Blog: Comedy

The December 30th FoxTrot comic hits on the very idea IPac ran with two years ago: sending iPods to Senators. Back in February 2006, Senator Ted Stevens mentioned the iPod he'd gotten for Christmas in a hearing, and to educate Senators on the many legitimate uses of digital technology, IPac launched the Your Senator Needs an iPod campaign.

It was a stunt as much as anything, but it generated awareness of the digital divide between citizens and elected officials who barely understand the technology they are legislating. The humorous nature of the campaign was the very quality played up by Sunday's FoxTrot, in which Jason sends iPods to members of the U.S. Senate this Christmas for exactly the same reason IPac did.

A small excerpt of the comic (click to read the whole thing with punchline):

When I was first at Google, Chef Charlie Ayers and Googler Joe Sriver created parodies of popular cereal boxes featuring various Googlers, like Larry-O's with Larry Page and Larry Schwimmer Larry-Os, Raisin Brin for Sergey Brin, Golden Vikrams, Frosted Mieke-Wheats, Honey Nut Jenny Zhous, and more.

The cereal art is now hanging at Google Headquarters, where Danny Sullivan saw it on a recent visit and wrote an article which made the rounds online, leading a few friends and former coworkers to notice the cereal box second from the left on the second row.

And for more in a similar vein, click on "Facebook Off" once you're done (or here if it no longer appears at the end).

A tornado has transported you to a magical land, where a jubilant throng of midgets greets you as liberator. They direct you toward a road paved with yellow bricks. We'll start with you, Mayor Giuliani. Would you consider capturing one of these exotic creatures and subjecting him or her to enhanced interrogation techniques, such as waterboarding and electric shock, if it means extracting vital information that will determine whether the yellow route leads home—or into a trap?

More at Slate.

The Daily Show, in its thoughtful and mature coverage last night of the CNN/YouTube debate, interviewed several members of Drinking Liberally at their debate watching party.

"The inaugural burrito (carnitas with lettuce, salsa and avocado, no beans) was loaded into the breech at the Alameda terminus at 10:05 AM and was served to a beaming Cavanaugh, Vice President Walter Mondale and New York mayor Ed Koch in Weehawken 64 minutes later."

Read it.

SNL's "A Special Christmas Box" may be the Internet's hottest comedy right now. But to tickle the very geeky side of your sense of humor, there's xkcd.

I also give honorable mention to this crypto parody and this, to which I can't stop chuckling as long as it's on my screen.

The cast of Avenue Q and Fiddler On the Roof get together for some sheer brilliance.

Update: This was performed at the April 2004 Easter Bonnet Competition, a Broadway fundraising event for AIDS research. There's a mostly-accurate copy of the script at Playbill.

Working Assets commissioned some people affiliated with Laughing Liberally and The Tank to make a comedic video about political corruption. We brought the hilarious Bush impersonator James Adomian to New York City.

It seems President Bush is on a personal mission of sorts, to understand why his good friends keep getting sent to jail. You'll have to wait to see the final video, but along the way he stopped at Congressman Charlie Rangel's district office and interviews the (real) Congressman.

James has an amazing ability not only to act and sound and speak like George W. Bush, but to do it unscripted - making up Bushisms on the spot and relevant to any subject. Rangel was almost as funny as James, and biting - at one point he says "while you're over there in California visiting Randy Duke Cunningham in jail, you might want to make a reservation for some space for yourself." He's clearly very eager for the possibility of retaking the majority in the House and getting himself on one of those panels that will be sending subpoenas up Pennsylvania Avenue.

After the interview, President Bush toured Harlem, meeting some of the locals (people Bush isn't very accustomed to talking to), seeing the Apollo Theatre ("that's where the space program got started") and buying a giro from a street vendor ("you're doing a heckuva job, vendy").