The Colbert Report airs Monday through Thursday at 11:30/10:30c.

The Daily Show airs Monday through Thursday at 11/10c.

The AV Club just interviewed John to talk about the New York comedy scene, working at SNL and how impressions are like magic tricks. This quote in particular caught my eye though:

I think people should sometimes have unfiltered, pure comedy written up on Tuesday, and then worked on or framed better when we do rewrites on Thursday at SNL. In terms of stand-up, I still want things to be clear to the audience. I’m more comfortable with things in stand-up, because I get to take the responsibility for them, and the audience knows who it’s coming from, vs. you’re putting it in a sketch with actors…. you can be more direct… If you’re a conversational comic, like I think I am, you also have to sell it to an audience rather than just talking about it. Like, having a point.

I was doing this club called the Stress Factory in New Jersey, and I had bombed terribly. [stand up] Ross [Bennett] was there, and he said, “You’re very funny.” I said, “Thank you.” But he said, “These people have no time for your cleverness. You need to get to the point.” I think there’s a lot of truth to that. You will really capture someone’s attention if you’re saying something that they find interesting, or agree with… You can be clever with puns and do whatever the fuck you want, but to have a point that at least you believe in, that’s a strong thing. That’s the backbone of stand-up.

That's very good advice for someone thinking of doing stand-up! Better advice for someone thinking about doing stand-up: DON'T! There are already too many people doing stand-up! JK! You guys are alright.

John Mulaney's upcoming one-hour special premieres in January. I've embedded some clips of his stand-up after the jump.

It’s not uncommon for Jon Stewart to have experts of all topics sit across the desk from him on The Daily Show. Tomorrow's show will be no different when Seth Rogen—who just had a cameo on Saturday Night Live's season premiere as Steve Martin's "expert on drug use"—sits down with Jon to talk about his latest film, 50/50, which, surprisingly, is about cancer and not a new blend of marijuana.

Before we lose the king of the stoner comedy and the stoner action flick (and the stoners?), take a look back at the guy Jon Stewart called "the most industrious pothead I have ever met."

Here’s Rogen in his first Daily Show appearance imparting some expert advice to America’s youth like, "drop out of school and do drugs, that’s it."

Seth returned in 2009 with more advice: "It's called bulimia, Jon… It works great. I recommend it to everyone." Watch that clip below along with the aforementioned SNL bit with Steve Martin and Alec Baldwin, then see what expert advice Rogen has for America when he talks to Jon Stewart once again tomorrow at 11/10c.

A lot of people think doing a Charlie Sheen impression is as simple as embarking on a decades-long film and television career, winning a Golden Globe, developing a legendary drug habit and saying "Winning!" a lot. But it's not that easy. As you can see in this collection of videos, the perfect Sheen impression is a gift wielded only by a select few.

Jimmy Fallon

More impressions can be found below.

The Comedy Central Roast of Charlie Sheen premieres Monday at 10/9c.

Dana Carvey

Bill Hader

Jerry O'Connell

Mike Epps

I really didn’t do much. I don’t know what I did. I just made it through the day. I loved comedy and listened to it, and I wish in retrospect I had tried to do more with it cause it would have made me happy. But I was just like, “oh when I become an adult I’ll do comedy, but right now I’m just going to sit in a room and wait.”

And what did that insistent patience lead to? A grand stroke of convenient comedic networking when he was cast in an improv group at Georgetown, of course:

The person who cast me in the group was Nick Kroll. He was a senior when I was a freshman. He and I started working together a lot. I would follow him up to New York and visit him. He was doing open mics, so I was just emulating him and started doing open mics. That’s when I was like, “oh, I’m 100 percent doing this.”

There you have it, kids. Clearly, if you just wait for good things to happen to you, you'll encounter a destined-to-be-successful comedian and find your own success in the process. Then again, you may want to read the entire Splitsider interview here and see if it's actually an incredible amount of hard work and natural comedic talent that got Mulaney where he is today. Your call.

Either way, look out for John Mulaney's upcoming Comedy Central special and watch him put mean drag queens in their place after the jump.

That's right, Rob Riggle's awesomely moving career story. His journey will make you cry tears of joy and suddenly support all of your friends or family members who want to become actors and comedians even when you know it's a terrible idea. Rob's Daily Show tale needs to be read in full over at Serial Optimist, but here's a snippet from his equally-impressive account of leaving flight school and ending up on SNL:

I wrote down in this book, and to me at the time, quitting flight school was so hard for me, again I’d never quit anything in my life, it wasn’t sitting well with me to quit, so if I’m going to quit, it has to count. The first thing I wrote down in this book was that I’m going to get on Saturday Night Live. I wrote that down in 1994, in September of 1994’. Then in September of 2004, ten years later, I got on Saturday Night Live. It was almost to the day that I had written that down. And it took ten years. When I wrote that, I was a First Lieutenant living in Corpus Christi, TX, who had never done anything on stage aside from in college, and had never done any comedy on stage, and I just thought I’m gonna find a way, and then ten years later it happened.

