Sebastian Maniscalco Headlines Tourettes Fundraiser, Impractical Jokers on Tour Plus News From Tony Rock, Lucille Ball Fest and More!

jeffrey gurian column

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 covered the scene at New York Comedy Club, Gotham, and more.


I feel like I’m still recovering from those 4 A.M. nights in Montreal, but I managed to get out and cover the scene anyway. Comedy Juice was its usual fun self this week. Sean Patton who’s always unpredictable was introduced, walked up on stage and walked right off the other side. Then of course came back to do his set. Sal Vulcano came in with Big Jay Oakerson. Sal told me that his truTV show Impractical Jokers got renewed for a 6th season which will be coming out in 2017 and in the meantime the boys will be going out on tour. It’s called the Santiago Sent Us tour! More on that to come.

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Craig Carton, from WFAN’s Boomer and Carton in the Morning held his annual TicTopStop Foundation’s fundraiser for Tourette’s at Gotham Comedy Club. Carton was diagnosed with the condition as a teen. He launched the foundation on June 6, 2013 and usually has a great comedy line-up for the annual fundraiser. This year, it was one special performer, Sebastian Maniscalco, who had just won the Just for Laughs award for Stand-Up Comedian of the Year and sells out wherever he performs. I think he sold out 12 shows at The Beacon recently. He’s a superstar, and I got to do a really fun interview with him on the red carpet in Montreal last week. He flew up from North Carolina, where he said he was just hanging out with his in-laws, just to do this gig. He tells the kind of family stories that everyone can relate to whether you’re Italian or not, which is one of the things that makes him so appealing. And his physicality is amazing. He acts out almost every line he does, with the grace of a dancer. It was a packed room and even the owners of The Stand accompanied by top CAA agent Matt Frost were there to enjoy the performance. Matt had asked me how long I was in the game and commented that it was amazing how many people I’m connected to in the comedy world. And that’s when I asked him to get me my own show!

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On my way home I stopped off at New York Comedy Club to catch the Rel Battle Roast Battle, and ran into my buddy Tony Woods who was just coming off a hot set. I invited him to perform at the book signing/comedy show for my new book Laughing Legends – How The Comic Strip Club Changed The Face of Comedy. It will be a fun line-up with hot young stars so far like Jermaine Fowler, one of Variety’s Top Ten Comics To Watch this year, Nore (Home Game) Davis from Inside Amy Schumer, Mike Vecchione a crowd favorite wherever he goes, Leonard Ouzts who you see everywhere these days, especially on TV, and a bunch more with special guests to be announced closer to the date. I, of course will be hosting! This Wednesday, 8pm at the Comic Strip! Hope to see you there.

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Outside New York Comedy Club, I ran into Reg Thomas, and Leonard Ouzts who was one of the judges for the evening and Joking Off’s Brendan Sagalow who was closing the show along with Geno Bisconte and Alli Breen who were roasting each other, and working on their jokes. Leonard was one of the most exuberant judges they’ve had and he kept going up against host Matt Richards, trading lines and yelling out funny remarks. But when an audience member got out of line and harshly judged one of the comics, Leonard leaped up on the stage, grabbed the mic and ripped the guy a new a-hole, along with Matt Richards and the other comics on stage. It was very cool. And BTW, Alli won her battle with some very sharply written jokes! Leonard told me he had a lot of fun recently taping MTV’s Joking Off, and will also be seen on Nick Cannon’s Wild ’N Out on MTV on a team with Burpie. He also opened for Tony Rock. He’s everywhere.

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Speaking of Tony Rock, I went down to see my man twice while he was headlining Gotham. Once just to hang out with him and his posse backstage and the other time to actually see him kill it on the show. I was sitting at Tony Rock’s show next to a woman I thought might pass out at any moment from laughing so hard. She was literally falling out of her seat convulsing with laughter. That is such a gift to be able to have that effect on people. Tone told me he’s gonna be in Russell Simmons’ new one hour special for HBO, All Def Comedy Live shooting in LA in November. He’s always got a full plate, and “young Jordan” as he likes to refer to his little brother is currently crashing at his pad in LA.

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Angelo Lozada was there doing another show and told me he just came back from doing the Lucille Ball Comedy Festival in Jamestown, New York in a show starring Trevor Noah, which he said was attended by people from 27 different states, and of course they went up in Trevor’s private jet. I think Angelo’s starting to get spoiled. He’s used to traveling in a private jet now. He said it was a great festival and he wound up hanging out with Paul Provenza, Brian Regan, and Lewis Black. He said that Paul was there with Kelly Carlin, who’s donating 50 years of memorabilia to the National Comedy Center, where the festival took place. Kelly was up there with two other “daughters of”, Rain Pryor, daughter of Richard, and Kitty Bruce, daughter of Lenny.

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And speaking of sexual matters, I drove out to Astoria at midnight one night to film a scene in Joey Kola’s new film Gender Bender in which three men magically wind up with female private parts. Joey, one of the producers, called by George Carlin, “one of the strongest comics I’ve ever seen”, is currently the warm-up comic for Rachel Ray, and has also warmed up audiences for America’s Got Talent, Rosie O’Donnell, and The Late Show with David Letterman, and was voted Best TV Warm Up Comic five years in a row by Time Out NY Magazine. I of course was cast as a porno director which was great for me and for them because I was able to wear my own clothes. Saved a ton of money on wardrobe, and director Richard Lampone said he was very grateful for that. I was originally up for another part, and didn’t get it but was relieved to find out it went to Eric Roberts who I consider to be a great actor. Lots of comics in this film. Gilbert Gottfried gets to play a gynecologist, and I read the script and it’s a perfect fit for him. Danny Cohen plays a beautician, Kevin Downey Jr. plays a nurse, Maggie Champagne, Amy Schumer’s friend plays a scorned wife, Chris Monty plays a bar owner, and Sal Governale AKA Sal The Stockbroker from Howard Stern’s show plays a porn star, who I was supposedly directing in a scene he did with a very big (literally) female porn star played by Deborah Gregory, comedic actress and author of the “Cheetah Girls” series for Disney. Sal was dressed in robes like a Saudi prince, including the head-gear, and he was hilarious! He’s a great improviser and he and Deborah did such funny stuff as she rode him into the ground, until he could hardly breathe, while he beat her with a very large cucumber. The photo below will explain it better. After my scene was done, around 2 A.M., Sal and I got to shoot the shit and entertained each other with great fun stories from our comedic past.

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And that was this week in comedy! I’m OUT!!!


Jeffrey Gurian is a comedian, writer and all around bon vivant in New York City. Subscribe to his YouTube channel, Comedy Matters TV.  Photos below Jeffrey Gurian with Tony Rock, Tony Woods and Sal Governale.

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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.