Amarsir

That's clever, Kromm. I don't know if that kind of joke would be his style, but I like a nice misdirect. I thought maybe they'd put the full sketch up on nbc.com, but apparently not. But I did learn there's a 2-hour ep tonight. No idea what that means; perhaps the series is flopping (yet again) and they want to burn it off?

Well, if you want to see allegedly-funny people making original sketches, you can check out "Funniest Wins" on TBS. Although I warn you, you're gonna see "Vine Creator" seriously presented as a claim-to-fame.

You may be right. I considered that jumping in because he was listening, and was in a role where he could use that to keep it rolling. But no argument he was heavy-handed about the whole thing, and regardless I have no problem with him getting blame since he put himself out there. Also, the point is to attach a name to a joke about breaking up via smoke signals. Not to tell a historically accurate anecdote. On the other hand, it saves them from criticism on the writing. This way they were judged on their ability to act and to "punch up" a script they didn't write. Those are crucial skills for any comic who wants to work in Hollywood, either in front of or behind the camera.

I like the structure with immunity challenges, voting, and head-to-head. Wanda Sykes deserves a lot of credit for getting rid of the weak part (audience voting) and keeping the stuff that made it interesting. Not having seen the whole sketch makes it harder to say, but I also felt Aida was the weak link on her team. She was flubbing lines and needing to be bailed out, then complaining they weren't "listening" to each other. But again, maybe that's true and we didn't see it. She also had the weakest set of the three. Jimmy and Rod Man were both solid, although between the former always yelling and the latter always repeating every single thing (every single thing) I could get tired of either one pretty quickly.

I'm not a Drake fan either, but it sounded reasonably accurate to me. Drake uses a lot of short, quick rhymes. So the fact that Wayne wasn't doing long verses seemed legit. Add in that Laura Hall and Linda Taylor were clearly doing the country backing for Johnny Cash and yeah it wasn't that catchy. But it was a good job.

I think the level at which Comedy Central offers you a half hour is about the level this show is looking for. In season 1 they specifically wanted unknown comics and the prize was a Comedy Central special. Season 2 on has been a clear step up in experience, and this year they dispensed with the open call entirely and only did invitations. So I'd say that's more or less the kind of person they're looking for.

It could work against him. He looks and sounds an awful lot like Dom Irrera. So there's a chance producers see him and think "well nothing new there." He is really good. Rod Man's got this persona where he's not just telling the joke, but living it. Like a lot of non-traditional comics I worry a little that it wouldn't come off well in a 30-minute set, but that's not a problem for LCS.

I think that ABC's handling of profanity was part of why Ryan was famous for hating Hoedown. From all the outtakes I've seen, I get the impression that on the first take, Ryan would make a dirty joke the ABC censors wouldn't allow. So they'd start over, then Ryan or someone else would do another on purpose that they couldn't allow. So they'd start a third time, and someone else would goof up accidentally. So now you're on the fourth or fifth take of that same tune over and over. And that's why he hated the game. But it was nice to see him doing it here.

I'm not surprised Kim won, nor that no one remembers who she is. Kimberly was the humble one in the background who kept saying she'd never had a guy do anything nice for her. Her date was the picnic in the woods with the first appearance of fake paparazzi. (Hilarious recap here.) I think she fits the producers' stereotype of "average girl who just wants love", because for some unknowable reason they took themselves seriously this whole time. Karina's the one most likely to get luxury. Whether she's specifically a gold-digger or not, her dating pool is going to be a higher caliber of guys. Out of everyone on this show, she's the only one I could picture on someone's arm walking down a red carpet. True, but in fairness so was he.

