Comedy Central Insider Blog

We've been following the evolution of the new Lewis Black series "The Root of All Evil" from the Craig's List audience announcement to the blog recap of the show. Last week, Comedy Central announced that we are picking up the courtroom-style pilot that puts pop culture on trial with help from guest comedians like Patton Oswalt and Paul F. Tomkins. Congratulations to the world!

After the jump, another description of the show taping, sent in by a reader who was in the audience.

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Last week, Lindsay mentioned the pilot taping of Lewis Black's potential new CC gig, The Root Of All Evil. Well, Julia from TV Squad was there for all the action, and she's returned with a pretty interesting glimpse into the whole pilot process in general (with a few embryonic spoilers to boot):

"Now, if you're going to have anyone playing judge and jury to our
culture's current state of affairs, shouldn't it be Lewis Black? Of
course, it should. He has just the right combination of unction,
outrage and curmudgeonly resignation. It's the perfect role for him,
and he wears it well. Why his robe is made of a purple satin more
fitting for a choir director or doctoral candidate than a judge, we may
never know, but he wears that well, too."

Read the entire recap here.

I've long had a lot of thoughts about Larry the Cable Guy, but today I got to thinking for the first time about how he doesn't dress at all like any cable guy I've ever seen. He doesn't cover that topic in this new interview with Punchline, but he does mention that he's friends with Lewis Black and was close with the late Bill Hicks. He also addressed some of the much-publicized criticism he's received from other comics:

There was that thing with you and David Cross going back and forth at each other in 2005. And I'm sure you're familiar with Steve Hofstetter's album referencing you and putting your likeness on the cover hanging by a noose, which seemed a little bit over the top. How do you respond to something like that?

Well I don't. I've got more to worry about than that. I've got my own career to think about. I just kind of write it off as jealousy. None of that stuff ever happens to a nobody. When I was selling out comedy clubs, I never heard that. But then when you start going to upper levels, that's when you start hearing about those things. So it doesn't bother me. Whatever. Hey, if you want to make money off me, fine. But the cool thing about that Hofstetter thing is that other comedians have stuck up for me.

When I was working in New York at Radio City Music Hall, Louis CK, who is a genius, I love Louis CK, I love his comedy. Louis CK came out to my show and we talked about that a little bit. You just write it off and move on. I've got bigger fish to fry.

The whole interview can be found here.

We get our news from comedy blogs too — according to The Sound of Young America blog, there's a taping tomorrow night in LA for a new potential Comedy Central show called "The Root of All Evil":

"Come see a live taping of a new Comedy Central show, THE ROOT OF ALL EVIL!

Four hilarious comics and one hysterical judge are putting American culture on trial.

Starring LEWIS BLACK, ANDY DALY, GREG GIRALDO, PATTON OSWALT, PAUL F. TOMPKINS and created by David Sacks ("The Simpsons", "Malcom in the Middle") and Scott Carter (HBO's "Real Time with Bill Maher", "Politically Incorrect")."

Sounds like a winner to us! If you attend the taping, send us an email!

The San Bernardino County Sun humbly served up a preview of Rob Corddry's new show The Winner baked inside the crust of a larger article about the recent success of Daily Show alumni Steve Carell, Stephen Colbert, Ed Helms and Lewis Black. No pressure to hold up your end of the track record, Rob. 

In "Daily Show cranks out comedy stars" staff writer David Kronke wonders why Jon Stewart and Co.'s little farm system has cranked out so much all-star material, "the fertile breeding ground for comic actors that 'Saturday Night Live' once was." He coaxed this explanation from Young Rob:

"[It's] a combination of a lot of things, Jon's sensibility being one. The times being what they are, and especially what they were when the show started to hit, it was a ripe period for satire and still is, and that was largely lucky."

Aha, so take the hand of Jon, add a little mise en scene here, a dash of luck there and voila. Not quite. Corddry also gives a shout to that most conspicuous of improv schools/theatres, the Upright Citizens Brigade:

"UCB teaches a kind of comedy that's really relevant right now . . . It's the new Second City or Groundlings. It's a lot fresher, and the success of a lot of the correspondents is due to the UCB. Steve Carell and Stephen Colbert came out of Second City, and UCB is sort of the grandchild of Second City. It's expanded on their sensibilities."

Just think, that balding a$%#^!* in your Level 3 Harold class may have a sitcom deal in five years. So play nice with everyone on your back line, kids.

On Sunday night, Lewis Black beat out such heavy-hitters as Weird Al and The Blue Collar Comedy guys to win the Grammy for Best Comedy Album, making The Carnegie Hall Performance the first release from Comedy Central Records to win a Grammy. Here's an audio-only clip of Black's uncensored acceptance speech:

I was profoundly influenced by the incredibly withering and perfect comic timing of Harold Bloom. And I say that with the utmost respect for his intellect.

- John Hodgman '94

Today's Yale Daily News name-drops Lewis Black, Demetri Martin, John Hodgman, Colbert Report Head Writer Allison Silverman and Daily Show scribe Steve Bodow as proof that the Elis are catching up to the comedic exploits of those rascally Harvard alumni. Inferiority complex* much?

Get a load of this:

"David Chernicoff ’07, who interned at 'The Daily Show' over the summer, said he did not feel that being from Yale gave him any particular advantage over his fellow interns, who attended colleges ranging from Columbia to Indiana University. At the same time, he said, the number of Yalies in prominent positions at the program may reflect a shift in the dynamics of television comedy away from Harvard’s traditional dominance."

