Archive for Ben Karlin
Six Degrees: New Year’s Hangover Edition.
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The hangovers have finally passed and the new year has only just began, but already 2010 is shaping up to a busy and exciting year for Stephen and his friends.
Friends and Colleagues
Conan O’Brien
- The SF Sketchfest Tribute to Conan O’Brien
with Conan O’Brien in person and special guest Andy Richter
Hosted by Jimmy PardoDue to the uncertainty surrounding the shows future the date has been postponed, check the SF Sketchfest website for the rescheduled date.
- @teamconan supporters all over the internet have begun showing their support with a stack of Pro-Conan merchandise.
Paul Dinello
- There’s a brief appearance by Paul (00:50) in “Just Ask the Locals” Part 1 from 92Y Tribeca.
Dana Carvey
- Variety reports that:
Dana Carvey is plotting a TV comeback, partnering with scribe-turned-TV host Spike Feresten to develop and star in a new sketch comedy series for Fox.
Fox has picked up a half-hour pilot presentation for the as-yet unnamed Carvey/Feresten project, which will shoot next month. Brillstein Entertainment Partners is producing.
‘The Colbert Report’ Staffers [and Beloved ex-Staffers]
Ben Karlin
- Along with Evan Goldberg, Ben Karlin has signed on to produce the now untitled James McAvoy/Seth Rogen cancer comedy, directed by Jonathan Levine.
“The film is based on the experiences of screenwriter Will Reiser, who contracted cancer in his mid-twenties and is successfully battling the disease. McAvoy will play a 25-year-old diagnosed with cancer.”
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Stephen Colbert in the Zeitgeist – October 14, 2009
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Greetings, Zoners! I apologize for being a bit negligent with the zeitgeist recently, but sometimes when real life sneaks up on you and says “hey, remember me?” it’s hard to ignore it. Here are some of the news items that have been filling up my inbox recently, your zeitgeist for October 14th.
New international markets for TCR and SWC
- There’s no official announcement from Comedy Central on this yet, but according to the Hollywood Reporter, MTV Networks International recently closed deals for several comedy shows to be added to international markets. TCR will soon be on the air in the Middle East and the Philippines, while Strangers with Candy will air in Germany.
Six Degrees: Ben Karlin
- Traditional Media in Transition: Ben Karlin – Zoom in Online: This 5-minute video features an interview with former TDS and TCR executive producer Ben Karlin, discussing how a spin-off from The Daily Show featuring one of their exceptionally talented correspondents grew into a hit TV show complete with its own Nation.
Capitol Hill hearts Stephen Colbert
- Stephen’s name came up in a recent meeting of the House Armed Services Committee: …Gabrielle Giffords (Democrat from Arizona) congratulated Odierno on doing Steve Colbertt’s show. She wasn’t joking. She stated he’d reached an audience he might not reach otherwise and should go back on it. Odierno joked he might need to because it appeared Colbert needed another haircut. (When Odierno guested before, the show was filmed in Iraq and Odierno did a skit where he shaved Colbert’s head.) (Via Kat’s Korner (of the Common Ills blog, and yes, it really did say “Steve Colbertt.”)
The C.O.L.B.E.R.T.
- How Space Travel is Like a Trip to Ikea – Bethbeck’s blog: A NASA employee ponders the assembly of the COLBERT treadmill in relation to a trip to Ikea, and then reminds us that putting together a treadmill in space is nothing compared to putting together an entire space station “piece by piece, tool by tool, complete with instructions and remote service help from Mission Control.”
Another top ten list
- Sun Media writers give thanks: scribes count down their list of 10 things they are thankful for – Canoe.ca: Kevin Williamson: #3 – Stephen Colbert. Still a savage satirist, the chief danger Colbert faces is that the neo-con nitwits he’s mocking have become such jabbering, weeping parodies of themselves — Glenn Beck, anyone? — that Colbert’s act seems comparatively sane. (BTW, #1 on his list was “David Letterman’s libido.”)
Gratuitous name dropping
- No place for Clijsters in year finale – SI.com’s Tennis Mailbag: Karl refers, of course, to Kim Clijsters, she of the “superfluous j,” as Stephen Colbert recently noted. (Colbert is one to talk, he being of the superfluous “t.”)
Oh hey, did someone say tennis (or as the English call it, “football”)? That’s a good enough reason to post this hilarious video.
| The Colbert Report | Mon – Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c | |||
| Fallback Position – James Blake | ||||
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Six degrees: A great big post about people we love
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Hey, everyone, looks like it’s “clean out my inbox” day again, and I’ve got a lot of updates and tips to pass along to you all.
