#Comedy

Conan O Brien’s Legally Prohibited Tour (April/2010)

Conan O Brien’s Legally Prohibited Tour – April 24-25th – Gibson Amphitheater – Los Angeles, CA

I get over to Universal Studios (where I had never been before) and just walking thru there is like a theme park inside a mall. A really overpriced/over-the-top mall. The Gibson Theater in located way in the back and around the corner so I literally walked through the whole place to get to it.  I was flying solo on this one and that was fine, got my ticket and got inside.
I was surprised at how large this place was, it was freaking huge, thought it might hold like 2k and it was more like 6k.
I was glad to be seeing it in L.A. because of all the stops and I’m sure they each were special in their own way, that this was gonna be the one. Several reasons, a) the resources of just the celebrities he can use in his act based on proximity alone , and b) this is where he lost his job in the first place -so you know THATS getting brought up.
Quick back-story, unless you have been living under a rock, you have heard the whole uproar about Conan O Brien losing his Tonight Show slot to some shenanigans and can’t be on TV again for 7 months so he decided to hit the road and do a live show (hence the title Legally Prohibited).
I’ve been to L.A. a million times and I’ve never had the celebrity sighting thing ever like I have this time. The minute I sit down, I realize that I’m sitting behind David Spade and Craig Robinson.
The show starts with a video montage lampooning the events of the last few months that I just briefly covered, and then you see his old sidekick Andy Richter, who announces Conan and the place goes ape-shit.
And yes the first thing he says is :

““This is my first time back to Universal Studios since I lost my job,” We are less than 400 yards away from my old Tonight Show sound-stage. ”Sit back and enjoy an incredibly awkward situation.”

   To help anchor the festivities, a bunch of celebrity guests like Jonah Hill, Jon Hamm and Aziz Ansari helped to facilitate an old O’Brien show staple involving outrageous clips from Walker, Texas Ranger (though the bit is now named the Chuck Norris Rural Policeman Handle). Lots of music and variety stuff, including a weird bit about  “a girl that looked like Conrad Bain“ that ended with the inflation of a giant harmless looking bat from Meatloaf‘s Bat Out of Hell Tour.

 The biggest surprise of the night involved Jim Carrey, who flew thru the air dressed as a masked superhero and no one knew who it was. Conan was dressed in a Superman costume and when he pulled off the mask, the crowd roared!  they did a duet of “It’s Not Easy to be Me.”  and the crowd gave them a standing ovation.

Night 2  Ok so back for the second of the L.A. stops of this awesome tour. This time Sam came with me. We were able to buy a pair off this drunk couple, and the seats were better than I had the night before. The show was exactly the same as you would expect, except for a few minor things. The guests he brought out for the Walker, Texas Ranger thing, were the same except in addition was Seth Green, and my future wife Sarah Silverman. She is good to do her own thing, because you can tell that you doesn’t collaborate well. She seemed so afraid of failing and intimidated (or embarrassed) by Conan, that she came out and he set her up to do a bit, but you could tell she wanted out of there as fast as possible. One other thing, since in this age of technology, I figured the Jim Carrey gag at the end would have leaked so large that their was no way they would try it again tonight. So much so that like an asshole, I gave the ending away to Sam, thinking it wouldn’t happen twice.

 One other good thing was that we got to see the opener, Reggie Watts, who was fantastic. He kinda looked like an Arabic King Buzzo, with this giant, out of control fro.

He did this masterful improvised set consisted of stream of consciousness stand-up in various shifting personae, mixed with loop pedal-based a cappella compositions, it was crazy! And the dude sounded like he could rap and sing if we wanted to for real.

Conan Obrien Legally Prohibited Tour- SMU Campus – Dallas, TX – May 13th

So if you read the previous entry you know that I caught both nights of the Los Angeles stop of this tour already. I was eager to see how it would change once it was out of LA on the road for a bit, and how it might acclimate to the local atmosphere. I had big night planned as right after this I was driving less than 2 miles to finish up with seeing Talib Kweli with Hi-Tek as Reflection Eternal.
Oddly, in all my years, I’ve never been to a show at Mcfarlin Auditorium on the SMU Campus. I had tickets to a Pearl Jam show here when I was 18, but didn’t go.
I didn’t realize how small it was, thus also making it difficult to find as I got inside, took my seat after the opening film sequence was ending and Conan was about to take the stage.
There was a palpable sense of liberation in O’Brien’s delivery. More than once he mentioned the difference between making comedy “at” someone in front of a TV and doing it live, in an interactive show.
Even if some of his material was a tad predictable – Texas is really big, Texans sure do love their beer – there was no way anyone at the packed house was not going to whoop and clap with abandon.
He involved a lot of local color, too, with a video appearance by Triumph the Insult Comic Dog (with neighborhood references dubbed into his highly profane routine), and a three-song set by Jimmy Vaughan, and that was after during the Walker Texas Ranger bit, he brought out Dallas Maverick’ Dirk Nowitzki.

Still a great show, ran into a ton of old friends, and was very happy and grateful that I’ve got to see this tour three times so far.

