As impending finals threaten to suck the humor and happiness out of our daily lives, the Brown comedy community is working hard to get in a few last laughs. Starla, Improvidence, Out of Bounds, and Brown Stand Up put on well-attended shows last weekend. The Brown Noser released its final issue of the semester this week. Tonight, the trend continues with a first-of-its kind event-a live show from Brown Barrel Radio.

The Brown Barrel is an umbrella organization that includes most of Brown University’s comedy groups. Every two weeks, members offer up a podcast of off-the-cuff comedy in their Radio Show. The episodes are packed with sketches, routines and–most importantly–jingles. Tonight, the Barrel Radio Show will be bringing their typically recorded antics to a live audience. They’ve never raised the stakes like this. Will we be introduced to a new jingle? Will there be live renditions of said jingle? Come to Wilson 102 at 7 p.m. tonight to see for yourself. And while you’re on the comedy grind, check out Improvidence and OoB’s 2nd Annual Freaky Friday show at 9:30.

Image via.

It is a truth universally acknowledged that the week after spring break is one of the most difficult to get through. With its lingering hangovers, worsening skin-peeling, and crippling regret that you finished A Song of Ice and Fire instead of opening your Orgo textbook, this week tends to require of a healthy dose of late-night SciLife. Thankfully, Brown’s community of hilarious humans feels our collective pain and is putting on The First Annual Brown University Comedy Conference this weekend in Granoff!

The conference is free and features performances by numerous collegiate comedy groups (Brown and other), a panel on “breaking into the comedy business” and some rather remarkable headliners, including Hannibal Buress and The Chris Gethhard Show. For the full schedule, as well as more information about the weekend, please either check out the conference’s website or the event poster after the jump. [Read more →]

Brown has made it to the big screen…well, kind of. Recent Brown graduates Nick White ’10 and Lauren Neal ’11 are the creators and producers of a new web series appropriately titled “Spicy Wit.” In addition to producing the show, Neal also writes and directs it, so she’s kind of a big deal.

“Spicy Wit” is a satire mockumentary that intends to raise questions pertaining to social justice and racial issues in an accessible yet absolutely absurd way. The creators wanted to cross as many moral lines as they could while making the series, and they succeeded: When you watch the pilot episode, “Hate,” you’ll find yourself laughing, and then you’ll find yourself cringing at the fact that you were laughing in the first place. Every possible offensive stereotype is included in this one episode alone. [Read more →]

Are finals making you miserable? Do you even remember the last time you cracked a smile? Are you itching to be entertained? If you answered these questions, “Yes. No. YES,” we have good news: The Brown Barrel comedy alliance, a conglomerate of Brown’s comedy groups, has come to your rescue with its hilarious new radio show.

“The Barrel Show,” a new addition to BSR‘s Sunday lineup, features sketches and routines from Brown’s comedy groups and funny conversational interludes between acts. Your hilarious fellow Brunonians will provide some great lolz on lolz on lolz. You can listen to the first three episodes of “The Barrel Show” here. Laughter may be the only medicine that will heal those finals blues, so stop whining and start listening.

Image via.

For most of us, Saturday Night Live consumption has been relegated to a hodgepodge of Hulu videos, “Best Of…” compilations on Watch Instantly and the sound bites from ’80s and ’90s sketches that have made their way into the cultural zeitgeist. But experiencing SNL like this has caused us to forget that each week a bunch of neurotic individuals sit down in a room to write over an hour of comic material for January Jones to infuse with her trademark lifelessness.

Since Tina Fey’s departure in 2006, the leader of SNL‘s writing staff has been Seth Meyers, a Northwestern grad with a background in improv and an uncanny ability to make celebrities spontaneously appear on Weekend Update. If you’ve ever wondered how he does it, you’re in luck. Continuing its tradition of bringing famous funny people to campus, the Brown Lecture Board has invited Meyers to speak on Tuesday, March 13. Tickets will be distributed (free of charge) from 12–1 p.m. in the Kasper Multipurpose Room (lower Faunce) on Wednesday and Thursday this week. The rule is 1 ticket per Brown/RISD ID and 2 IDs max per person.

