≡ Category: Comedy, Science | ≅ Comments
The Colbert Report
Mon – Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
≡ Category: Comedy, Music | ≅ Comments
These days, David Sedaris is the thinking person’s favorite funny man. In the past, we have featured his live readings of comic material from When You are Engulfed in Flames. (See “Related Content” below.) Today, we’re highlighting something a little different. On August 19th, Sedaris appeared as a guest DJ on KCRW, a radio station in [...]
≡ Category: Comedy, Music | ≅ Comments
A little piece of classic Americana TV. We take you back to the 1950s and Sid Caesar’s comic work. It’s hard to imagine someone working Beethoven’s 5th into comic material, but Caesar did it. In the meantime, if you want something a little more serious, I give you this rare footage of Herbert von Karajan conducting [...]
≡ Category: Comedy, Current Affairs | ≅ Comments
Al Franken, the former SNL comedian, the Harvard graduate, and now US Senator, has a special talent. He can draw the map of America, state-by-state, while chatting up a crowd. Almost makes me feel the 4th of July spirit…
Thanks for Eric for this one.
≡ Category: Comedy | ≅ Comments
This conversation, both funny and a little informative, is worth your time. This will hopefully whet your appetite, and give you good reason to watch Oliver Sack’s new program on NOVA. It’s called Musical Minds and you can watch it here starting on July 1.
Related Content:
Central Intelligence: From Ants to the Web
If you have problems [...]
≡ Category: Comedy | ≅ Comments
All credit to Jason Kottke on this one. Perfect for our readers. From the 2009 Radio and TV Correspondents’ Dinner. Give it a little time. Here it goes:
Related Video:
John Hodgman@Google
≡ Category: Audio Books, Comedy | ≅ Comments
Not long ago, we featured David Sedaris reading “Of Mice and Men,” a comic bit from his newish book, When You are Engulfed in Flames. Now, we give you another funny (also live) reading from the same book. The story is called “Solution to Saturday’s Puzzle,” and you can get it as an mp3 here.
Related Content:
David [...]
≡ Category: Comedy, Current Affairs | ≅ Comments
In case you missed Colbert’s trip to the war zone, here’s a funny clip.
You can find the link to this video and more here.
≡ Category: Comedy, Google | ≅ Comments
He appears in the well-known Mac v. PC commercials, on The Daily Show and occasionally on This American Life. John Hodgman is kind of everywhere these days, and now, promoting his new book, More Information Than You Require, he hits the stage at Google and gives the crowd an offbeat hour talk.
Related Content:
The British Slant [...]
≡ Category: Comedy, Technology, Web/Tech | ≅ Comments
A good clip that comes from Alec Couros’s 80+ Videos for Tech & Media Literacy. It features comedian Louis C.K. offering his funny thoughts on how our generation handles new technology. We’ve added it to our YouTube Favorites.
≡ Category: Amazon Kindle, Comedy | ≅ Comments
File under comedy…
See direct link to video here.
≡ Category: Comedy, Current Affairs | ≅ Comments
From last night’s White House Correspondents’ Dinner. (Also get Wanda Sykes’ standup appearance here. Rather funny.)
These clips come from CSPAN’s YouTube Channel, which is included in our Intelligent YouTube Video Collection
≡ Category: Comedy, Current Affairs | ≅ Comments
The Daily Show With Jon Stewart
M – Th 11p / 10c
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Here’s Jon Stewart talking Monday night about the revelation that America’s “extreme interrogation” techniques actually amount to torture. Somehow he manages to work The New York Review of Books, The Paris Review, McSweeney’s and The Utne Reader into the discussion. You’ll [...]
≡ Category: Comedy, Life | ≅ Comments
Take Malcolm Gladwell’s new book, Outliers: The Story of Success. Boil it down. Make it funny. And here you have our next video produced by Kirby Ferguson. NB that there are a few words sprinkled in that won’t be safe for work (unless you work in a special kind of place).
≡ Category: Comedy | ≅ Comments
David Sedaris fans, this is a quick one for you. Here, Sedaris reads from his newish book, When You are Engulfed in Flames. The story is called “Of Mice and Men” (his story, not Steinbeck’s), and you can listen to it here or via iTunes.
