Jeffrey Gurian Jumps Around Just For Laughs Part 2: Kevin Hart, Maria Bamford, Lil Rel and More

jeffrey gurian montreal 2016

Jeffrey Gurian is a writer and comedian in New York who loves to Jump Around. Follow his regular column right here, to find out what’s happening in comedy, and who Jeffrey Gurian ran into this week in and around New York. This week Jeffrey headed north and covered the scene at Just for Laughs in Montreal!


I went to Kevin Hart’s LOL pitch show. 10 different people pitched shows to him. He talked about why he’s doing this- to help other comedians get ot the level he’s at using social media which is his specialty and at the end he said he’s going to take all ten pitches for his new network. One of them was by Ryan Lane, the guy who created and produces Guy Code, Girl Code and Guy Code vs Girl Code and Nimesh Patel pitched it.  That show is called Off Color and its about all ethnicities telling their stories. Kevin told a great story about the people that were influential to him in comedy. Dave Chappelle is the most, of course Richard Pryor, and he named Andrew Dice Clay as people he respects who were different and brought people around to comedy.  He told a story about how he and Chris Rock went down to the cellar one night and saw Dave Chappelle perform. He thinks Dave has the greatest comedy mind ever of all time and he and Chris just crumpled up their paper of new jokes, feeling like they couldn’t even go on stage.

Today, I went to the Variety Top 10 Comics to Watch cocktail party. Got a lot of cool interviews with Little Rel who will be hosting the Variety Top 10 Comics to Watch show.  I also talked to YouTube star Lilly Singh who goes on tour and she’s going to be doing stand up on her tour. Jermaine Fowler was so excited that he took the poster that had his name on it. Variety made up these big posters and he’s going to be doing my show in New York for the book Laughing Legends.  Jermaine is amazing and he’s got a lot of juice behind him right now.

I went to see Maria Bamford and her show was incredible.  There’s no way to describe it. She speaks in a cute little whispery voice, she dances, she jumps around the stage. She’s like a fairy and its more like performance art than stand up comedy. Fascinating show. She’s receiving the award of the Break Out Comedy Award of the year.  As I was leaving I ran into Judd Apatow who was running over to Goddamn Comedy Jam. He was singing a Queen song.  Which was amazing.  And really rocked out to it. And as soon as it was over he split, and Matt Braunger came up and did a really cool song which I could not identify. He was a really good rock singer.  I came back to the hotel to refresh and somebody ran up to me and hugged me!  It was John Mulaney and Nick Kroll and we were laughing about what’s going to happen tomorrow night because I’m going to be at the Gesu during their Oh Hello show and doing something wild with them and Judd Apatow is going to be there too. More details tomorrow

I did a SiriusXM show called the Raw Report with Andy Fiore and Aaron Hodges and Jason Shabiro.  They’re coming up on their first anniversary and I was on with Joe Machi who opened for Louis CK tonight. They were thrilled to be at Just for Laughs. It’s the first time for any of them and they said its a real milestone to be doing it.  And then I saw my buddy Russell Peters and George Wallace was there.  You should have seen how people ran over to him from all corners of the room to say hello to George Wallace. The man is amazing. He’s a king in the comedy world.

More to come!!!


 Jeffrey Gurian is a comedian, writer and all around bon vivant in New York City. Subscribe to his YouTube channel, Comedy Matters TV.

Read more comedy news.

The following two tabs change content below.
Jeffrey Gurian is a comedy writer, comedian, author, producer, comedy connoisseur, comedy journalist, and an all around bon vivant. You can find him on red carpets, at comedy events across the country and hosting Comedy Matters TV. He’s the author of the book Make ‘Em Laugh with an intro by Chris Rock”. You've seen him on Comedy Central's Kroll Show and he's a regular on SiriusXM's Bennington Show and it's predecessor the Ron and Fez Show. He's also A BIG BELIEVER in Happiness and Love.
Jeffrey Gurian
Jeffrey Gurian
Jeffrey Gurian is a comedy writer, comedian, author, producer, comedy connoisseur, comedy journalist, and an all around bon vivant. You can find him on red carpets, at comedy events across the country and hosting Comedy Matters TV. He’s the author of the book Make ‘Em Laugh with an intro by Chris Rock”. You've seen him on Comedy Central's Kroll Show and he's a regular on SiriusXM's Bennington Show and it's predecessor the Ron and Fez Show. He's also A BIG BELIEVER in Happiness and Love.