Cancellation's too good for this show. Despite being successful with hinting, they outright lie about "Harry". They send home Meghan who's making it fun, and then Rose who is on board despite figuring it out. But choose to string along Kelley, who is keep-her-away-from-your-pets crazy. It's as if their mission statement is to be assholes. All on top of tacky props, unbelievable circumstances*, and terrible attention to detail. And as if this wasn't bad enough, this show must have the worst ADR I've ever heard. It doesn't even sound like humans speaking, let alone a sentence they just happened to say off-camera. On the bright side, the final 3 makes for an easy game of Marry/Fuck/Kill. Rose, please go join Meghan in too-good-for-this-crap land. For what it's worth, you were always the most my type.** * Of all the reasons this show would never happen, the biggest to me is the idea that Harry would spend his 29th birthday with 4 women he just met and zero friends/family. ** By "my type" I mean vastly out of my league, but given the chance I would disappoint you so hard!

Drama aside, I think we all need to recognize that when the drill sergeant shouted "right turn," Kelley and Jacqueline turned left.

Agreed. FOX, you need to get this woman on a better show.

I recall feeling that way about LCS last time it came back too. It's like NBC says "Nobody's going to watch this, but it's cheap and we have nothing else, so let's just get through it". I really like Joe Machi. I probably don't laugh as much at him as I do at others, but he gets huge bonus points for being unique. Anyone could become a "comic" by making a list of their favorite email forwards, coming out with energy and shout "How are you doing <city> make some noise!", and acting the jokes out with big mannerisms. If they're a natural and/or very polished, I might even enjoy their set. But they don't hold a candle to someone with a custom style and point of view. Ohwell if by "Dat Phan" you mean someone the audience likes but you don't, that's legit and I can't argue with you there. But I'm with Traveller519 in that "Dat Phanning" means having one good set and repeating it every time. I doubt any of these comics will do that because they're all more experienced than anyone in Season 1 and they know they're playing to the same audience every week. To find just a little benefit of the doubt to give Keenan, in general his advice is correct: you don't want your look to distract from your jokes. (For example, the woman with the high pants who looked like she was 3/4ths legs? Everyone in this forum talked about her look but did any of us discuss her set?) If you have a look that is noteworthy, there's a technique called "calling the room" where you acknowledge it with a joke up front. (This also applies to anything unusual that happens and might have distracted people, like a prior act that got people talking or a waiter dropping a tray.) It's better to control people's attention rather than let them be distracted. That said, for Keenan to say "your beauty is a distraction so you should tone it down" - that's terribly sexist and unfair. And I'm also glad Wanda and Amy corrected that and she stood up to the judges last week and now.

I felt bad for Robbie during the song. Wayne threw to him for a rap section with no warning? Of course he didn't know what to do! Good sport, though. Helping Hands really needs to go away. Seeing Ryan and Colin play-bicker was funny, but there's never anything new to these scenes. And in contrast to last ep where the guest talked too much, here he did too little. It's just not a great game to play. How about they bring back Moving People? That's a good game for an audience member / guest. Pure "Questions Only" went away early in the ABC years. It became Questionable Impressions. And I can understand why: you need the performers to mess up in order to rotate them, so they raise the difficulty to make that happen. If you rewatch some of the pure Questions Only games, you'll see some where they did very little rotation. So I understand the appeal of a purer game, but they have reasons for this. I recognized it as a reuse too, but Wayne made it something new with the Capital H. And I have to say that Jeff is the perfect guy to do that to - he delights in messing with other performers. So to see them razzing him back is great. Overall too much guest (as usual) and especially too much Helping Hands. But otherwise a funny ep, and the chair banter was superb. I think it also shows Aisha being more comfortable with the group, which is very good.

For what it's worth, Robert was sort-of the "odd man out" when he was on Dragons Den (Canada). There were interviews in which dragons indicated they would all hang out socially, except him. Nothing concrete to back this up, but I get the sense that Robert takes money a little more personally than some others. (Perhaps as a result of his low-income upbringing.). Whereas Kevin is downright cartoonish, and Mark treats it all like pocket change, Robert conveys that money is dear and gets insulted if the entrepreneurs don't act the same way.

