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    • Just For Laughs Chicago 2013: Day 6 with Bill Maher bringing it all home

    Bill Maher by Mark Hill

    Bill Maher at the Chicago Theatre

    Just for Laughs didn’t end with a bang, but with a fiery Town Hall Meeting. The Chicago Theatre hosted what was essentially a two-hour long episode of Real Time with Bill Maher, only there were no guests, nor any panel, and not a new rule in sight. It was just Maher, his thousands of fans, and a cart’s worth of politics to divvy up. Granted, this is the city that put the first black president in the White House, so there was zero arguing and endless applauding. Hey, some even stood up to cheer. Read More

    Just For Laughs Chicago 2013: Day 4 with The Laugh Butt, The Lonely Island, Al Madrigal, Hannibal Buress, and Seth Meyers

    JFL Press Junket Day 2

    Holy smokes! We were psyched to get day 4 of Just For Laughs Chicago up and running! Why? Because we were going to get some face time with some of our favorite comedians! Each and every time we turned around another stellar comedian was coming by our room to shoot some video for us. There were lots of incredible moments including meeting The Tenderlions aka, the cast of TruTV’s Impractical Jokers who were not only great at telling us some prank stories. Who woulda thought that a bunch of guys that host a prank TV show would have some good prank stories right? Also dropping in were the always terrific John Hodgman got a bit physical with the comedy and hitting the floor. Read More

    Just For Laughs Chicago 2013: Day 3 with press junkets, Dancing around the Sh*t Fire with Kyle Kinane, Chelsea Peretti, David Cross & friends, and Knuckeheads

    Just For Laughs Press Junket 1

    A late night plus an early morning can make anyone cranky but there’s not much time to think about an early morning when your set up to kick off the first of a two day press junket when you’re going to interview about a dozen comedians. This was the situation that began day 3 of Just For Laughs Chicago. We packed our gear up and went to the 4th floor for a few hours of fun. Over the course of 4 hours we got the chance to talk a tremendous amount of comedians – Sam Simmons, Anjelah Johnson, Mike Burns, Scott Adsit, Kevin Dorff, Vince Acevedo, Doug Benson, Paul F. Tompkins, Tim Meadows, Brendan Walsh, and Kellye Howard. All of which were more than happy to spend a few minutes answering some questions and totally indulging our silly ideas. There will be video of this interaction in the coming future but in the meantime, take a peek at our Instagram page to see some photos of all the people that have come through our doors. Read More

    Just For Laughs Chicago 2013: Day 2 with Second City Alumni, Russell Brand, Moshe Kasher, Bear Down Podcast, [Redacted] and Whitest Kids U’ Know

    Chicago Theater

    Day Two was when JFL really kicked into high gear for us as we ran around the city checking out all the great comedy the city of Chicago had to offer, the Blackhawks had a fierce first Stanley Cup game and that’s all what everyone seemed to talk about. That and the impending storm that threatened the city’s nighttime activities. So under the cover of thunder and lightning and a few well-timed downpours, we hit up some comedy shows. Read More

    Just For Laughs Chicago 2013: Day 1 with Pete Holmes

    Pete Holmes photo: Mark Hill

    Pete Holmes at the Up Comedy Club

    Comedians have been swarming about Chicago like an annual cloud of buzzing cicadas. No, they’re not in town to mate – necessarily. Instead, they’ve been turning up to participate in the TBS Just For Laughs Festival. Some are promoting TV shows and albums, while others are pushing podcasts or just good old fashioned stand up. But TBS’s renaissance golden boy, Pete Holmes, fresh off the release of his new album Nice Try, The Devil, can boast about covering all of these bases. The thirty-four year old comedian landed himself a TV gig, The Midnight Show with Pete Holmes, which is set to follow Conan this fall. Holmes is also recognizable as the host of the You Made It Weird podcast, and will be recording a live episode later this week. But Tuesday night’s Just For Laughs kickoff at Chicago’s Up Comedy Club proved that having many creative irons in the fire does not detract from good joke telling. Or stray observations. Or an insane wit replete with callbacks, on the fly tweaks, and a lust for pop culture knowledge. Read More

    Josh Blue, ‘Sticky Change’ (review)

    Josh Blue - Sticky ChangeSticky Change is Josh Blue’s follow up to 2005’s Good Josh, Bad Arm and the Last Comic Standing winner does not disappoint once again. Live from Varsity Theater in Minneapolis, MN, Blue talks about being born in Africa, how he looks homeless no matter what, arguments his Japanese wife, his children, the trouble with having more than one person with cerebral palsy inside a mall, his experiences with air travel and much more.

    Like many professional comedians, Josh Blue was born funny. If you know anything about this comic, I’m making a play on words here in reference to his physical disability, cerebral palsy. Sticky Change is full of wit, so much so that I’d like to not even mention the word disability, but we can’t ignore that fact either, especially as Blue brings it to the forefront of his act.

    A great comic’s comedy stems from who that person is and Blue’s not hiding who he is. It’d be a shame if he did. Besides, Blue will tell you himself from the start of the album: “Just because I have a physical disability doesn’t mean that I don’t have a bunch of other spectacular things in my life… like… FOOD… SHOES.” Food and shoes are pretty underrated. Read More

    Development Arrested: What we learned from watching all 15 episodes of ‘Arrested Development’ at once

    Arrested Development

    Well how are we all feeling after “the binge”? Process it all? Doubt it. But man it felt good to see Arrested Development back with fresh episodes. Yes, we know Mitch Hurwitz warned us about opening up and playing with all 15 new toys at once. Saying we’d get fatigued and tire quickly but did he really expect us to behave ourselves in such a way after 7 years of waiting? Sorry uncle Mitch, we did it anyway.

    Arrested Development was the ultimate DVR show. The thing was, it was on the air when nearly nobody had a DVR. Had it aired a few years later, it might’ve gotten the public recognition it deserved and still been on the air, but by now we know the fate of the show.

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