Jackie Gleason, of the Honeymooner’s fame, presents on the topic of comedy. It offers such a great look into comedy as it was and is.

Part 1:

Part 2:

(photo: Virgin Mobile Canada)

Virgin Mobile Canada is quickly capitalizing on Eliot Spitzer’s recent “troubles.” The ads will run next week in a free Toronto newspaper.

C|Net adds:
“At Virgin Mobile,” the ad goes on to say, “you’re more than just a number. When you call us we’ll treat you like a person, not a client. Whether you’re #9 or #900, you’ll get hooked up with somebody who’ll finally treat you just how you want to be treated.”

According to Nathan Rosenberg, chief marketing officer at Virgin Mobile, the ad will run in two Toronto daily newspapers this week as part of the company’s “You call the shots” campaign. “We weren’t planning on an ad featuring Governor Spitzer, but he caught our attention this week,” said Rosenberg.

File this one away for future reference, here is how to ship a tiger to Canada. Seriously? That’s for you to decide

Did your Valentine’s Day not go quite according to plan or turn out as you would have liked? Perhaps you can take some solace in the song entitled ‘A Kiss is not a Contract’ by the New Zealand comedy duo and HBO television stars the Flight of the Conchords.

From UPI:

A New York judge has thrown out a lawsuit brought by a New York University student who was injured while wrestling in Jell-O.

Justice Carol Edmead said in a decision released Monday that the suit brought by Avram Wisnia, who injured his hip while Jell-O wrestling during his dorm’s “Beach Bash Event,” was on shaky — even jiggly — legal ground, the New York Post reported Tuesday.

The university had argued that the student, who helped organize the event, knew the risks of the activity when he agreed to a wrestling match in a kiddie pool filled with Jell-O provided by the school’s food-service department.

Wisnia’s suit said the student was “propelled through the Jell-O to the bottom of the pool,” where he injured his hip during the match.

“This case broke the mold, but in the end, justice was served — sweetly,” said university spokesman John Beckman.

Personally, I could have done without the pun-ishment.

From the New York Times:

The “usual gang of idiots,” as the editorial staff of Mad magazine lovingly describes itself, produces cultural and political parody every month. For the next issue, however, the gang has recruited some very special help.

“Why George W. Bush Is in Favor of Global Warming,” a two-page spread that the magazine calls an exposé, has been illustrated by 10 Pulitzer Prize-winning editorial cartoonists. They try to offer reasons why environmental apocalypse might be a good thing for President Bush, with observations like, “His worries about how future generations will remember his presidency won’t matter if there are no future generations.”

(more…)

Steven Wright is one funny man. Perhaps you have heard of him and perhaps you have not. That, my friends, is immaterial. What matters is you take a moment to enjoy some of his funny stuff. Oh, and he has a new comedy album out, ‘Steven Wright‘. Click the link in the preceding sentence to listen to some samples at Amazon.

via Steven Wright Quotes:

My socks DO match. They’re the same thickness. — Steven Wright

Officer, I know I was going faster than 55MPH, but I wasn’t going to be on the
road an hour. — Steven Wright

I have two very rare photographs.
One is a picture of Houdini locking his keys in his car.
The other is a rare photograph of Norman Rockwell beating up a child.
– Steven Wright

I stayed up all night playing poker with tarot cards.
I got a full house and four people died.
– Steven Wright

I used to work in a fire hydrant factory.
You couldn’t park anywhere near the place.
– Steven Wright

I went to the hardware store and bought some used paint. It was in the shape
of a house. I also bought some batteries, but they weren’t included.
– Steven Wright

I went to the museum where they had all the heads and arms from the statues
that are in all the other museums. — Steven Wright

It’s a small world, but I wouldn’t want to have to paint it.
– Steven Wright

Right now I’m having amnesia and deja vu at the same time.
– Steven Wright

What’s another word for Thesaurus? — Steven Wright

When I get real bored, I like to drive downtown and get a great parking spot,
then sit in my car and count how many people ask me if I’m leaving.
– Steven Wright

When I was crossing the border into Canada, they asked if I had any firearms
with me. I said, “Well, what do you need?” — Steven Wright

You can’t have everything. Where would you put it? — Steven Wright

A lot of people are afraid of heights. Not me, I’m afraid of widths.
– Steven Wright

If you were going to shoot a mime, would you use a silencer?
– Steven Wright

I planted some bird seed. A bird came up. Now I don’t know what to feed it.
– Steven Wright

