Six Degrees: Updates on far too many people to name

Man, these links build up when I don’t have time to put these posts together right away!

The fine folks of The Daily Show, The Colbert Report and other Stephen-related shows are keeping very busy. I’ve got some links, reminders and gigs posted for the following people behind the cut: Rob Riggle, Larry Wilmore, Laura Krafft, Peter Gwinn, Peter Grosz, Amy Sedaris, Paul Dinello and more!

Interviews

• Who doesn’t love a good interview? Especially when the person being interviewed is as entertaining as Larry Wilmore (contributor, The Daily Show)? This interview went up on TV Squad yesterday, and I had several “awwww” moments as I read it. I think my favorite bit is here; Larry’s comments about Jon and working at The Daily Show are terribly sweet:
  

  Jon is such a humble guy. You know, he’s really about just working hard and making a funny show, but he has personal integrity that come through. He doesn’t try to do something with integrity, he already has it, you know. And so, that’s infectious. You want to please that guy because everybody loves him so much.

  And, so we just look at it as we’re trying to do the best show for Jon, in a way. We’re trying to do the best show that day; we’re trying to make this the funniest thing. But not necessarily – we don’t look at it as being important when we’re doing it – the way people kind of receive it. We just see something, and we go, “Oh, we’ve got to do something on that. That looks funny.” But there’s no sense of “it’s important.”

• Former Daily Show favorite Steve Carell was also interviewed recently; the TimesOnline posted a story on him in anticipation of the U.K. release of Get Smart. As with many of the articles on Steve, this one contains a sort of retrospective on his career, and my favorite moment comes in his description of an early sketch from The Dana Carvey Show:
  

  “It was very funny and had some great people working for it,” he insists. “Charlie Kaufman [screenwriter of Adaptation and Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind] was a staff writer. Stephen Colbert [host of the hit series The Colbert Report] wrote for it. But we knew with the first sketch of the first show that we were going to fail. It involved Dana, as Clinton, giving a speech about how he was going to be the nurturing president. To show this, he opened his shirt [Carrell falls about laughing, taking some time to catch his breath] and he had a prosthetic breastplate with eight nipples that lactated [gasp] . . . And he had golden retriever puppies suckling on his chest.”

  I can just picture him cracking up trying to describe this!

• NPR recently rebroadcast an interview with Robert Smigel of TV Funhouse and Triumph the Insult Comic Dog fame; you can listen to it here. Why did they do this, you ask? Oh, maybe because Comedy Central released an unrated TV Funhouse DVD a couple of weeks ago (read about it here); you just know that’s got to be a hoot. [h/t to the much-missed Jennie!]

Television shows

• A recent Philly.com article featured Larry Wilmore talking about his upcoming show “Primarily Colored”, in which he plays a black Presidential candidate.
  

  “[I]t’s about race and politics, am I black enough, how black do you need to be?” Wilmore said.

  “It’s called ‘Primarily Colored’ . . . and it deals with the politics of authenticity,” said the comedian, who also has a book coming out, “I’d Rather We Got Casinos: And Other Black Thoughts.”

  Sounds like a timely show, Larry; best of luck to you!

Movies, DVDs

• Fans of Amy Sedaris have reason to celebrate: Amy returns to your TV this Fall in the Paul Dinello-directed comedy Gym Teacher. From AfterEllen.com:
  

  Gym Teacher finds Sedaris back in high school, but this time she plays the school’s kooky Principal Hoffman who’s crushing hard on a hunky gym teacher played by Law & Order: SVU’s Christopher Meloni. I don’t know about you, but I’m dying to see Detective Elliot Stabler in some crazy comic hijinks with Sedaris.

• Rob Corddry and Rob Riggle fans can watch the two Robs in the movie Blackballed, a movie about a former paintball champion (Corddry) trying to overcome a “tainted” past to win with a new team. This one’s been around for a while, but I evidently live in a cultural vacuum, so you’ll have to forgive my just hearing about it now. There’s a trailer for it here, but be warned, the language is NSFW.

Gigs

Rob Riggle (correspondent, The Daily Show)
• As you probably all know by now, in addition to being part of the “Best F@#king News Team Ever!” Rob Riggle is an improv fiend. You can catch him in “Respecto Montalban” this Friday at FIT (order tickets through the Upright Citizens Brigade Theater here).

Laura Krafft (former writer, The Colbert Report)

• “Let’s Have a Ball” continues its run at UCBT, and you can watch Laura Krafft performing with some hilarious folks from 30 Rock, Conan, etc. if you’re in the city on Saturdays. More information here.
• Laura is also making them laugh in her show, “Three-Piece!” Joining up with former co-worker Peter Grosz and general funnyman David Rakoff seems a surefire way to make people smile. Buy tickets here.

Peter Gwinn (writer, The Colbert Report)

• Fans of musicals and comedy should get a kick out of “Baby Wants Candy”, another Upright Citizens Brigade show featuring Peter Gwinn. I mean, come on, it’s a musical improv! I’m not sure what about that doesn’t spell laughter. Get ticketing info here.

Lewis Black (contributor, The Daily Show)

• Lewis Black brings his “Let Them Eat Cake!” tour to Missouri this Friday, and Playback has the skinny on it here. To use their words, “At his best he becomes Yosemite Sam, the famed Warner Brother’s cartoon character, sputtering with disdain.” That’s about as apt a description of Lewis’ work as I can think of (with this caveat: Lewis is no mere cartoon — I seriously doubt that Yosemite Sam went through the bother of picking up a degree from Yale Drama).

Notes and other reminders

• Don’t forget to pick up Lewis Black’s new comedy album, Anticipation, which was released yesterday. In conjunction with the album’s release, he’s been answering some fans’ questions over at the Comedy Central Insider lately; you can see some of them here.
• We’ve mentioned this before, but John Oliver: Terrifying Times (Uncensored and Unrated) will be coming out this month on DVD. Look for it in stores on August 19th; I, for one, am eager to dig into the bonus material it boasts from the “Political Animal” taping.
• Popjournalism (Canada) had a nice item about a week ago that featured several of the books written by people whose faces we see on The Daily Show and The Colbert Report. Many of our readers will have read these already, but it’s a decent enough review for those of you who have yet to dive into some of the print offerings from the shows’ personalities.
• Just a couple other reminders, this weekend is the Del Close Marathon for you NYC residents, so there’s plenty for you to see there (especially if you make it to the Daily Show/Colbert Report Improv Jam!). For readers in the Washington, DC area, don’t forget that this weekend is the DC Comedyfest; it’s sure to provide a cracking good time.
• Finally, we’d like to offer our belated congratulations to Samantha Bee and Jason Jones on the birth of their son, Fletcher (reported at TV Squad). Too many people emailed us that tip to thank you all individually, but we appreciate all of your diligence. Congrats, Sam, Jason and your whole (growing!) family!