On a more personal note, I’m currently digging out from underneath a cartoonishly large workload, which was itself just buried under a new mountain of tasks today, so I’m really not sure when I’ll have time to do another one of these posts. I say this to encourage you to leave any additional tips and/or links in the comments to this post, as I suspect a baby born today might reach the legal drinking age before I have free time to do another Six Degrees entry. That said, I’m taking the time to do this one, so read onward!
The Daily Show correspondents
- If you TiVo the shows and skip the commercials, you might have missed this: The Daily Show is going to be live on Tuesday for Inauguration Day, with the correspondents weighing in from Washington, DC. This is one of the few times that DC looks like the cool place to be, so stay tuned. [Now I'm *really* peeved that I'll have to work that day ... but no way I'm doing it from DC! My office is two blocks from the White House, and I refuse to wade into that insanity if I won't even get the chance to see the party. Any of you TDS people who tire of the crowds are welcome to join me at my place, where I'll be grumbling about my job on that otherwise festive day.]
More from Eric Drysdale, J.J. Sedelmaier, Pete Grosz, Laura Krafft, John Oliver, Amy Sedaris, Demetri Martin and Ben Karlin after the fold!
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Six Degrees: ‘Daily Show’ folks, Amy Sedaris and more
Posted by: | CommentsJust another quick post to clean out my inbox. As ever additions and/or corrections in the comments are appreciated.
Jon Stewart
- Jon’s listed in EW.com’s “25 Smartest People in TV” list. I find any of these lists that don’t include Stephen (and *do* include the likes of Elizabeth Hasselbeck!) quite suspect, but I can’t fault them for including Jon.
Lewis Black
- Ring in the New Year with Lewis Black: Enter this sweepstakes to win two tickets to Phoenix, AZ to see Lewis perform on New Year’s Eve. The winner gets a truly sweet deal (the tickets, hotel, cash, a meet and greet with Lewis …), so enter now if this sounds like more fun than whatever your current New Year’s plans are (via CC Insider).
Amy Sedaris, Paul Dinello
- Remember Gym Teacher: The Movie, directed by Paul Dinello and featuring the ever-entertaining Amy Sedaris? According to amysedarisrocks blogger extraordinaire Katie, it will be coming to DVD on February 3rd, including bloopers, deleted scenes and more.
Samantha Bee and Jason Jones
- Q TV’s Jian Ghomeshi interviewed Sam and Jason about their new movie, Cooper’s Camera here (h/t Jennie). A very interesting interview!
Ben Karlin
- Congratulations to Paul Sahre, who designed the cover for Things I’ve Learned From Women Who’ve Dumped Me. The cover was listed as a “Favorite Book Cover of 2008″ over at The Book Design Review (via BoingBoing, h/t DB).
John Oliver
- Just a reminder to catch John Oliver in next week’s Tell Your Friends! benefit for Darfur. If you click through to read the details on the event, you’ll notice that there will be a raffle to raise additional money. Host Liam McEneaney tells us that one of the prizes is a signed copy of I Am America (And So Can You!)
Rob Corddry
- Remember when we told you about the web series Children’s Hospital? Well, it’s finally debuted, and the Comedy Central Insider has high praise for it. Watch it here at thewb.com (h/t Jennie and JennyWithaY)
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Film.com features Paley Center for Media Q&A vids
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I’ve spent the last 45 minutes watching the videos featured over at Film.com that feature a group Q&A of Stephen Colbert, Steve Carell and Jon Stewart at the Paley Center for Media. My stomach hurts, HURTS I tell ya! You must go watch every single one of these videos, but do not drink during these particular ones due to the fact that you will spit it on your keyboard. Um … trust me on this.
- The Downfalls Of Fame – “Daily Show” Correspondent Stephen Colbert discusses how the show’s fame has made it almost impossible to trick the interviewees anymore. He relates a story of an unsuspecting guest who thought orange juice was turning people gay.
- Audition Process – “Daily Show” Correspondent Stephen Colbert reveals how he got cast for the show. Writer Madeleine Smithberg remembers the audition tape he sent with fellow actor Steve Carell. [NOTE: Live version of "Waiters who are nauseated by food" is a must see]
- Stephen Colbert, Again A Look Back – “Daily Show” Correspondent Stephen Colbert talks about his last solo project “Stephen Colbert, Again a Look Back” and the good chance he will do another. [NOTE: The whole video is worth it for Jon's zinger at the end.]
- Unusable Material – “Daily Show” Host Jon Stewart and Correspondent Stephen Colbert talk about material that can’t be used. Colbert tells the story of how he got sued over a piece.
And if you’ve never seen the bit from The Daily Show about orange juice making you gay, check the videos out after the break.
Seriously huge Tip of the Hat for W&M_NU for finding these gems!