I made a chocolate cake with white chocolate. Then I took it to a potluck. I
stood in line for some cake. They said, “Do you want white cake or chocolate
cake?” I said, “yes”. — Steven Wright

My aunt gave me a walkie-talkie for my birthday. She says if I’m good, she’ll
give me the other one next year. — Steven Wright

I went to the bank and asked to borrow a cup of money. They said, “What for?”
I said, “I’m going to buy some sugar.” — Steven Wright

I eat swiss cheese from the inside out. — Steven Wright

I had amnesia once or twice. — Steven Wright

I love it! A great feature of quirky and entertaining nuggets on McSweeney’s entitled ‘Open Letters to People or Entities who are Unlikely to Respond’. The main index page is here.

An Open Letter to My Across-the-Street Neighbor Who Always Does His Yard Work in His Scrubs

Dear Neighbor,

Yes, I know you’re a doctor—well, OK, almost a doctor. We all know you’re almost a doctor. And I promise, on behalf of all of us on the block, we won’t forget that you’re almost a doctor. So, if you want to just wear ordinary clothes like the rest of us while doing your weekend mowing, watering, weeding, etc., go right ahead. It’s fine. Really. We won’t forget.

Sincerely,
The guy in the yellow house

Onion AV Club has compiled the list of the worst band names of 2007. The list is broken down with a taxonomy of bad band names, including just plain bad, funk, cutesy bullshit and hey ladies.

via pop candy

Evidently I am not with it and hip when it comes to conspiracy theories as I have only just learned about the NAFTA Superhighway theory (thanks to Rolling Stone and their Hot Issue). As Rolling Stone writes:

It’s twelve lanes wide and longer than the Great Wall of China. It stretches from Mexico City to Toronto, flanked by a railroad, gas pipelines and fiber-optic cables — all built and maintained by a murky Spanish multinational. And it will destroy America, merging the United States into a single nation with Mexico and Canada, called the North American Union. It’s the NAFTA Superhighway, and according to conspiracy theorists, it’s the most dire threat to our freedom since King George levied a stamp tax. Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul says the highway will “erase the borders.” Anti-immigrant crusader Lou Dobbs calls it “an attack on national sovereignty.” In February, the Montana legislature passed a resolution opposing it. And right-wing radio host Hal Turner claims to have obtained an Amero coin, the currency of the new Evil Empire.

There’s only one catch: The highway is a myth.

Myth or no myth, many people still believe that the project does exist and is underway. I suppose we should just not tell them that you cannot hide something like a superhighway. Although, it appears that someone already has an answer to that.

See what once respected business reporter, and now we’re not sure what he is, Lou Dobbs has got to say (it’s at the end of the clip):

Even if such a highway were under construction, would it be so bad from a geopolitical standpoint (I am leaving all environmental arguments out of this point)?

It is videos like this one that give me hope for quality user-made content on sites like youtube. This short is a clever and funny take on Soundwave (an original Transformers character) facing the reality of not making it into the movie.

Matt Groening and the rest of the gang behind Futurama had teamed up with Al Gore to create this “terrifying environmental warning”, aka a commercial for the theatrical release of An Inconvenient Truth.

Here is a great deleted scene from the “Conflict Resolution” episode from season 2 of The Office. Don’t remember the episode? It was the one where Michael assumed (read took over) the conflict resolution duties from HR and he - of course - makes things much worse.

Rowan Atkinson is Mr. Bean, Blackadder amongst other favourites. He has also put on live shows featuring non-character based comedy. In this clip, he demonstrates his physical comedy skills, which Bean fans are aware of, with an amusing charade of a man on the subway being tormented by an invisible man. Enjoy the laugh!

Evidently FedEx will not ship empty cans and containers if they have labels like rocket fuel or gravity.

FedEx guy: Is this really what this is? Rocket fuel?
Me [laughing, used to this reaction from being at the space-travel supply store]: Oh, no, no, no. Of course not. It’s… made-up. Kind of a joke. It’s actually full of sugar, which I just put in to give it some weight, but that’s all it is.
FedEx guy: You can’t ship this.
Me: But… it’s just sugar! What, uh, what if I empty it out? It doesn’t really need to have sugar in it.
FedEx guy: No. They would still x-ray it, and then you’d get a call when it was en route. I don’t think it would make it.
Me: Hmmm. I really need to get this out… but I guess I don’t have to ship the “Rocket Fuel” can. What about the rest?

via found on the web