I think you guys might be a little too hard on Gronkowski. Yes, one "breast" joke was questionable and two was a bad idea. And I completely agree that the show doesn't need guests and Helping Hands is a poor choice of games. But they invite him in and put him in a no-win situation. If he stands still it sucks the life out of the scene, and if he participates (as he could reasonably think is expected) then he's upstaging the talent. The guy embraced the concept and gave Ryan something to react to. I can't fault him for that. I will, however, take my seat on the "might as well skip this game" bandwagon. (Incidentally, I just went through a Three Headed Broadway Star playlist on YouTube and man do I miss that game. Please get rid of the forced concept stuff and bring that back.)

It seemed to me that the judges were being more critical this week. Perhaps just my observation, but I wonder if the editors were only showing praise in earlier episodes and decided to round it out as we got further in. While I can appreciate that a comic's act will be best when it represents him/herself, I also feel like too much of that puts them in categories. "I'm from the south / the inner city / a big family. It's weird being gay / tall / jewish / adopted / a parent and I'm always running into people who are all [caricature]." Sure, write what you know and show us the funny in it. But when someone is specifically finding untapped areas like "snakes as pets" (Zimmerman) ai think that needs to be encouraged.

Oh I agree with that. The recent characters are very simple and lazy, and really a letdown after the original Peanut stuff early on. I just resist connecting it to anything as broad as race, culture, or nationality.

Rocky and DC Benny have both been doing the circuit for a long time. And their material shows it, sad to say. They do know how to structure a joke well but the judges were right about moving faster. I'd have liked to see Randy Liedke (Lumberjack) get another round. He wasn't so much the funniest, but he's trying different angles and I'd like that to be encouraged. At minimum, he's succeeding in the quirky approach that Kronberg utterly failed at the week before. If you never saw it, I recommend watching the Comedy Central roast of Roseanne. That was the first time I'd seen her in years and she's really softened from her younger persona. The way she embraced the jokes and enjoyed the experience was really endearing, and apparently behind-the-scenes she really tried to mend bridges with people from her past like Tom Arnold. I definitely like and respect her now more than ever. (And the roast was really funny in its own right, too.)

The character is not "Achmed, the typical Muslim". It's "Achmed, the dead terrorist". Why wouldn't Saudis be able to laugh at it? That actually reminds me - remember in season 1 there was a challenge to pitch a sitcom to a focus group? Dave Mordal's idea was a wacky group of failed terrorists. Naturally the focus group didn't pick it, and I'd be the first to say that Dunham and Mordal have very different styles. But no topic is inherently off-limits if a comic can craft a joke around it.

Forgot this show was back so I'm just catching up via On Demand. I guess I have to be the dissenter for Rod Man because I thought the set was weak. As Keenan pointed out, his delivery is unpolished. And worse, I felt all that supermarket material was played out. Self-checkout was 10 years ago, club cards were 20, and receipt-for-gum was reminiscent of the late Mitch Hedberg's receipt-for-a-donut. I'm not a stickler for untrodden ground, but I just didn't get any unique personal take on it. That said, he's likable and his energy is great, so I can see why he resonated with people. But I'd be very surprised if he goes the distance. Speaking of likable people with no substance, I don't mind the host. His "make some noise"-type intensity (even though I don't think he said that specifically) doesn't necessarily work for all intros so I want to see if he can vary himself. But I like him better than Anthony "Let Him Know" Clark from past seasons. Joe Machi I've seen before on Red Eye with Greg Gutfeld, and that show often gets some very strong undiscovered comedians. (Including Amy Schumer before she went on LCS.) So I'm predisposed to like him. But the character he plays there is "Frightened Correspondent" so I guess you could say he has a narrow range. And as for Kronberg, Andy Kaufman wasn't copying himself. He was just being. And even then he ticked off plenty if audiences along the way. So if he can't tailor himself to this audience then I hope he finds his niche but this isn't it.

To improve my understanding I've been trying to reference the map more. (That doesn't count as book talk, does it?) The Eyrie isn't all that far from King's Landing, really. (Which raises the question why it took Arya and The Hound so long to get there, but there's probably no answer for that.) But no, it's isolated off to the side "The East" as the show calls it and that's probably why they were able to stay out of the war so easily.