William Shatner Hosts Gotham Comedy Live, Roast Battle Gets Crazy Plus News From Shawn Wayans and More
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, Carolines on Broadway and More!
AXS TV’s Gotham Comedy Live is on fire. Now that they’re taping their shows, they actually did two in one week. I knew I had to attend when they told me that William Shatner would be hosting. I wasn’t even a big Star Trek fan, but I’d never pass up the chance to see William Shatner. First of all you’d never know he was 85. And he openly says it on stage. No way he looks 85. He looks closer to 50 than 85. He has such incredible energy that he ran up onto the stage when they introduced him. And he was wearing sneakers. They told me he got to rehearsal early and hung out the whole time and was very friendly and accessible to everyone. He came out to thunderous applause, and did his jokes very well. Lots of laughs. And at the end of the show he said to the audience, “If you learned anything tonight it’s that I’m 85 and I don’t give a fuck!” Then he went downstairs and posed for some photos and left because he had a very early shoot the next morning. I knew two of the comics on the show, Jocelyn Chia and Daniel Tirado both of whom were very funny.
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Two nights later, I was back to see my girl Sherri Shepherd hosting the show. She’s always so fun and full of positive energy. To that show, I got there early hoping to catch the rehearsal and wound up running into Sherri as she was coming out into the street with director Bob Lampel. Things went so well that the rehearsal was over early. So Sherri and I hung out in the street, and caught up while random people came over to her asking for photos. And she was very accommodating to everyone who asked. She told me she’s really psyched about John Lithgow coming back to comedy, and even more-so that she’s co-starring with him in a new NBC series called “Trial & Error”, formerly a pilot called “The Trail.” She said it’s like “The Office”, but darker, and John plays an eccentric poetry professor accused of murdering his wife. As Sherri described it, she plays an intern/receptionist/paralegal at a law firm encumbered with several unusual disorders, such as facial blindness where you can’t recognize someone, even someone you’ve been married to for 30 years, no tear ducts, dyslexia, short term memory loss, laughs inappropriately in certain situations, at times speaks in a British accent, and she faints when she sees beautiful artwork. She said they just keep adding disorders to her character, and she researches them on the internet to incorporate those characteristics into her performance. On the dramatic, end she also has a recurring role in a FOX drama called “Rosewood” with Morris Chestnut in which she plays a doctor named Dr. Anita Eubanks. She plays a medical examiner who’s in love with Morris Chestnut’s character which she said is not hard to do!
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I went to Carolines to catch Shawn Wayans who was headlining for the holiday weekend. Great to see the always funny Wil Sylvince opening for him. It was just he and Shawn the night I went. While Wil was on stage, I went into the dressing room to say wassup to Shawn. Last time I saw him was when he and I were on WPIX news to talk about David Letterman’s retirement. He told me that he and his brother Keenen Ivory Wayans are developing projects both for TV and film but that it was much too early to really discuss it in any detail, because once you do, pressure comes from all over to finish and those things take time. We also discussed the difference between young comics and the material they do these days as opposed to the kind of material the older, more seasoned comics do, and how the new “In Living Color” didn’t come to fruition because it could never have lived up to the original.
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New York Comedy Club had another of its Roast Battles and this one was CRAZY! First of all, Matt Richards is a great host. He’s so quick and so comfortable on stage. He had to scold a group of black girls for talking too loud, but then brought them back in by saying “That’s the last time I give free tickets to my cousins!” They had four judges this night with Mike Lawrence, Jay Nog, Mike Cannon and Ricky Velez who told me he’s been spending a lot of time on the road this summer. One battle was between Alan Finn who Mike Lawrence described as looking like if a vampire owned a strip club, and suggested that he start wearing a cape, and Elon Altman, who Ricky described as being the size of a puppet and looking like one as well! Elon came in with some very strong writing and won the battle. And the battle of the evening was between Eric Neumann, and Danny Palmer. Danny had about 12 girls who showed up to cheer him on. And they were very boisterous in their support of him. It started out looking like he had an easy win in the very first round, until as one of the judges put it, they “took turns being unfunny and unlikeable!” And so the roast just kept going on and on with the judges purposely not all voting for one or the other so there would have to be another round. Both comics had long run out of prepared jokes and were just trying to make fun of each other, having even run out of dead parent and sick parent jokes. At 1 A.M., Danny was exhausted and begging the judges to end it, but they all started chanting “One more joke, one more joke!” And then the audience joined in on the chant as well. It turned into the longest Roast Battle anyone had ever seen. I was about to call the Guinness Book of Records. At the end of it all, Danny was declared the winner.
Then me, Matt and three of the judges, Jay Nog, Ricky Velez, and Mike Cannon made our way through the crowd, which was packed with comics like Neko White and Marc Gerber, and went across the street to hang out, and chill and discuss what went down. We dissected the whole evening and also discussed the fact that one of the participants, who will go unnamed, was sorry they had invited their agent to the event.
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I ended my week at Dangerfield’s hangin’ at the bar with Pat Dixon who was waiting to go on. We talked about the election, and basically everything but comedy. Pat’s a smart dude. And when he’s not performing in clubs around New York he’s gathering stories for his New York City Crime Report show on The Cumia Network that he does every Monday night. And then I hung out with Vlad Caamano at a table in the back until it was time for him to go up, and even though I was tired, I stayed cause I happen to love watching him imitate his Dad.
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Curtis Sliwa is funny enough to be a stand-up comedian, and if he’s ever elected mayor of this city, which could happen some day, he’ll be the funniest mayor we’ve ever had. I dropped into the Curtis and Kuby show at WABC to be one of the rare guests on that show, as they usually don’t have guests on, and as a surprise I wore my Gurian Angels jacket made especially for me by Nick Kroll and John Mulaney for their “Oh, Hello” show coming to Broadway’s Lyceum Theatre on Sept 23rd. I didn’t even tell Curtis and Kuby’s producer Mike Coscarelli, who’s also a comic that I was bringing it. I knew Curtis wouldn’t mind even though he always threatens to sue for copyright infringement when he sees it! But since I’m the only member I don’t think he has to worry about any competition. And from the photo below of me and Curtis from the back you can tell I have no idea how to wear a beret. They had me on to talk about all kinds of things and Curtis always brings up how I used to be his dentist and patched him up when he got all beat up from doing his Guardian Angels thing. The man is fearless. Ron Kuby and I had a discussion about people being offended by comedy and when I gave my point of view about comedy being a healing force, and that there’s a segment of the population that just cannot wait to be offended, he got behind what I was saying and agreed with me.
Hope everyone had a GREAT Labor Day weekend. It always comes fast, but this year was RIDICULOUS! Anyway, with that I’m OUT!!! Meet you here next week!
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 Curtis Sliwa, Sherri Shepherd, Shawn Wayans, and William Shatner.
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