Heard of The RIB? If you haven’t heard of it before, you have now — and you’ll no doubt hear more about these girls in the future as they make waves in the world of comedy. Started earlier this year, The RIB was created by a handful of girls who decided one spring morning that Brown needed a female comedy group. Their blog, which launched this summer “after the girls had synchronized all of their cycles and participated in exactly 17 semi-nude pillow fights,” is regularly updated with diverse content ranging from humorous musings on men and periods to anguished pleas for men to “nut up” and talk to their crushes. You don’t have to be a GNSS concentrator or an avid Sexction reader to get lost in this wondrous world of female comedy (perfect study break for finals?).

BlogDailyHerald tracked down three writers for The RIB, Samantha Williams ’12, Emily Spinner ’14 and Maria Luisa Acabado ’13, in order to learn more about the pub and the women behind it. [Read more →]

This past Tuesday, comedian Patrice O’Neal died at age 41 following complications from a stroke suffered in October. O’Neal, well-known in the stand-up community, received what was likely his highest exposure only a month earlier when he participated in Comedy Central’s Roast of Charlie Sheen. The overweight funnyman arguably stole the show, taking earnest-toned shots at fellow roasters Mike Tyson and Steve-O. After a night of being consistently made fun of for his age, career and purported senility, an astonished William Shatner proclaimed that O’Neal, of all the comedians present, was “telling it like it is.”

Even during the roast, O’Neal made references to his impending death. As the crowd reacted to his unflinchingly honest insults, he responded, “How the @#$% can I be too mean after this shit? I can’t believe it. I’m dying of diabetes and you mother@#$%ers are like, ‘Oh, that evil fat @#$%.”

O’Neal made very few appearances as an actor, but his guest spots on television were always memorable. He appeared in the second episode of “Arrested Development” as T-Bone, George Sr.’s prison buddy who briefly works at the banana stand (and unabashedly burns down the family storage unit). He also recurred on “The Office” as Lonny, the warehouse employee deemed “Sea Monster” by Kelly Kapoor. [Read more →]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J0ebaYRVlRI

What is alt-comedy? Is the only distinction that alt-comedians are even more overweight and awkward than normal ones? Maybe…wait no, Maria Bamford and Sarah Silverman are really pretty. So if the distinction isn’t clear and physical, it makes sense that it’s comedic. Alt-comedy is subtle, ironic, satirical and filled with so much nuanced parody it will make your head spin. In sketches and shorts, alt-comedians place naive, but fully developed, characters into detailed worlds in which they interact in totally absurd ways. The stars of today’s time-waster, Tim Heidecker and Eric Wareheim, made a career out of developing their own public access world, complete with worthless inventions and sincere, but moronic, personalities. In their long form video, Father and Son, the two comics take the essence of their 30-90 second bits and expand it to a narrative short film. It’s often uncomfortable and dark, but also surprisingly touching. Do alt-comedians just understand the full range of human experience better than the Jeff Dunhams? Perhaps, or maybe they just don’t like making racist jokes via hand puppets.

 The Netflix Files works to find the hidden gems of Netflix’s Watch Instantly feature, the films and TV shows that have gone largely unnoticed by the streaming community. We do not cover Qwikster, but we will point you in the direction of Acme Video if you buy us booze at Campus Fine Wines on your way there.

FX (or, as three people on campus like to call it, Channel 046 on IPTV) has recently emerged as the AMC of television comedy. It all started back in 2004, when Rob McElhenney, Charlie Day and Glenn Howerton, three struggling young actors, brought their pilot (shot for a meager $200) in to the network. FX saw potential in the three guys, revamped the pilot and It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia was born. Since then, FX has placed faith in low-cost, high-quality comedies — namely Wilfred, Louie and Archer (the latter two are also available on Watch Instantly). The best of them all might just be The League.

[Read more →]

Earlier this month, sketch comedy group Out of Bounds brought RISK! to Brown. RISK! is a podcast that provides comedians with a venue to tell embarrassing, taboo-laden stories about their lives. The event, held April 13 in MacMillan, was headlined by Michael Ian Black and also featured Brown faculty members Connie Crawford and Deak Nabers. In case you missed it, or didn’t feel like paying the $12 admission, the episode (titled “Education”) is now up on for free on iTunes.

The highlight? Hearing Deak detail his anxiety regarding the conception of his “f**king kid.” Although he’s arguably even more horrifyingly candid about his life in the average Simple Art of Murder lecture…