“Weird Al” Yankovic Releases “Word Crimes,” a Grammar Nerd Parody of “Blurred Lines”

in Comedy, Music | July 15th, 2014

When “Weird Al” Yankovic is in the zone, he can spin a par­o­dy that is bet­ter than the orig­i­nal. He took R. Kelly’s pre­pos­ter­ous pop soap opera “Trapped in the Clos­et” and turned it into “Trapped in the Dri­ve Thru,” one of the best por­traits of every­day sub­ur­ban ennui I’ve ever come across. His hilar­i­ous tune “White and Nerdy” got twice as much traf­fic on YouTube than the song he spoofed, “Ridin’” by Chamil­lionar­ie. And off of his lat­est (and pos­si­bly last) album, Manda­to­ry Fun, Yankovic takes Robin Thicke’s bizarre but catchy ode to date rape “Blurred Lines” and flips it into “Word Crimes,” a dit­ty that is bound to delight gram­mar pedants every­where. Watch it above.

Jonathan Crow is a Los Ange­les-based writer and film­mak­er whose work has appeared in Yahoo!, The Hol­ly­wood Reporter, and oth­er pub­li­ca­tions. You can fol­low him at @jonccrow.

by | Permalink | Make a Comment ( 9 ) |

Terry Gilliam Reveals the Secrets of Monty Python Animations: A 1974 How-To Guide

in Animation, Comedy | July 10th, 2014

Before he direct­ed such mind-bend­ing mas­ter­pieces as Time Ban­dits, Brazil and Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, before he became short-hand for a film­mak­er cursed with cos­mi­cal­ly bad luck, before he became the sole Amer­i­can mem­ber of sem­i­nal British com­e­dy group Mon­ty Python, Ter­ry Gilliam made a name for him­self cre­at­ing odd ani­mat­ed bits for the UK series Do Not Adjust Your Set. Gilliam pre­ferred cut-out ani­ma­tion, which involved push­ing bits of paper in front of a cam­era instead of pho­tograph­ing pre-drawn cels. The process allows for more spon­tane­ity than tra­di­tion­al ani­ma­tion along with being com­par­a­tive­ly cheap­er and eas­i­er to do.

Gilliam also pre­ferred to use old pho­tographs and illus­tra­tions to cre­ate sketch­es that were sur­re­al and hilar­i­ous. Think Max Ernst meets Mad Mag­a­zine. For Mon­ty Python’s Fly­ing Cir­cus, he cre­at­ed some of the most mem­o­rable moments of a show chock full of mem­o­rable moments: A pram that devours old ladies, a mas­sive cat that men­aces Lon­don, and a mus­tached police offi­cer who pulls open his shirt to reveal the chest of a shape­ly woman. He also cre­at­ed the show’s most icon­ic image, that giant foot dur­ing the title sequence.

On Bob God­frey’s series Do It Your­self Film Ani­ma­tion Show, Gilliam delved into the nuts and bolts of his tech­nique. You can watch it above. Along the way, he sums up his thoughts on the medi­um:

The whole point of ani­ma­tion to me is to tell a sto­ry, make a joke, express an idea. The tech­nique itself doesn’t real­ly mat­ter. What­ev­er works is the thing to use. That’s why I use cut-out. It’s the eas­i­est form of ani­ma­tion I know.

He also notes that the key to cut-out ani­ma­tion is to know its lim­i­ta­tions. Grace­ful, ele­gant move­ment à la Walt Dis­ney is damned near impos­si­ble. Swift, sud­den move­ments, on the oth­er hand, are much sim­pler. That’s why there are far more behead­ings in his seg­ments than ball­room danc­ing. Watch the whole clip. If you are a hard­core Python enthu­si­ast, as I am, it is plea­sure to watch him work. Below find one of his first ani­mat­ed movies, Sto­ry­time, which includes, among oth­er things, the tale of Don the Cock­roach. Also don’t miss, this video fea­tur­ing All of Ter­ry Gilliam’s Mon­ty Python Ani­ma­tions in a Row.