Wipe the tears off your keyboard before they cause an electric surge that breaks your backspace key and makes you write offensively unfunny things. Then go read the entire interview here and enjoy a classic Rob Riggle correspondent moment after the jump.

The Daily Show airs Monday through Thursday at 11/10c.

Television Critics Association nominations are out, and Jon Stewart has been nominated in the Individual Achievement in Comedy category. [LA Times]

And "Most Incompetent TV Doctor" nominations are out. South Park’s Dr. Doctor and Futurama’s Dr. Zoidberg made the list. There, there, Zoidberg, a doctorate in art history still makes you a doctor. [UGO]

Sean Penn will direct Robert De Niro in The Comedian. But don't call it funny because it'll beat you down in front of your mobster friends. [NY Post]

The new TV Land series Happily Divorced premieres tonight. I sounded like Fran Drescher for exactly a day because of the flu and it was freaking awesome. I miss that day. [LA Times]

T.J. Miller will play the lead in Road to Nardo. The film will be The Hangover Part II and Old School writer Scot Armstrong’s directing debut. [The Playlist]

Time Out calls Bo Burnham "the new saviour of stand-up." Cool, but where's his beard? All saviours have beards. [Time Out London]

Ben & Jerry want you to eat their Schweddy balls. Rumor has it the ice cream company may be developing a new flavor based on the oldie but goodie SNL "Schweddy Balls" skit with Ana Gasteyer, Molly Shannon and Alec Baldwin as Pete Schweddy. [Gothamist]

And if that's not enough, here's a final bit of penile wordplay. Hot Rod director Akiva Schaffer has been reportedly offered to direct Neighborhood Watch. Ben Stiller may star. [First Showing]

(Photo by Bryan Bedder/Getty Images)

More after the jump.

Workaholics airs Wednesdays at 10:30/9:30c, right after South Park.

Joe DeRosa recounts the worst gig of his life, performing at the annual Gathering of the Juggalos.

Here, Joe tells Rachel Feinstein about the hate mail he received after the Gathering.

From Atom, the latest installment of Scott Gairdner's excellent series, Juggalo News.

SNL has done several parodies of the Gathering of the Juggalos infomercials as well as a send-up of ICP's viral "Miracles" video. RIP Ass Dan.

And now, here it is, your moment of zen.

The Colbert Report airs Monday through Thursday at 11:30/10:30c.

Comedian Will Ferrell has been selected by the Kennedy Center to receive this year's Mark Train Prize for American Humor. Award will be presented Oct. 23 at a Kennedy Center event to be taped for later broadcast.

Will is a great choice for the award. His work on SNL and his films with Adam McKay more than qualify him for the prize. So what exactly will the ceremony look like? More or less the same, old thing.

The 14 year-old event will again follow its usual format of irreverent testimonials by numerous comic headliners, in this case certain to include a sampling of former "SNL" colleagues, and video clips of the recipient's TV and film moments.

"IRREVERENT?!" How can you show anything but reverence to Will Ferrell? The man drives a dodge stratus! Also, Irreverent Testimonials is the name of my Christian rock band. Start saving your pennies to attend!

Special Access Packages are available at the $50,000; $25,000; $10,000; and $5,000 levels. Single tickets are $1,000 each.

I'm going to buy a ticket, right after I cut food and shelter out of my budget.

After the jump, watch Will Ferrell's appearance from Tuesday's Daily Show.

After the jump, you can watch Will Ferrell's first appearance Albert Brooks's most recent.

The Daily Show airs Monday through Thursday at 11/10c.

From Indecision…

As funny as this sketch from this past weekend's Saturday Night Live is, I find it hard to believe that it comes even close to how funny an actual GOP debate will be with these candidates when that glorious day finally arrives…

Splitsider: In the special, someone yelled OJ to you and you launched into an OJ bit. Do you get people doing that often, like you're some sort of comedy jukebox or something?

Norm MacDonald: I do. I think it's because of Saturday Night Live. It's just this crazy place that locks you in forever. Which is cool. It's really cool to be part of the alumni there. But people will yell like "Burt Reynolds" or like impressions I've done. And I don't really do impressions. On SNL, they put a mask on you so you're kind of like the guy no matter what. But yeah, people yell out. I always did standup, but then any of the other stuff I did was always just an adjunct to standup, so I'd forgot then I'd go back and do standup and people wouldn't know…I always thought people knew me as a standup. But some people would know me as, I don't know, I did a voice of a dog or something in some movie, so they'd know that. So I didn't realize until I got out. But yeah, people even think I do impressions, and they think I know about the news because of Weekend Update.

