Sitting in the shadows of ASSSSCAT watching celebrated improv gurus effortlessly weave narratives of complex human relationships is nothing short of awe-inspiring. Where do these performers come from? Read more

In addition to being a bored temp turned unlikely political pundit, David Rees is also kind enough to buy lunch for freelance writers who suddenly find themselves without a day job. “I’m a bleeding heart liberal cartoonist, so I can buy you a sandwich. If I drew Mallard Fillmore, I’d tell you to pull yourself up by your bootstraps and buy your own sandwich,” Rees muses as he opens his wallet and pays for two falafel sandwiches from a lunch truck in Murray Hill. It is an overcast October afternoon and Rees has just gotten out of a recording session for the animated series of his wildly popular Read more Read it in print

LADIES GOTTA work that shtick. Kathy Griffin attempts to stay on her self-imposed D-List. Sarah Silverman continues to offend with her gross-out girl humor delivered with a kewpie-doll grin. Read more Read it in print

BY DAY, HELEN Hong is steadily employed as a TV producer. By night, however, she’s a stand up comedian and the mastermind behind a crew of four funny ladies known as “Little Ethnic Girls.” Somewhere in the midst of all this, she finds time to date—and talk about it. “One joke I love doing is the one where I talk about my huge Asian tits, since all the Asian guys I date don’t seem to like big tits.” She volunteers that “huge” for Asian guys is apparently 36A. Much to her chagrin, Hong also has to endure the awesome ethnic guessing game as proposed to her by potential suitors. “I call it racist Jeopardy,” she says before volunteering that her background is Korean. Since another Korean comedian has already made a name for herself in regard to talking about dating, sex, body-image issues and immigrant parents, one has to wonder if Hong is a little miffed at being beaten to the punch. Read more Read it in print

BENARI POULTEN IS a resident of Astoria, or at least he was until his commitment to civic duty granted him a year-long vacation in scenic Iraq. In addition to playing the role of the opening hype man for the weekly Shoot the Messenger comedy show at the Green Room Theater, he’s also a regular at comedy spots Comix, People’s Improv Theater,The Tank and Rififi. “I think I’ve done everything that has been done,” Poulten remarks. “Even the places that have closed down.” One would be hard-pressed to find a comedian more qualified to skewer the political process and foreign affairs than 31-year-old Poulten.While other comics passively rely on newspaper headlines and sound bites for material, Poulten has already served as a Congressional Aide to Rep. Marty Meehan (D-Mass) as well as a staffer for the 2004 Kerry campaign. And he’s not just talk; Poulten has also spent the better part of the last decade enlisted in the Army Reserves as a print and broadcast journalist, having recently been promoted to Sergeant First Class. Read more Read it in print

Stepping in dog shit on the way to clubs. Putting your self-esteem in the hands of a drunken stranger. These are a couple of the funnier answers I got when I asked some comics from around town what the hardest thing about performing stand-up in the city is. Nate Bargatze, however, was uncharacteristically straight with me. “The toughest thing about being a New York City comedian,” said Bargatze, “is the competition.” The local joker, who you may have seen on Comedy Cen Read more

Ah, slapstick comedy. It’s the kind of thing you can address one of two ways: you can roll your eyes in irritation, claiming that you’re far too mature to get a rise out of anything so juvenile as a person catching on fire, or you can lighten up and agree that watching a person catch on fire is and will always be really, really funny. CollegeHumor.com began in 1999 out of the dorm rooms of Josh Abramson and Ricky Van Veen, relying entirely on word-of-mouth promotion to get off the Read more

Michael Ian Black is the busiest man in cable television right now, and his uncanny ability to pop up everywhere at once is peculiarly Seacrestian. His great new book of essays, My Custom Van, hits stores this week alongside the premiere of Reality Bites Back, Comedy Central’s new reality show featuring Michael as its Jeff Probst. Within the last two weeks alone, Michael started an international literary feud with David Sedaris and challenged Internet celebrity Tucker Max to a fist fight Read more

It’s really hard to maintain any sort of critical distance when talking to Joel McHale, stand-up comedian, actor and host of the E! Channel’s The Soup. When a fire alarm went off in the E! offices while we were speaking on the phone, he just shut the door and kept on chatting, even though he was just asking me what sports team I root for and where I went to college. When I read him a passive-aggressive email his manager sent me about Joel being too busy to do print interviews days af Read more

The Maury Show, like all television taped before a live studio audience, would not exist without the thankless wheel-greasing provided by its bright-eyed and delusional unpaid interns. Internships in television rarely lead to staff positions or a meaningful future, but you generally don’t come to that realization until you’ve been floundering out of college for a few years in an unrelated field. Therefore, it’s especially satisfying when former interns make proper use of their Read more