Relat­ed Con­tent: 

The Best Ani­mat­ed Films of All Time, Accord­ing to Ter­ry Gilliam

Ter­ry Gilliam: The Dif­fer­ence Between Kubrick (Great Film­mak­er) and Spiel­berg (Less So)

The Mir­a­cle of Flight, the Clas­sic Ear­ly Ani­ma­tion by Ter­ry Gilliam

Jonathan Crow is a Los Ange­les-based writer and film­mak­er whose work has appeared in Yahoo!, The Hol­ly­wood Reporter, and oth­er pub­li­ca­tions. You can fol­low him at @jonccrow.

by | Permalink | Make a Comment ( 3 ) |

What Does the Spleen Do? A Music Video Starring Harvard School of Medicine’s Class of 2016

in Biology, Comedy, Harvard, K-12, Science | July 7th, 2014

Accord­ing to Har­vard Med­ical School’s Admis­sions depart­ment, “to study med­i­cine at Har­vard is to pre­pare to play a lead­ing role” in the “quest to improve the human con­di­tion.”

It might also pre­pare you to play a giant spleen, as Richard Ngo, Class of 2016, does in this video for the Har­vard Med­ical School and Har­vard School of Den­tal Med­i­cine’s 107th Annu­al Sec­ond Year Show. 

In this anatom­i­cal homage to  “The Fox,” Nor­we­gian com­e­dy duo Ylvis’ delib­er­ate­ly bizarre hit, the Crim­sonites demon­strate a pret­ty straight­for­ward grasp of their stud­ies:

Lungs go whoosh

Help you breathe

Kid­neys fil­ter

Make your pee

If, as they freely admit,  they’re a bit murky on sple­net­ic func­tion, well, that’s why they’re at the top ranked med­ical school in the coun­try, right? To learn?

And to dance?

Their par­ents, par­tic­u­lar­ly the hard work­ing immi­grant ones, must have been so relieved to learn that music videos are a fall­back should the doc­tor thing not work out.

Though why would­n’t it? Secret male uterus? Ves­ti­gial fin? Pos­si­bly a back­up tongue?

They may be guess­es, but they’re edu­cat­ed guess­es!

For com­par­ison’s sake, here are two of the win­ning entries in the Med­ical and Den­tal School’s Organ Chal­lenge, an anato­my-based music video con­test for kids K‑12: Oak­land’s Pacif­ic Boy­choir Acad­e­my’s Miley Cyrus-inspired take on the Diges­tive Sys­tem (above) and Poolesville, Mary­land’s local high school’s  “Hap­py”-fla­vored anthem to healthy car­diac func­tion (below).

I’d say those kids stand a good chance of get­ting into Har­vard.

(Don’t be embar­rassed if you remain a bit shaky on what exact­ly the spleen’s there to do. This sim­ple, non-musi­cal primer on the “Queen of Clean,” com­pli­ments of I Heart Guts, should clear things up right away.

spleen1

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Down­load 100,000+ Images From The His­to­ry of Med­i­cine, All Free Cour­tesy of The Well­come Library

The Stan­ford Mini Med School: The Com­plete Col­lec­tion

Sci­ence & Cook­ing: Har­vard Profs Meet World-Class Chefs in Unique Online Course

Learn to Code with Harvard’s Intro to Com­put­er Sci­ence Course And Oth­er Free Tech Class­es

Ayun Hal­l­i­day is an author, home­school­er and the Chief Pri­ma­tol­o­gist of The East Vil­lage Inky zine. Fol­low her @AyunHalliday

by | Permalink | Make a Comment ( None ) |

Stephen Fry Reads the Legendary British Shipping Forecast

in Comedy, Radio | June 30th, 2014

If you live in Eng­land, you’re prob­a­bly famil­iar with the Ship­ping Fore­cast, a night­ly BBC radio broad­cast that details the weath­er con­di­tions for the seas sur­round­ing Britain. The broad­cast has been on the air­waves since 1911. And many Brits will tell you that the fore­cast, always read in a soporif­ic voice, can lull you to sleep quick­er than a dose of Ambi­en. The broad­cast has a strict for­mat. It can’t exceed 350 words, and it always begins: “And now the Ship­ping Fore­cast, issued by the Met Office on behalf of the Mar­itime and Coast­guard Agency at [fill in the time] today.” Below y0u can lis­ten to a record­ing of actu­al fore­casts. (Or catch the one from 6/29/2014 here.) Don’t lis­ten to it while dri­ving, or oper­at­ing heavy machin­ery. A primer that decodes the unfa­mil­iar ter­mi­nol­o­gy in the radio trans­mis­sion can be found here.