Here's a little something from the aforementioned stand-up special:

And because you people require more Norm than just a single clip, after the jump there's a recent clip from Sports Show with Norm Macdonald, an all-new episode of which airs tomorrow night at 10:30/9:30c.

Well, I might got to British prison (or as they call it over there, prisoun) for this, but I feel it is my duty to fight back against the suppression of free speech, especially when I can do it without leaving the couch. With that in mind, here's a roundup of some of the best Royal Wedding-inspired comedy. Join the fight by linking to anything I've missed in the comments.

More after the jump, or as it's known in England, the lift.

When Fey first arrived on the set of Saturday Night Live as a writer in 1997, she says, it initially took her awhile to feel comfortable with herself in the writer's room.
Bossypants

"My first week, I completely froze," she says. "I couldn't think of anything. It was just too fast a gear-shift. … So I had some pieces that I had written trying to get the job, and I ended up turning them in. And the next week, I think I was able to write something and turn it in. And the week after that maybe, I wrote something that made its way to the dress rehearsal."

Read (or hear!) the rest of the interview here. Meanwhile, Tina was also on Oprah this week for the special SNL reunion episode. You can read about that interview here.

As he told Jay Leno on last night's Tonight Show, Tracy Morgan honored Eddie Murphy at The Comedy Awards, presenting his comedy hero with the inaugural Comedy Icon Award. You'll be able to see Eddie accept the award when the show premieres this Sunday night at 9/8c, but in the meantime, here's a clip of Tracy describing just a few of the things that make Eddie such an inspiration to other comedians.

The first annual Comedy Awards premieres Sunday at 9/8c simultaneously on Comedy Central, Spike TV, CMT, Logo, TV Land and VH1 and online at thecomedyawards.com/webcast.

To get Comedy Awards content on your mobile device, click here.

A couple weeks ago, we told you about The Comedy Awards' Breakthrough Performer category, an award of which you can help determine the winner. But time is running out, so if you haven't already, be sure to cast your vote before the deadline, tomorrow at noon, or you'll be nominated for the breakthrough dummy award.

In case you forgot, here are the nominees and a little reminder of why 2010 was such a breakthrough year for each of them:

Aziz Ansari: Starred on Parks and Recreation and released his first comedy album, Intimate Moments for a Sensual Evening.

Ty Burrell: Received an Emmy nomination for his work on ABC's Modern Family.

Louis C.K.: Created and starred in the critically-acclaimed Louie on FX. Meanwhile, his live stand-up movie Hilarious became the first comedy concert film to play at Sundance.

Whitney Cummings: Roasted Joan Rivers and David Hasselhoff and debuted her first one-hour stand-up special, Whitney Cummings: Money Shot.

Danny McBride: Wrote, produced and starred on Eastbound and Down and had a scene-stealing role in Due Date.

Emma Stone: Starred in the surprise hit Easy A and hosted SNL.

Daniel Tosh: Hosted the second season of Tosh.0, which averaged over 2 million viewers per episode.

Kristen Wiig: Performed in her sixth season as a castmember on SNL, co-starred in MacGruber and had memorable roles in Date Night and How to Train Your Dragon.

The Comedy Awards will tape at New York's Hammerstein Ballroom on Saturday, March 26 and will air Sunday, April 10 simultaneously on Comedy Central, Spike TV, CMT, Logo, TV Land, VH1 and Nick at Nite.

From the Atom blog…

Stefon, Weekend Update‘s city correspondent, is the go-to guy for the hippest spots in NYC. He’s got the dish on all the hot spots, spots like Taste. “It’s got everything”:

Ice sculptures, winos, Germfs (Germfs? German Smurfs), a Teddy Ruxpin wearing mascara, an old lady with Kid ‘n Play hair, and none other than DJ Baby Bok Choy… he’s a giant 300-lb Chinese baby who wears tinted aviator glasses and he spins records with his little ravioli hands.”

Finding yourself in need of a new place with foghorns, taxidermy, El Salvadorians with peg legs and bellhops in Pocahontas wigs? Look no further than “The Stefon-a-Tron,” New York’s hottest new club generator:

Read the Full Post

In less than a week, Justin Bieber has delivered a Top 10 list on the Late Show with David Letterman, swapped places with Jon Stewart on The Daily Show and appeared in two skits on Saturday Night Live. He's promoting his new concert movie Never Say Never, but his roles in these skits don't have much to do with that.

"Jon Stewart," eh? "Daily Show," eh? We seem to have a vague recollection of this… or was it all just a feverish dream?