Masters of Comedy w/Carol Burnett & Tim Conway + checking in w/ Sarah Silverman, Aqua Teen Hunger Force & more (April/2010)

Master of Comedy with a wide variety of comedians from the past, present & future.

Sarah Silverman – April 16th – The Coronet – Los Angeles, CA

I didn’t know exactly where the Coronet was, and didn’t know what time Sarah Silverman was going on. I had just learned about the show this morning. Apparently her and her friends do a monthly, intimate, really low-fi gig at this very small theater (holds about 60) what seemed like a live rehearsal, or just a place to try out new material. I got there after the show had already started and quietly made my way to my seat, and thankfully Sarah hadn’t gone on yet. I didn’t really know what to expect, but I knew that this wasn’t some full-blown performance and even when I saw her in NYC she only did just under an hour.
I saw a couple of comedians first, this one Jewish girl, I can’t remember her name was really funny and I would go see her again if I could remember her name. Then Sarah comes out, and seems really uncomfortable and uptight. She settled in and had some good stuff, but she fucked up this one bit, but you wouldn’t have known it, if she didn’t tell you and she was outspoken about it. It gave the feeling that she were in her dressing room and she wanted to run it by you first and felt free to curse and break character when it didn’t go as planned. She was still really funny and looked fantastic :

She only did about 20 mins, and I was a bit disappointed by that, but still I had a feeling that it would be about that length. Two more comedians came on after them and they were really good too, fun show and am glad that I went. As a testament to its casual atmosphere after the show in the courtyard that separates the club, she was just hanging out like everyone else. Not in a, “do you want your book signed?” way, but just a part of the crowd. So much so that when I finished smoking she was sitting in the corner by herself with no one else around. Now, I know that I am a big dork and she is my ultimate celebrity crush (and I know how lame it is to admit even having one of those) but I was trying to get myself to leave and not make a fool out of myself.
Those attempts were unsuccessful, as I contemplated, and second-guessed I finally went over there and said hello and started to talk to her.  We did share a laugh, and it was just cool to talk to her, so I made it brief and got the fuck out of there.

  
An Evening with Carol Burnett and Tim Conway – April 27th Saban Theater – Los Angeles, CA 
 
   Ok so for the first time in Los Angeles, comedy legend Carol Burnett and co-star Tim Conway appeared on a public stage together. They engaged in a conversation about Carol’s new book, This Time Together – Laughter and Reflection and took questions from the audience. Several things stuck me about this affair while I was there: For one, the event, given the buildup and pageantry, was entirely too short. The second thing is that the average age of audience member was over 60. What do those two things have in common? Well I was waaay at the top of the theater, and as I was leaving, it took me so long to get back down because of the elderly crowd that I joked that it took longer to exit than the entire show. (the show was about an hour).
 

 

 

 That’s not to say, that it wasn’t time well spent, because it was actually really great. Tim Conway is still one of the most brilliant and naturally funny people on the planet and he actually threatened to steal the show, as Carol Burnett seemed to have that disposition that I hear alot of comedians have is that, they just don’t feel the need to be funny when not working. And technically though she wasn’t performing she was still onstage, and when they both sat down, Conway came out guns-a-blazing, but she really didn’t come out her shell until the Q&A at the end. Conway seemed to make alot of jokes because of her quietness, and he killed every time. I was literally crying laughing at times.
After the conversation Burnett answered some questions from the audience,and this stuff always embarrasses me because people can be so embarrassing. One guy wanted a kiss, the other wanted her to do her signature Tarzan yell etc. One lady in particular I’ll give a pass to (sorta) as apparently she had waited a long time for this moment to deliver something to Burnett. She was clutching a framed photo that she passed to Burnett and told a story about the guy in the picture. Apparently it was her brother and as children they lived across the street from Burnett. You could tell she expected a huge reaction from Burnett, but she didn’t really sell it at all. She did acknowledge that she knew the person in the picture (which I’m sure was worth the validation). Burnett was still funny and charming and it was a great thrill just to see her in person.
(later than evening) Aqua Teen Hunger Force Live – El Rey Theater – Los Angeles, CASo I didn’t really get this, admittedly, I’m barely a casual fan of the TV show Aqua Teen Hunger Force, but I feel like even if I was, (and maybe even more so) I would think this was pretty lame. The evening included mini-sketches, songs, videos, a ton of audience participation, a couple Squidbillies interludes (including a whole episode), a Meatwad impression contest, a guy who looked a lot like Carl eating cheesesteaks and too few/too underwhelming puppetry moments.

 

 

 

  Now, I will give them credit for packing the show with content, as I missed the first 30 mins (and sadly Schooly D’s entrance) but the thing still carried on for another two hours. The whole thing still felt more like a cash grab than anything really inspired, and its existence is completely unnecessary and does nothing to extend the brand in my opinion, and really hold nothing for its core audience. If you like the show, do you automatically like variety shows with puppets and musicals? Even if their in the likeness of? Too long and too lame.