It had to happen. more ›

Louis C.K.'s Beacon Theater comedy special/internet experiment turned out better than anyone could have expected: in the 12 days since the special was put online for $5, Louis has made more than a million dollars! And he announced on his website that he is donating $280,000 to five different charities: "The thing is still on sale. I hope folks keep buying it. If I make another million, I'll give more of it away. I'll let you know when that happens because I like you getting to know what happened to your 5 dollars and bringing awareness to the bla bla bla." Aww: come for the bag of dicks, stay for the benevolence. more ›

If you're a connoisseur of funny things you may already know that NYC's own Louis C.K. has a new comedy special out featuring his performances at the Beacon Theater last month. It's on his website for $5, and his thinking is akin to Radiohead's In Rainbows experiment: will people pay for something if they can steal it? Apparently if it's good enough, yes. The comedian tells David Carr that on Thursday night, 175,000 people bought the special, and he was expecting 200,000 total after the weekend. Minus production costs, "That's a $750,000 profit. And he owns the rights, and the long tail of buyers, in perpetuity." Not bad for the recipient of the America's Saddest Handjob. more ›

East Village resident and comedic deli thespian Todd Barry is filming his new Comedy Central special at the Gramercy Theater on December 1. Tickets are free for both the 7:15 or the 9:15 shows, and you can enter for them here. more ›

Before becoming all Brooklyn on Bored to Death, a young Zach Galifianakis was a struggling comedian honing his craft out West. And just like old footage of Jerry Seinfeld doing stand-up surfaced this year, here is Galifianakis in 1999, at just 30-years-old, doing his routine. It's noted on YouTube that this is just one year before he appeared on Letterman, "followed by his own aborted VH1 talk show, working on the road, film and TV appearances... and then came Hangover." more ›

Here's an amusing parody about how different media outlets come up with new headlines for the myriad Occupy Wall Street articles that must be churned out on a daily basis. Our favorite is probably the NY Post newsroom's process, which involves a lot of gibberish, rhyming and alliteration. Oh, and the Huffington Post, where an editor asks what the New York Times went with, and decides, "Yeah, just go with that but with a bigger font." more ›

In his hilariously-covered new memoir, former SNL comedian Darrell Hammond admits to heavy drinking, drug use, and even of practicing forms of self-harm during his tenure there. According to the Post, Hammond engaged in the behavior to escape painful childhood memories. "I kept a pint of Remy in my desk at work. The drinking calmed my nerves and quieted the disturbing images that sprang into my head…when drinking didn't work, I cut myself," Hammond writes. more ›

Celebrities love getting involved in politics, so of course Bill Clinton has a "celebrity division" of his William Jefferson Clinton Foundation. Somehow he didn't manage to bag Scarlett Johansson (who has been vocal about her love of both President Obama and Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer), but he did get Ben Stiller, Matt Damon, Sean Penn, Kristen Wiig, Kevin Spacey, Ted Danson, and Mary Steenburgen. more ›

Remember, just a few months ago, when Tracy Morgan was at the center of a pretty serious sh*itstorm over a nasty little homophobic rant during a stand-up act in Nashville? While he did issue a formal apology shortly after the incident, it turns out that people—like David Letterman—are still talking about it, much to Morgan's chagrin. more ›

Did you miss the Eugene Mirman Comedy Festival at the Bell House again? Yeah, we're still bummed about it too. What is that you say? There things to be excited about other than WTF with Marc Maron? Here's a few that we're pumped about. more ›

Last night, David Letterman returned from his vacation and addressed the alleged Al-Qaeda death threat: "I have a fatwa on me. And they say the guy that issued the fatwa is an Internet jihadist. Internet jihadist, and I said, 'Well, heck, who says Obama isn't creating jobs?'" He also said, "We have a great audience night in and night out but tonight you mean a lot to me. You people are more than an audience tonight, really. You're more like a human shield." more ›

Today, in honor of fantastically cranky, Rumsfeld-baiting comic Louis C.K.'s Emmy nomination, we're taking a little trip down memory lane, to a time when Louis was young, thin, and blessed with a full head of hair. more ›

30 Rock star (and the only man alive who would have a fire in his fishtank) Tracy Morgan is at the center of a major firestorm over allegations that he went on an ugly homophobic rant at a Nashville show. According to audience member Kevin Rogers's epic Facebook note, titled "WHY I NO LONGER 'LIKE' Tracy Morgan—A MUST READ:" more ›

Ilana Glazer and Abbi Jacobson have been working their way into the NYC alternative comedy scene via their web series and live comedy performances, both under the name Broad City. The series was nominated for Best Comedic Video by ECNY (Ilana was nominated for Best Emerging Comic), and has been steadily gaining a cult following over the past year and a half. You can catch these ladies live and in the flesh when they host the Broad City Season 2 finale celebration this Thursday at the 92Y Tribeca, where they will premiere a Broad City short film, in addition to screening several favorite episodes, four stand-up acts, and live music. more ›

Earlier this month East Village locals rallied against the UCB Theater's Hot Chicks Room, a bar attached to their new comedy venue. The name was discarded, the sign was taken down, and the NIMBYs target heart rates went back to normal... until the red curtains came up. more ›