And just for good measure, I’m throwing in a pretty good Sedaris [...]
≡ Category: Comedy | ≅ Comments
A funny little piece from The Onion. Thanks to JB for sending this along. Keep sending us good items @openculture on Twitter, or via email at mail@oculture.com
≡ Category: Comedy | ≅ Comments
Woody Allen has a new comic piece in The New Yorker that weaves together lobsters, existentialism and Bernie Madoff. It starts:
Two weeks ago, Abe Moscowitz dropped dead of a heart attack and was reincarnated as a lobster. Trapped off the coast of Maine, he was shipped to Manhattan and dumped into a tank at a [...]
≡ Category: Comedy, Current Affairs | ≅ Comments
Courtesy of Stephen Colbert, we get a little history lesson that reminds us how we fixed problems once upon a time in America. Get the full episode here.
≡ Category: Comedy, Current Affairs | ≅ Comments
Or watch it here.
≡ Category: Comedy, Current Affairs | ≅ Comments
A pretty brilliant saga played out over the last week on The Daily Show. It started when Jon Stewart tweaked Rick Santelli and his widely-publicized rant against homeowner bailouts. Apparently Santelli’s network, CNBC, couldn’t take a little joke and fought back, which only provided The Daily Show with more comic fodder. (You can watch the [...]
≡ Category: Comedy, Life | ≅ Comments
Ricky Gervais, the comedian and brains behind The Office, talks here about the difference between British and American humor, and it really gets down to deep cultural differences. Optimism, the belief that anything is possible, versus an ingrained pessimism and penchant for the underdog. I wonder whether UK readers would agree with this characterization. And, [...]
≡ Category: Comedy, Film | ≅ Comments
Somehow my mind turned back today to this classic scene from Annie Hall — Woody Allen’s 1977 Academy Awarding-winning film. The scene features Woody, Diane Keaton, and a cameo by Marshall McLuhan, who gave us media theory and the expression “the medium is the message.” The bit is always good for a laugh.
≡ Category: Comedy, Current Affairs | ≅ Comments
As usual, Stewart cuts to the chase and says what has to be said. And gets a good laugh along the way…
≡ Category: Comedy, Literature | ≅ Comments
Elizabeth Alexander recited one of her own poems at Obama’s inauguration last week and now talks poetry (both highbrow and lowbrow) with Stephen Colbert. All in all, she does a pretty good job of hanging in there.
≡ Category: Comedy | ≅ Comments
What happens when Charlie Rose interviews himself and enters an “absurd world where illogic, inane dialogues, and open hostility rule?” You know, like a Beckett play? Watch the clip below and see. (Thanks to Scott for the heads up on this one, and we’ve added it to our YouTube Favorites.)
≡ Category: Comedy, Film | ≅ Comments
The business news keeps getting worse. Bernie Madoff’s ponzi scheme unraveled, defrauding wealthy investors of an estimated $50 billion. Marc Dreier, a big time New York lawyer, got jailed for allegedly bilking sophisticated hedge funds out of millions. Now, we learn that the CEO of National Lampoon is charged with securities fraud. As you may know, [...]
≡ Category: Comedy, Television | ≅ Comments
Bad clothes, really bad TV sets, not so good hair, and some briefly good comedy — that’s what you get when Woody Allen hits the Dick Cavett Show in or around 1970. Watch it below, and get other segments here, here, and here. And find it on our YouTube Favorites.
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≡ Category: Comedy, Current Affairs | ≅ Comments
What happens when you take the 2004, Academy award-nominated German film Der Untergang (The Downfall) and turn it into a spoof? Here, the “downfall” is all about the decline of the housing market, and how Hitler becomes just another man with a home under water. There are some classic lines here, particularly if you looked [...]
≡ Category: Comedy | ≅ Comments
The Monty Python Channel on YouTube was launched with these words:
“For three years you YouTubers have been ripping us off, taking tens of thousands of our videos and putting them up on YouTube… We know who you are … we know where you live … and we could come after you in ways too horrible to [...]