Friday, August 3, 2018
I just caught "I'm Dying Up Here"
I recently started streaming Showtime and I caught a series about comedy called "I'm Dying Up Here."
It tells the story of the "The Comedy Store" in the 1970's where a bunch of big time comedians got their start. Richard Pyor. Robin Williams. Andy Kauffman. Jay Leno. David Letterman. Elyane Boosler. Richard Lewis. The list goes on and on. Jim Carrey is a producer and he got his start there as well.
I am a big comedy fan. Of course I follow most of the younger guys that have podcasts these days. It is a fictionalized account so it is interesting to guess who is who. I binge watched two seasons and I reccomend it. It is well done and entertaining and the seventies details are right on to coin a phrase.
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16 comments:
Thanks Trooper, I can always use a good recommendation. Sounds genius.
Thanks. Exactly the kind of stuff that I like.
We binge watched it as well and liked it. Jim Carrey produced it and I think he's the guy w/ the beard[Bill Hobbs], a real prick. There are some well developed characters and the cutthroat nature is from everything I've read about comedians, quite real. The older black guy's name is Erik Griffin. He has a standup on Showtime. Funny guy and no liberal Negro.
Does anyone here think Robin Williams was funny? I could never get past his franticness.
His mania was a shtick that wore the nerves, but he was a great comedic actor; Good Morning Vietnam, Birdcage, Mrs. Doubtfire.
deborah, He was also a good serious actor. Directors gave him structure.
It is an interesting parlor game to guess who was the real life counterparts to the composites in the show. I read a review by a comic of that era and he gave his speculations.
The angry comic Bill Hobbs was supposed to be Richard Lewis who was involved in the strike.
The Cassie character was Elayne Boosler who was also the inspiration for Elaine Benes on Seinfeld.
Believe it or not the Ron Shack character who was the Mailman on the Sitcom was inspired by Jimmie JJ Walker. They changed him to a white guy who got sitcom stardom off a stupid catch phrase.
The veteran black comic is based on Paul Mooney who was one of the writers on the Dave Chappele show and had a similar mentor relationship. I don't know if you are familar with his work but he is one angry dude.
The black kid is based on Franklin Ajaye a comic of the era with a little Chapelle mixed in.
The veteran comic played by Brad Garret of Raymond is based on Sammy Shore who was the owners actual ex-husband and opened for Elvis in Vegas for many years.
All in all it is a history of show business. They didn't get into the rivalry and hatred of Leno and Letterman which they will get into in season three which was just announced. It should be a lot of fun.
Robin Williams was one of the most hated comics by other comics that ever stepped on a stage. He was a notorious joke thief who would steal indiscriminately once he became famous. They just despised him.
I caught a podcast with Joe Rogan and Ari Shafir and couple of other LA comics who trashed him big time. Along with Carlos Mencia he was one of the universal disliked comics. It was no wonder he was alone at the end.
There are a great bunch of new comics that you can catch if you listen to podcasts. There is an app for your phone called "Laughable" which has every podcast you would ever want to here for free. You just type in a name and you can see every podcast he might have appeared on for six months or more.
It was no wonder he was alone at the end.
He was alone in the front end too. Comedy was how he coped, an approach to life and others that gave his intelligence and his need to connect a voice and yielded results that worked for him until he reached the point where they didn't as Lewy Body dementia started messing with his mind.
In the months before his death, Robin Williams was besieged by paranoia and so confused he couldn’t remember his lines while filming a movie, as his brain was ambushed by what doctors later identified as an unusually severe case of Lewy body dementia. “Robin was losing his mind and he was aware of it."
Hearing him described as "most hated" and "just despised" by other comedians makes me wonder where that much intensity in them originated. That type of emotional response reminds me of how the many of the Dems and the Left feel toward Trump, who's stolen some of their audience and their material.
Last night, after watching a segment on the Ingraham Angle, about how to approach old movies, I watched Good Morning Vietnam. The music brought me back to the 70's which tends to be a dangerous trip for me. I made it through that part of it, but was surprised to see how silly and sterotypically some of the Vietnamese were portrayed. The English class William's character was teaching, was weird as no one who'd be in a class like that would be able to understand a word of his rapid fire delivery of set up scenarios as he was teaching them how to curse.
The part that touched my heart was his response to the men in the troop carriers as he was about to leave, where he asked their names, they told him, and he engaged and related back to them with humor. That segment revealed genius and the need that made Williams who he was.
The HBO doc on Williams is pretty good. He was a dishonorable husband. The Garry Shandling doc is much better. The death of Shandling's older brother when he was a boy overshadowed his entire life. His parents would NEVER speak of it. His mom was narcissistic. Shandling was loved by many, and hated by some as well.
I haven't seen either of those, but the Andy Kaufman doc was off the hook.
Good Will Hunting excellent.
The intensity is from the fact that he went to comedy clubs just to steal material. When you are an open mike comic who is not getting paid and you have someone like Robin Williams steal your best jokes to use on the tonight show you just lose your mind.
Stealing jokes is just about the worse thing you can do.
Right now the roast battle is a big thing. Young open mike comics roast each other in a competition where the grand prize for winning a tournament is $100. One of the most established ones is the one run by Luis J Gomez out of the Comedy Cellar in New York. You can get clips on Youtube and some of the battles are ridiculously funny.
There is another low rent one called "Comedy Fight Club" that you can catch on Periscope. This is the real bottom of the barrel just starting out comics. The ones who don't have even five minutes of material. You can see how much they are struggling to realize their dreams. I can just imagine how they would feel to have some big time Hollywood weasel big foot them out of their best material.
One of my favorite podcasts is the one run by Joey Coco Diaz who is one of my favorite comics. He had a recent episode with Bobby Lee from Mad TV where they went over some of the same ground about the Comedy Store.
If you catch his podcast you will laugh you ass off. Joey is a truth teller. He did a lot of shit in his life. Drugs. Crime. Jail. Comedy. It was a fully lived life. Now he just chews edibles and has just about the best podcast going.
Joey is also a pretty good actor in his range. He looks like an old time mafia guy. In fact he plays one in "I'm Dying Up Here." He is Fluffy the guy from Vegas who threatens Goldie and wants to buy her out. Check it out. It is pretty funny.
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