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Six Degrees: Interviews, readings and more from ‘Daily Show’ and ‘Colbert Report’ alums
Posted by: | CommentsHowdy, Nation. I think we’re overdue for an update on what some of our favorite shows’ writers, correspondents, contributors and more are up to, don’t you? As ever, please chime in with any errors or omissions in the comments section for this post.
- Eric Drysdale: Performing TONIGHT at the Lolita Bar in “Tell Your Friends.” There’s a bit more info here at Eric’s blog.
- Laura Krafft: Will be reading some of her original works at the Upright Citizens Brigade Theater on Wednesday, March 19th. More info available here at the UCBT website. (H/t to DB and WordsWithGrace for this one!)
- Let’s Have a Ball is still running at the UCBT on Saturdays. Individual performers are not currently listed, but past performers have included Laura Krafft, Peter Gwinn, Paul Dinello and Rob Riggle, just to name a few. Ticket info available here.
- Daily Show producer Rory Albanese has another evening with his Daily Show friends and acquaintances scheduled for March 31st. Performers set to appear include: Kristen Schaal (contributor), John Oliver (correspondent), Rory Albanese (producer), Jason Reich (writer), Adam Lowitt (producer) and a “special, surprise guest.” More info here at Comix. UPDATED TO ADD: Schaal may not be appearing that night, after all (see the comments to this post). I can only note that, at present, she’s still listed on the Comix schedule.
- John Oliver contines to make me crazy by not updating his gig list, but I’ve managed to unearth a few show notices:
- Friday, March 21st and Saturday, March 22nd: John brings his standup to Comedy Works in Denver, CO. Ticket info here.
- Friday, April 11th: John and TDS’s Rory Albanese will perform at Iowa State in the Stephens Auditorium. Ticket info available here.
- Saturday, April 26th: Catch John at the Scottsdale Center for the Performing Arts in Scottsdale, AZ. Details here.
- Reminder: John Oliver’s Comedy Central standup special, “John Oliver: Terrifying Times” is set to premiere at 10:00pm on April 20th.
- Finally, you’ll want to listen to the podcast of Ben Karlin’s interview with Jesse Thorn over at “The Sound of Young America.” (You may recall Jesse Thorn from his interview with Stephen at the Apple Store when I Am America first came out.) ‘Nuff said.
- UPDATED TO ADD: Daily Show writer Rob Kutner has a book coming out: Apocalypse How: Turn the End-Times into the Best of Times! It’s not available yet, but Amazon has it listed for May 12, 2008, so look for it soon.
- FURTHER ADDING: A reminder that Lewis Black’s Root of all Evil premiered last week; a new episode is scheduled on Wednesday.
EDITOR’S NOTE: I may not have time to continue updating this post (I’ll do my best), so please do check the comments to see whether there are any additions or corrections. Thanks!
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The New York Post and Macleans.ca have two short but sweet interviews with Ben Karlin on his book and the fake news business.
THINGS I’VE LEARNED FROM WOMEN WHO’VE DUMPED ME
Mandy Stadtmiller
February 11, 2008Stadtmiller: Tell me about some of the contributors to the book, like Stephen Colbert and Adam Schlesinger from Fountains of Wayne.
Karlin: I wanted Stephen to write a piece for the book, and I pretty much left it to him. I had some ideas. Most of the contributors had their own ideas. I didn’t have to provide ideas for almost anybody. He had this idea of writing this actual story of an actual breakup, but giving it to his wife to redact all the juicy and interesting details. So he basically wrote a kind of true story that didn’t really have any jokes in it. So the joke was the fact that he was selectively taking out pieces of information. I think it’s a very clever idea. Then what we did for the audio book was we recorded him reading the piece, bleeped out all the pieces that are bleeped out in the written piece. But then we had him read a list of words and phrases. So you can download those words and you can put back together his piece. That’s one of the more fun pieces in the book. And Adam Schlesinger from the band Fountains of Wayne took a song and he annotated all the lyrics to explain how people write breakup songs. That was also really funny.
Stadtmiller: That was his idea?
Karlin: That was his idea. I had the idea of doing something with a song, but he had the idea of annotating the lyrics like footnotes and that was perfect. We’re also doing four shows at UCB. Every Thursday in February, except for one Wednesday, the 13th. Those are all the contributors from the book. Tom’s hosting one night. They’re going to be reading or performing their pieces. There’s going to be live music. Fountains of Wayne is doing the music in New York and OK Go is doing it in Los Angeles. So instead of a book tour we’re going to be doing this live presentation of the book. There’s also a Web site called womenwhodumpedme.com.
The man behind Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert on things comedians have learned from women who dumped them
Lianne George
Feb 11, 2008Macleans.ca: So does this mean you’re out of the fake news business for good?