All of this gives you just enough con­text to appre­ci­ate Stephen Fry’s par­o­dy read­ing of the Ship­ping Fore­cast. It was record­ed in 1988, for the first episode of his radio show Sat­ur­day Night Fry. (Full episode here.) You can read along with the tran­script, while lis­ten­ing to the clip up top:

And now, before the news and weath­er, here is the Ship­ping Fore­cast issued by the Mete­o­ro­log­i­cal Office at 1400 hours Green­wich Mean Time.
Fin­is­terre, Dog­ger, Rock­all, Bai­ley: no.
Wednes­day, vari­able, immi­nent, super.
South Utsire, North Utsire, Sheer­ness, Foul­ness, Eliot Ness:
If you will, often, emi­nent, 447, 22 yards, touch­down, stu­pid­ly.
Malin, Hebrides, Shet­land, Jer­sey, Fair Isle, Tur­tle-Neck, Tank Top, Courtelle:
Blowy, quite misty, sea sick­ness. Not many fish around, come home, veer­ing sug­ges­tive­ly.
That was the Ship­ping Fore­cast for 1700 hours, Wednes­day 18 August.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Stephen Fry Reads Oscar Wilde’s Children’s Sto­ry “The Hap­py Prince”

Shakespeare’s Satir­i­cal Son­net 130, As Read By Stephen Fry

Stephen Fry Pro­files Six Russ­ian Writ­ers in the New Doc­u­men­tary Russia’s Open Book

by | Permalink | Make a Comment ( 1 ) |

Watch 1990s Video of Sacha Baron Cohen Playing Christo, the Proto Borat (NSFW)

in Comedy, Film, Television | June 27th, 2014

In 2005, a hir­sute Kaza­kh jour­nal­ist named Borat Sagdiyev ven­tured to Amer­i­ca to make a doc­u­men­tary about “the Great­est Coun­try in the World.” Along the way, he had extreme­ly awk­ward con­ver­sa­tions with politi­cians Bob Barr and Alan Keyes, unwit­ting­ly par­tic­i­pat­ed in a Gay Pride parade, and acci­den­tal­ly destroyed a gift shop filled with Con­fed­er­a­cy mem­o­ra­bil­ia. When he vis­it­ed a Vir­ginia rodeo, he near­ly caused a riot. Pri­or to the event, he praised the War on Ter­ror — which got cheers — and then wished that “George W. Bush will drink the blood of every man, woman and child in Iraq,” which got few­er cheers. He then sang the lyrics of the Kaza­kh nation­al anthem to the tune of the “Star Span­gle Ban­ner.” That got boos.

Borat is, of course, a fic­tion­al char­ac­ter played by British come­di­an Sacha Baron Cohen, made famous in his huge­ly suc­cess­ful 2006 movie Borat: Cul­tur­al Learn­ings of Amer­i­ca for Make Ben­e­fit Glo­ri­ous Nation of Kaza­khstan. While his brand of gonzo com­e­dy might not be everybody’s cup of tea, you have to admit he’s brave and weird­ly ded­i­cat­ed to his craft. The cops were called over 90 times dur­ing the pro­duc­tion of Borat and Baron Cohen nev­er broke char­ac­ter once.

Of all of Baron Cohen’s char­ac­ters – the dim-wit­ted wannabe gang­ster Ali G and the equal­ly obliv­i­ous gay fash­ion­ista Bruno, Borat is per­haps his most like­able, and there­fore his most dan­ger­ous, char­ac­ter. He’s so naive­ly igno­rant, so benight­ed by provin­cial prej­u­dices that he evokes a tone of kind­ly con­de­scen­sion from just about every­one he encoun­ters – at least before they call the cops on him. And that con­de­scen­sion can prove to be a trap. Borat’s casu­al, jar­ring­ly overt homo­pho­bia, sex­ism and anti-Semi­tism can often lead inter­vie­wees to say things out loud that they wouldn’t nor­mal­ly say in front of a cam­era. When Borat stat­ed, “We hang homo­sex­u­als in my coun­try!” Bob­by Rowe, the pro­duc­er of that rodeo quipped: “That’s what we’re try­ing to do here.”

