This chap is amazing, he’s like Stephen Wright on speed or Demitri Martin on uppers or Mitch hedberg on drugs… oh.

NB – The descriptions come from Wikipedia and contain plot spoilers

Episode 1 – What a Fool Believes

In the pilot episode, Kenny Loggins, under the guidance of Koko Goldstein, reaches out to a struggling Michael McDonald, who’s having trouble writing a smooth hit for his band the Doobie Brothers.

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Episode 2 – Keep the Fire

Loggins and McDonald pair up against the duo Hall & Oates for a songwriting competition. Koko is accidentally impaled by his lucky harpoon during the ensuing melee, but is at peace before his death by hearing the smoothest song ever sung by a young Christopher Cross.

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Episode 3 – I’m Alright

As everyone grieves Koko’s death, Loggins lashes out at McDonald and “smooth music” as a whole, causing a rift between the two. Sleazy entertainment executive Gene Balboa, who is producing the movie Caddyshack demands that the movie’s director, Harold Ramis, obtain Loggins’ talents to write the movie’s theme song. Ramis takes advantage of an angry and confused Loggins and gets him to write and record the hard rock song “I’m Alright” much to McDonald’s dismay.

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Episode 4 – Rosanna

Steve Porcaro (Steve Agee), the keyboard player of the band Toto, is asked by his girlfriend, Rosanna Arquette, to write a song about her, and she wants him to have Michael McDonald sing on the track. Discouraged by McDonald’s disdain for his band, Porcaro devises a three-step plan to make it happen.

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Episode 5 – Believe in It

Toto has been commissioned to write a smooth song for Michael Jackson’s Thriller, but Jackson rejects the band, believing after working with Eddie Van Halen on Beat It that such material is in his past. Fearing that Jackson will destroy “smooth music” for a decade, Porcaro turns to McDonald, Loggins, Skunk Baxter, Cross, and Vincent Price (James Adomian), to summon up Koko’s ghost for help writing Human Nature.

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Episode 6 – The Seed Drill

“Hollywood” Steve’s father demands that Steve stop wasting his time on Yacht Rock, and regales a historic tale of Jethro Tull, which is very similar to episode one.

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Episode 7 – I Keep Forgettin’

McDonald and Loggins make a bet about McDonald’s new song, “I Keep Forgettin’ (Every Time You’re Near)“, that takes a decade to resolve. Ten years later, Long Beach-based rappers Warren G and Nate Dogg struggle with creating smooth rap (yacht rap), and only when they kidnap McDonald, is there a solution to everyone’s problems.

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Episode 8 – Gino (the Manager)

“Hollywood” Steve returns to the very beginning, where Doobie Brothers producer Ted Templeman explains his dream about the origin of “the smoothest rock [he's] ever heard” to Skunk Baxter over lunch. Baxter suggests seeing Koko about it, and Templeman starts seeing his dream come into fruition as he meets a young McDonald, then a background singer for Steely Dan, being talked into joining the Doobie Brothers by Steely Dan and Koko, Loggins showing signs of his imminent break from Messina and solo stardom, and an effeminate Hall and Oates with a very familiar looking manager named Gino, who tries to bully McDonald and Loggins into employing him as a manager. When they refuse, he plots revenge.

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Episode 9 – Runnin’ with the Devil

Van Halen puts a curse on Ted Templeman to force him to produce their hard rock song. In a subplot, Loggins loses his car keys and has everyone in the studio helping him look. Comedian Drew Carey makes a cameo appearance.

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Episode 10 – FM

Steely Dan and the Eagles settle a long-time, childish feud with a hit song.

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Episode 11 – Footloose

Jimmy Buffett is convinced by Kevin Bacon and Gene Balboa to trick Loggins into making yet another movie song. He is subsequently kidnapped by Buffett and psychotic “Parrot Heads” and its up to McDonald and James Ingram to rescue him. Jason Lee makes a guest appearance as Bacon.

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Episode 12 – Danger Zone

As the mid ’80s approach, McDonald feels that with the death of Yacht Rock, he has become the irrelevant joke he always feared he would become. Loggins, on the other hand, has grown to love doing movie soundtracks and his career is still in high gear. Extraterrestrial/composer Giorgio Moroder is sent to Earth to seek Loggins’ assistance in fighting a black hole that will destroy Moroder’s planet. Fearing for his friend’s life, McDonald tries to rescue him, and in the process, finds his relevancy. By the end of the episode the loose ends of the past 11 episodes are tied together, but left with a cliff hanger ending as to who murdered Koko.

Don’t say I didn’t warn you, the language in this is really foul.

And if you like that, you’ll like The 25 Best Put Downs Ever… and Malcolm Tucker – a collection of the best, most foul-mouthed put downs ever

Grumpy Phil’s Speech

Happy Phil’s Speech

Ned!

Phil: It’s the same thing your whole life: “Clean up your room. Stand up straight. Pick up your feet. Take it like a man. Be nice to your sister. Don’t mix beer and wine, ever.” Oh yeah: “Don’t drive on the railroad track.”
Gus: Well, Phil, that’s one I happen to agree with.

Sample Quote: “Everybody on every plane should be going ‘Oh my God! WOW!’ You’re sitting on a chair! In The SKY!’”

Bear in mind that famous comedians keep cutting in stealing chic’s thunder.

It’s no surprise that in 2005 he was voted the comedians comedian. The bride was in tears…. so was the cake.

1 What is a plethora?

2 Excuse me, are you the singing bush?

3 Whipperwill! HEY YOU GUYS!

Closing speech

In a way, each of us has an El Guapo to face. For some, shyness might be their El Guapo. For others, a lack of education might be their El Guapo. For us, El Guapo is a big, dangerous guy who wants to kill us. But as sure as my name is Lucky Day, the people of Santa Poco can conquer their own personal El Guapo, who also happens to be the actual El Guapo.

1   The 25 Best Put Downs Ever

2   14 Brilliant Pie Chart Gags

3   The Greatest Knock, Knock Joke In the World

4   The 60 Funniest Jokes Ever (and some of the worst)

5   Fun in the Snow

ENJOY! And A Happy New Year!

In the amazing book Stewart Lee How I Escaped My Certain Fate The Life and Deaths of a Stand-Up Comedian. Stewart Lee transcribes (and dissects)  a routine of his, which features (among other things) his mother recounting a Tom O’Connor joke. This shows that sometims you don’t need jokes to be funny, just repetition, persistence and absurdity. Nice. The mention of quilts is because Stewart’s mum makes The Quillow, a quilt that turns into a pillow.

If you get the chance to borrow SLHIEMCFTLADOAS-UC from someone, do because his observations on the shows he transcribes and then lazily calls a book are brilliant. In fact, if you in the slightest nit interested in stand up, this is the best book on the subject that has ever been written. If you’re interested.

It seems perverse not to share the entire set of the Stewart Lee show 41st Best Stand Up here… so I have. Watching all of these, in sequence, which I have already messed up a bit, will enrich your life.

A full version of the show that’s transcribed in the book follows after the break.

In Stewart Lee’s book: Stewart Lee How I Escape My certain Fate The Life and Death of a Stand-Up Comedian, he recommends Gary Wilmot thus:

Just when you think you can’t stand to hear another middle-aged male comic moaning about marriage and how he can’t please his wife anymore, along comes this Falstaffian Canadian who can invest an hour on these tired old subjects with unexpected levels of humanity, surprise and inventiveness entirely absent from the work of more self consciously original comics.

That’s good enough for me and after watching these videos I agree. He’s harsh, he’s rude but Gary Wilmot is funny. I wouldn’t watch the last video on your iPhone during a walking tour of a convent though.