A New Jersey stand-up comedian got the "last laugh" (har, Post) when she won a suit brought upon her by her mother-in-law two years ago. Sunda Croonquist had spent years using her marriage into a Jewish family as comedy fodder, but after a while her mother-in-law Ruth Zafrin wasn't finding her act so funny, and sued her over her "malicious" shtick. Husband Mark signed on as Sunda's lawyer, and courtroom hilarity most likely ensued. Now, a judge has ruled that Croonquist's jokes are protected speech. more ›

The Comic's Comic has unearthed this NYU Student film Who's Chris Rock?, which shows the bombastic comedian right as he was getting his start. Though he had already been on Miami Vice, the 23-year-old comedian had just told his parents about his comedy dreams, and despite their disapproval was playing the city's comedy circuit. Reactions in 1989 to his controversial catalog are nearly the same as today, with one man saying he didn't like how Rock was derogatory to black actors, and even his mother saying she thought he was disrespectful. But you can't hate on gems like this: "I think doctors are the lowest people on the face of the earth. You know why? Because they charge you for help!...The police don't go 'OK Ma'am, it's a good thing you didn't get raped. That'll be $1,000.'" Topical! Watch the video after the jump. more ›

“Sneaky Chef” author Missy Lapine is taking another stab at Jerry Seinfeld, claiming he slandered her character by calling her a “nutjob” on national TV. In a previous lawsuit Lapine accused the comic’s wife of stealing her idea for a cookbook that showed parents how to covertly feed their kids healthy foods (sweet potato in a grilled cheese sandwich, avocado in chocolate pudding etc.). A judge ruled against her but nonetheless Seinfeld felt compelled to call her a “wacko” during an appearance on David Letterman. According to the Daily News, the new suit targets the statements made by the sitcom star as well as Harper Collins, who the author says twice rejected her cookbook concept, before handing a book deal to Seinfeld’s wife. more ›

As expected/hoped, Conan O'Brien is hitting the road for a comedy tour. He Tweeted the news this morning, "Hey Internet: I'm headed to your town on a half-assed comedy & music tour. Go to http://TeamCoco.com for tix. I repeat: It's half-assed." more ›

After the Leno-Conan disaster and the Black History Month menu NBC was reportedly so happy to see Jerry Seinfeld show up at the office, it didn’t even care what he was pitching. "If you know the Yiddish term kvelling, that's what the executives were doing. They were rejoicing. Jerry's back! Seinfeld's in the house again!" one source told the Post, adding that “a show based on a guy sitting with a paper bag over his head...would have been green-lighted." But it wasn’t a show about paper bags, or a show about nothing. It was a show about marital spats, which, since airing after the Olympics, has gotten bad reviews and ratings that aren’t much better, causing TV pioneer Al Primo to predict the Marriage Ref will come back to “haunt” Seinfeld and the network that broadcasted it. more ›

After being named Stephen Colbert's "Alpha Dog of the Week" for brazenly changing his positions as he considers a Senate race in New York, former Tennessee Congressman Harold Ford Jr. sat down with the comic and addressed insinuations that he's a carpet-bagger and a flip-flopper. more ›

The original anarchic comedy hero for teenagers and college students, Soupy Sales, died Thursday in a hospice in New York City after suffering from multiple health problems. He was 83. Soupy, one of the only known men to have splattered a pie in Fank Sinatra's face and take more than 20,000 cream-fille tins to his own, won over TV audiences young and old, but mostly young, in the 1950s and '60s. more ›

Patton Oswalt has built himself up as one of the most well-respected stand-ups in his twenty-plus year career. He is a definitive "comic's comic," always refining and plugging away at his stand-up act—his most recent special being played on Comedy Central. Today marks the opening of his first star turn as the lead role in the darkly comic Big Fan, written and directed by the same screenwriter who wrote The Wrestler. Oswalt carries the film through it's brooding, modernist character study of a Staten Island Giant fanatic who lives with his mother and spends his work days perfecting his night speeches made as a caller to a local sports talk radio show. The film will be a strange experience for Giant fans as the tale it tells inadvertently ended up mirroring the team's Plaxico Burress situation last season in a bizarre number of ways. more ›

The story of the stand-up comedian being sued for defamation by her Jewish mother-in-law continues to be gobbled up by media outlets across the nation. Both comic Sunda Croonquist and her lawyer husband Mark Zafrin say they were blindsided by Rose Zafrin's suit. The husband whose firm will represent Croonquist told the Post his reaction to the suit was, "What — are you trying to us? My wife's from Paterson!" The black comedienne, whose observational jokes about differences in ethnic customs suddenly became too much for her mother-in-law, says she keeps a kosher house and converted to Judaism (for her marriage, not her career). When asked about the lawsuit by Entertainment Tonight, she said, "I felt sick to my stomach I was sickened. ... I thought maybe a phone call would suffice." She also mentioned to the TV show that she had shows here at Stand-Up NY and Comix this weekend. If this ends up in Judge Judy or Cristina's Court, we think we know who the special guest star will be to mend the parted sea between the two. Croonquist recently revealed that she was inspired her to grab a mic for the first time after being encouraged at a party...by none other than Jackie Mason. more ›