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All tagged Comedy
Andy Daly seems the nicest man around, whether in print or on a podcast, he just exudes decency and good humor. Andy Daly has created one of the darkest, funniest shows on television. His character, Forest Macneil, has non threatening looks and sincere love of reviewing, with the misguided belief that his reviews of life itself, he will improve, life itself.
At this point, everyone has watched Freaks & Geeks (is it bragging to say that I watched it when it aired?), but have you watched Judd Apatow's follow-up college-set comedy Undeclared?
But in the cutest, most endearing way. I swear!
It's loosely based on Irish cutie-pie Chris O'Dowd's childhood in a small town of Boyle, in Ireland. The main characters are 12-year old Martin Moone and his imaginary friend, played by O'Dowd, Sean Murphy. The two get in all sorts of capers and scrapes while Martin deals with life in his charmingly crazy family.
Moone Boy was one of my favorite new shows last year (along with The Mindy Project and Orange is the New Black) and it's back for another season on Hulu in about a week. If you haven't watched it, you've missed out on something special.
Holly Starr is a Las Vegas showgirl and recent college grad who has taken medication for years to prevent hallucinations that started as a teen, hallucinations that she could levitate. She's tired of spending her nights assisting in her father's magic show and hopes to forge her own path in Las Vegas. Her former classmate, Elijah also experienced hallucinations as a teen that he's been medicated for ever since. In his case, he believed he could read minds.
Both of their hallucinations threaten to return when the supply of their medication suddenly disappears, and they start to wonder if maybe they're not so crazy after all?
““Why the hell not?” Holly yelled back. “It doesn’t sound so bad when I think about all the shit you and my parents have put me through. Just for starters, all the edamame, Kaylee. My mom brainwashed me into purchasing and steaming my very own edamame even now that I’m out from under her roof, just to keep my weight down. Do you know how many cookies I’ve missed out on in the last seven years, all in the name of pleasing my parents despite my fake debilitating mental illness? God!” ”
Thus ensues a mayhem-filled story that includes everything from a kidnapping (Elijah kidnaps Holly) to a show-stopper of a magic trick involving nudity and the Hoover Dam.
With this wild premise, Levitating Las Vegas could have been a fun read, and I did have moments when I really enjoyed it (such as Holly, who'd never driven a car, "driving" it down the Strip in her own unique fashion) and am a sucker for caper-style plots, as a big fan of urban fantasy, I expected more in terms of logical construction of the world and magic.
Note from Sarah: This is a guest post from my wonderful husband, Josh. This week, his childhood favorite comedian, Jonathan Winters, passed away, and Josh asked me if he could write something in memoriam, saying that Jonathan Winters was his Judy Blume. If you're so inclined, you can follow Josh on frequently-updated Tumblr or stalk him on his rarely-used Twitter account.
This guy was from Dayton. Someone from where I was from was amazing and funny. This was my new hero, someone who made me laugh and who had the same points of reference I did.
At some point I realized "What? he was actually from Springfield!" Even closer, where the mall was! He could have gone to the same theatre as me to see ET (this was in point of fact impossible since the mall was a long way off when he was there, but it didn't matter to my six-year-old).
I bugged my dad about more stories, learned how he studied art at the Museum, where I thought for the longest time he must have just walked around and looked at the pictures and drew them (funny I now ply my trade at is essentially one of these Museum schools). At the time is sounded like the education of a genius, and it still kind of does. I learned about his time on WHIO Radio, how he acted like a goofball on the air.