The first incar­na­tion of Borat was a Mol­da­vian jour­nal­ist named Alexi who appeared on the Grana­da TV show F2F in the mid-90s. For the BBC Two show Com­e­dy Nation, Baron Cohen turned Alexi into Chris­to from Alba­nia. You can see a cou­ple of his ear­ly skits as Chris­to. In the one up top, he tries the patience of famed socialite Lady Col­in Camp­bell by insist­ing on car­ry­ing the train of her haute cou­ture dress. Below that, Chris­to stum­bles uncom­pre­hend­ing­ly into the world of S&M. Both videos, as you might expect, are NSFW.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Ali G at Har­vard; or How Sacha Baron Cohen Got Blessed by America’s Cul­tur­al Estab­lish­ment

George Car­lin Per­forms His “Sev­en Dirty Words” Rou­tine: His­toric and Com­plete­ly NSFW

Lenny Bruce Riffs and Rants on Injus­tice and Hypocrisy in One of His Final Per­for­mances (NSFW)

Jonathan Crow is a Los Ange­les-based writer and film­mak­er whose work has appeared in Yahoo!, The Hol­ly­wood Reporter, and oth­er pub­li­ca­tions. You can fol­low him at @jonccrow.

by | Permalink | Make a Comment ( None ) |

Stephen Hawking Shows His Funny Side in John Oliver’s Series “Great Minds: People Who Think Good”

in Comedy, Physics | June 19th, 2014

John Oliv­er kicked off his new series “Great Minds: Peo­ple Who Think Good” with an extend­ed inter­view with Stephen Hawk­ing. For a moment there, it all feels a bit like a clas­sic Ali G inter­view. (Remem­ber Sacha Baron Cohen’s price­less inter­view with Noam “Nor­man” Chom­sky?) But, soon enough, you real­ize that Hawk­ing is in on the joke. And he deliv­ers some good lines, with the hint of a smile.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

A Brief His­to­ry of Time, Errol Mor­ris’ Film About the Life & Work of Stephen Hawk­ing

Stephen Hawking’s Uni­verse: A Visu­al­iza­tion of His Lec­tures with Stars & Sound

Stephen Hawk­ing: Aban­don Earth Or Face Extinc­tion

Free Online Physics Cours­es

by | Permalink | Make a Comment ( None ) |

Michael Palin’s Tour of the Best Loved Monty Python Sketch Locations

in Comedy, Life, Travel | June 14th, 2014

In 1999, trav­el pre­sen­ter and found­ing mem­ber of Mon­ty Python, Michael Palin, led view­ers on a tour of Python­land, a col­lec­tion of unre­mark­able Lon­don loca­tions where some of the com­e­dy troupe’s most famous sketch­es were filmed.

Unlike fel­low Python Ter­ry Jones, the pleas­ant woman who responds to Pal­in’s knock at 94 Thor­pe­bank Road is not expect­ing a new gas cook­er, though judg­ing from the way she is dressed, she is await­ing a tele­vi­sion crew. Hav­ing spent sev­er­al decades lis­ten­ing to boys (and then men) inces­sant­ly recit­ing their fave Python bits, it’s a tri­fle hard for me to believe that any­one could claim zero knowl­edge of the show’s exis­tence. Maybe things are dif­fer­ent here in the States…

For­tu­nate­ly for the tele­vi­sion audi­ence, old Joe, next door at no. 92, does remem­ber the show’s takeover of the neigh­bor­hood, includ­ing John Cleese’s sil­ly walk out of no. 107, back when it was a shop.

The star betrays his age at the West Lon­don home that was the set­ting of the Seduced Milk­man skit. Palin is less shocked that the scant­i­ly clad Don­na Read­ing has been replaced by a dis­in­ter­est­ed young bloke in an apron than that the small size of the room served as a hold­ing pen for the punch­line’s five oth­er way­ward milk­men. Me too. I can’t imag­ine a 21st-cen­tu­ry crew agree­ing to lug their equip­ment up a flight of stairs, let alone shoot in a room that’s no big­ger than it appears to be on film.

