent history demonstrates, qualifications are way overrated when it comes to winning an election. In ABC’s The Mayor (premiering Oct. 3 at 9:30pm ET/PT), young aspiring rapper Courtney (Brandon Micheal Hall) sees running for mayor of his fictional San Francisco Bay Area town as the perfect publicity stunt to boost his music career. To his shock, Courtney wins the election and has to figure out how to handle the weight of the office’s responsibilities. Fortunately, he has help from his mom (Community’s Yvette Nicole Brown), his adviser (Glee’s Lea Michele), and his high-school buddies T.K. (Marcel Spears) and Jermaine […]

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Comedy

‘Marlon’: The Youngest Wayans Brother is a Family Man With a Plan in NBC’s New Laugher

August 12, 2017 Lori Acken

“Marlon Wayans” and “family sitcom” might seem like one unlikely combo. Wayans, part of the entertainment dynasty responsible for the Scary Movie film franchise and such ribald TV hits as The Wayans Bros. and In Living Color, is the first to admit that, at 45, he still enjoys creating and consuming in-your-face, “14-year-old-boy” humor. So what’s he doing on NBC, playing a wacky dad of two charmers who is laser-focused on winning back their mom in the family friendly new half-hour laugher Marlon? In short: Living his truth. Wayans created the series based on his own home life. He and […]

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Comedy

Claws: Niecy Nash Is Tough As Nails In This Wickedly Dark Dramedy

June 1, 2017 Barb Oates

It’s a sunny afternoon in Pasadena and a blinding glare is cast across a closed hotel bar, making it hard to see the entourage approaching. Niecy Nash struts purposely across the dimly lit room. She extends her exquisitely manicured hand — her nails are a bedazzled work of art — and greets me. “It’s pressure now,” Nash says of her nails, which I’m enamored with. “You can’t be on a TV show called Claws and have your manicure looking raggedy.” Her smile radiates confidence, as she knows she’s landed the Walter White-like role of her career. Nash plays Desna, the […]