Ben Karlin: Yes. It’s dead to me. Dead! D-E-D.
M: Do you think men don’t generally have enough opportunities to commiserate about heartbreak?
BK: I think that probably holds true for a lot of men so I felt like it would be interesting to see men try to reflect on things they’ve done wrong or situations they might’ve learned something from. I would guess that a great majority of men at one point or another have had relationship end because a woman has said to them, “You don’t open up. You don’t share.” That kind of thing. Perhaps I’m revealing too much.
. . .
M: Did you glean any insights or perspective that’s been useful in your current relationship?
BK: I think as a general rule of thumb, for legitimate and bonafide advice, comedy writers would be the last people I would turn to. Especially for matters of the heart.
M: Yet in every other area of our lives—world affairs, national politics—people seem to be taking their cues from comedy writers. The last 10 years have been a golden moment for fake news. Why?
BK: It’s hard to really say exactly why. But with respect to The Daily Show and The Onion, those are just really well executed. In the same way there wasn’t this incredible tradition of sketch comedy on television before Saturday Night Live, and then SNL kind of exploded and, for all intents and purposes, created this genre of sketch comedy on television. A lot of that was just as much a function of having these incredible people as it did that people were “ready for this kind of comedy.” So it’s kind of the same thing with something like The Onion or The Daily Show. It’s not just that it’s news parody, it’s that it was well done.
M: Where do you draw comedy from now?
BK: I think humour on the Internet, with these found treasure troves of old TV shows or commercials, which are then given this second life online has grabbed people. It’s like, ‘wow, someone just sent us this ABC promo from 1978 for Battle of the Network Stars and I can’t believe their shorts were that short’—and all of the sudden, that’s comedy. It was never intended to be comedy. That’s where I end up going for most of my humour, to things that were not necessarily meant to be funny, which is a little sad.
Hat tip for the first goes to Rebnej; for the second goes to Jennie and Elizabeth B.
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Six Degrees: Ben Karlin discusses love and Valentine’s Day
Posted by: | CommentsBen Karlin’s new book is quite appropriately timed for that wonderful or terrible (depending on your perspective) Valentine’s Day holiday. Ah, for the days of getting glittery heart cards from everyone in your elementary school class.
Questions for Ben Karlin: Lovers Lost
Deborah Solomon
The New York Times Magazine
February 10, 2008Since Valentine’s Day is on Thursday and you just edited an anthology of lovelorn essays by 32 guys — “Things I’ve Learned From Women Who’ve Dumped Me” — I thought it might be interesting to ask you about the current state of romance in America. O.K., well there’s your first mistake.
Do you observe Valentine’s Day? It’s not part of my faith, if that is what you are driving at. I loved the idea of Valentine’s Day when you were a kid and you made a card for everyone in your class and everyone in your class had to make a card for you. So you walk away that day with, like, 35 Valentine’s Day wishes.
Are you saying you wish Valentine’s Day could be more inclusive now? Yeah.
It’s true. Love is not very democratic. I think it needs some revision.
Where are we now romantically as a nation? Can you give me a State of the Union report? Based on what I read on the Internet, teenagers are hooking up and having sex, and I think the entire nation will have had sex with itself by the year 2019.
Do you think the Internet actually increases the number of romantic entanglements a person has in a lifetime? Well, yeah. If you go back to colonial times, and you wanted to meet someone, you had to get on your horse and ride several leagues or fathoms or whatever they were called. That was a lot of work, and you’re obviously not going to be churning through 25 people in a month.
What kind of idiot churns through 25 people in a month? Single New Yorkers with Internet access.It’s been a little more than a year since you left your job as the executive producer of “The Daily Show” and “The Colbert Report,” which you helped create. Why would you leave Comedy Central? You didn’t hear about the sex scandal, clearly.
Is that a joke? Yes.
. . .
Does anything good ever come of romantic rejection? There is a truism that from pain comes growth. That’s definitely something I’ve been told.
But do you believe it? I’ve never found heartbreak to be instructive. I disagree. I know that when I was dating and relationships didn’t work, I always took away a lesson — like, “Beware the kooky woman with the brother in the military.”
Now that you’re married, can those lessons help you be a better husband? Probably not.
Do you have any dating advice for your children? I have an 8-month-old, and he is not getting a MySpace account until he is at least 13 months.
Fun Fact: Deborah Solomon interviewed Stephen Colbert at the New York Times Center in November 2007.
EDIT: Newly minted New York Press journalist Nate Sloan also has an interview with Ben. An excerpt, behind the cut (Ben Karlin dropping the f-bomb is going to be the death of us here at NFZ):
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