Until then Yalies you'll have to settle for your Skull & Bones, Jodie Fosters, Meryl Streeps, Supreme Court Justices, Nobel laureates, Pulitzer Prize winners and . . . hell, just masturbate to this list if you're that hard up for a role model. Sheesh.

Thankfully, John Hodgman closes out the rest of the article with this nugget: “By accident, maybe there is the beginning of a similar — extremely feeble — Yale network of professionals that may give the aspiring comedy writer on Cross Campus a glimmer of hope.”

*This kind of privileged bellyaching happens at every U.S. News and World Report Top 20 private school short of Harvard, MIT, Stanford and inexplicably, Duke.

And I Feel Sick…

Watch OK Go's (oops someone else's!) rendition of the REM classic, re-tooled for our strange, strange year. (From the opening sequence of Last Laugh '06 Starring Lewis Black):

UPDATE: Big companies sometimes have little misunderstandings. While we here at the blog were under the impression that this re-imagined song was sung by Ok Go, apparently it wasn't. We're sorry for any confusion this might have caused. But guess what? Here's Stephen Colbert interviewing a person who is DEFINITELY IN OK GO, Damien Kulash:

(Unrelated bonus link: Save Darfur.)

(In honor of Comedy Central's Last Laugh '06 Starring Lewis Black (premiering Sunday at 10p / 9c), we've asked our guest-blogger Kittenpants to go crazy on her favorite topics of 2006 every day this week. These are her stories.)

Um… I wanted to round up my week of 2006 round ups with a rousing round of… gahhhh!! I got nothing. I would have skipped posting altogether, until I realized my post here would make me the blog bread in a Patton Oswalt sandwich (i.e. I'd have a post on either side of his). I know what you're thinking: "The meat in this sandwich is totally juicy and hilarious while the bread is kind of stale and leaving a bad taste in my mouth." Well forgive me, but the meat is a professional comedian who has been doing this for years. Give the bread a break! Sure the bread tries too hard sometimes, and could maybe use a mint, but at the end of the day, the bread just wants someone to like her. The bread loves you. ANYWAY, I'd like to end a week of looking back by looking forward to what you and I can all expect to see in the future news. 2007 HEADLINES Urkel Sex Tape Shocker! US Congress: All Gay, All the Time Gibson, Schwarzenegger Star in Hogan's Heroes Redux Paris Raises the Bar: World's First-Ever Rectum Slip Scientologists Push For "Illogical Design" Theory in Textbooks Haley Joel Osment Murders 12 in 5-State Killing Spree Barack Obama Assured Victory in 2008 Johannesburg Welcomes Michael Richards Pope John Paul Lynde to Shake Things Up Lindsay Lohan To Wed Convicted Murderer Osment Pootie Tang to Receive Nobel Prize (finally!) Britney Spears Vagina Seen From Space!

(In honor of Comedy Central's Last Laugh '06 Starring Lewis Black (premiering Sunday at 10p / 9c), we've asked our guest-blogger Kittenpants to go crazy on her favorite topics of 2006 every day this week. These are her stories.)

Your 2007 Things to Do Some people, like me, are listmakers. We write down things we need to do, things we want to do, and periodically revisit these lists and add or subtract items. Nothing is more satisfying than crossing an item off of your To Do list. (Well, not nothing. I mean, I bet if you find a half-starved classroom full of weary second graders and sick puppies and feed them all a big pasghetti dinner you'll feel a little better than if you write down "clean the bathroom," in a notebook and then cross it off a month later. But I digress…) I've studied the habits and hobbies, the wants and needs of the newsmakers and ass shakers of 2006 to come up with these imaginary and somewhat tasteless To Do lists. Enjoy! A Divorce Attorney's To Do List 1. Collect bet money from Tommy Lee 2. Send flowers to Reese 3. Send Thank You gift to Ryan 4. Invite Tom and Katie to dinner A Mortician's To Do List 1. Make an appointment with Dina Lohan 2. Send baby coffin catalog to Anna Nicole Smith 3. Ask Clay Aiken to return makeup kit An Orphan's To Do List: 1. Get mohawk, biker jacket 2. Buy ticket to 3rd world 3. Rub fly food in eyes 4. Avoid Madonna A Greek Shipping Heir's To Do List: 1. Paris Hilton 2. Lindsay Lohan 3. Mary Kate Olsen 4. Ashley Olsen/Nicky Hilton 5. Brandon Davis' mom A Closeted Republican's To Do List: 1. Vote against gay rights 2. Disable instant message logging 3. Work on MySpace profile 4. Dump the bodies A Jewish Hollywood Producer's To Do List: 1. Cancel Tequila Sunrise 2 pitch meeting 2. Greenlight new Seinfeld special: What is the Deal With Racism? 3. Cause all the wars in the world? A Comedy Blogger's To Do List: 1. Send Thank You note to Scientology 2. Take cheap shots at Stephen Dorff 3. DO NOT TAUNT JARED LETO 4. Keep day job 5. End with a joke from 1989. Joe Clark's To Do List: 1. Stay black 2. Die Kittenpants is a professional giver of things to do, as you can see on her grillion-dollar-idea website, THINGS TO DO: 77 CENTS.