Palin also swings by Ted­ding­ton Lock to demon­strate his fabled Fish Slap­ping Dance with a uni­formed atten­dant and no fish. At the end of every call, Palin presents the cur­rent occu­pant with a fac­sim­i­le Eng­lish Her­itage plaque. (More than ten years lat­er, Palin toast­ed the instal­la­tion of a fake blue plaque hon­or­ing his late col­league Gra­ham Chap­man at the lat­ter’s favorite pub.)

If you’re a Python pil­grim look­ing to make a day of it, here are a few more spots that will round things up to an even dozen. The no-longer-in-print Japan­ese guide­book that Palin relies on in the videos is some­thing of a grail, but only to those who speak Japan­ese.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Mon­ty Python’s Best Phi­los­o­phy Sketch­es

Watch All of Ter­ry Gilliam’s Mon­ty Python Ani­ma­tions in a Row

Watch Mon­ty Python’s “Sum­ma­rize Proust Com­pe­ti­tion” on the 100th Anniver­sary of Swann’s Way

Ayun Hal­l­i­day is a Brook­lyn-based author, per­former, direc­tor and the Chief Pri­ma­tol­o­gist of the East Vil­lage Inky zine. Fol­low her@AyunHalliday

by | Permalink | Make a Comment ( 2 ) |

20-Year-Old Louis CK Performs Stand Up (1987)

in Comedy, Video - Arts & Culture | June 9th, 2014

Ever been tak­en aback by a vin­tage pho­to of a Face­book friend? “Look how young he was! An infant!” If you’re a mem­ber of come­di­an Louis CK’s gen­er­a­tion, it’s like­ly that at some point, the per­son in the pho­to was you.

Louis mod­el 1987, above, is close to unrec­og­niz­able, with a full head of red hair and a trim bel­ly. His joke-based rou­tine isn’t howl­ing­ly fun­ny, but nei­ther is it shame­ful. He’s con­fi­dent, at his ease with the audi­ence, but the life expe­ri­ence that would inform his lat­er work was not yet a thing.

A few years fur­ther along, above, one can see that com­ic per­sona com­ing into focus. The sad sack phys­i­cal­i­ty that gives it weight came lat­er. Suf­fice to say, that hair­brush joke is no longer a present tense propo­si­tion.

What struck me were the famil­iar back walls of those lit­tle com­e­dy club stages. Louis has been work­ing those crum­my lit­tle stages for such a long time. No won­der he’s on famil­iar terms with the door guys at the Com­e­dy Cel­lar, the club he’s most often shown fre­quent­ing in his char­ac­ter-dri­ven, self-pro­duced, large­ly auto­bi­o­graph­i­cal TV show.

As he gen­er­ous­ly advised an 18-year-old aspi­rant on the Google news­group “alt.comedy.standup”:

Go on stage as often as pos­si­ble.  Any stage any­where.  Don’t lis­ten to any­one about any­thing.  Just keep get­ting up there and try to be fun­ny, hon­est and orig­i­nal.

Know that it’s not going to be easy.  Know that it’s going to take a long time to be good or great. Don’t focus on the career climb­ing.  Focus on the get­ting fun­nier.  The sec­ond you are bitch­ing about what anoth­er com­ic is get­ting you are going in the com­plete­ly wrong direc­tion.  No one is get­ting your gig or your mon­ey.

Keep in mind that you are in for a looooong haul of ups and downs and noth­ing and some­thing.  It takes at least 15 years, usu­al­ly more, to make a great com­ic.  Most flame out before they get there.

And yes, be polite and cour­te­ous to every sin­gle per­son you deal with. Not because that will make you a bet­ter come­di­an, but because you’re sup­posed to do that.

- Ayun Hal­l­i­day is the author of sev­en books, includ­ing No Touch Mon­key! And Oth­er Trav­el Lessons Learned Too Late. Fol­low her @AyunHalliday

Relat­ed Con­tent:

The Sur­re­al Short Films of Louis C.K., 1993–1999

Sein­feld, Louis C.K., Chris Rock, and Ricky Ger­vais Dis­sect the Craft of Com­e­dy (NSFW)

How the Great George Car­lin Showed Louis CK the Way to Suc­cess (NSFW)

by | Permalink | Make a Comment ( None ) |

« Go Back — More in this category... »
Quantcast