So as commenter The Gooch rightly noted, I have not written about Bobby Moynihan, of UCBs Stepfathers, being picked up by SNL. This is of course amazing news. Bobby had auditioned for SNL last year and was not added to the cast, but I think all of us expected if he auditioned again he would get the spot.
One of the many words of wisdom I got from Bobby was back in my UCB 401 improv class, Bobby was subbing for Billy Merritt, and he spoke about this face he does which always gets a laugh. He did the face, which is a magical shrug, and we all laughed. I then decided to create my own face which I could do and always get a laugh. Unfortunately Bobby was unavailable to coach me on the face and had to cobble together my own face from various sources, but at the end of a year — I had a face. It’s not Bobby’s face, by any stretch, but it’s good enough for government work.
All that is totally true.
Bobby is one of the nicest, most supportive, super talented people I have ever met. He’s been a staple at UCB since I started and I’m really sad to see him go, but at least it will give America a chance to see that lovely man’s face. (Oh, and America, I just danced with Bobby the other night and let me tell you, Bobby can dance too.)
So, we had to upgrade our website software, because we accidentially erased the old template.
And by we, I mean me
So, if you see anything funny happening be sure to let me, or my huge staff of well paid interns, know about it The site is basically entirely recodded from the ground up to work on older browsers… or at least that’s the theory.
Things you may enjoy in the new site:
Tags — a great way to cross reference posts.
Faster Performance — we’ve streamlined the code and our amazing template Sandbox to be as lean as possible so pages get to you even faster.
Better Compatibility — We actually have no idea if this is true, but it’s on our to-do list.
iPhone compatible mobile site — We have a very special version of the site for all our iPhone users out there. The site has been simplified and streamlined for the iPhone and iPod Touch.
Ability to post video formats like YouTube videos to the site… like this one:
Master Dialectitian (Original Air Date: 14 June 1999)
Bomb Squad (Original Air Date: 21 June 1999)
Mogomra vs. the Fart Monster (Original Air Date: 28 June 1999)
Real World (Original Air Date: 5 July 1999)
Face Therapy (Original Air Date: 12 July 1999)
Infested with Friars (Original Air Date: 26 July 1999)
Spaghetti Jesus (Original Air Date: 2 August 1999)
Big City (Original Air Date: 9 August 1999)
Hurricane (Original Air Date: 16 August 1999)
Supercool (Original Air Date: 23 August 1999)
[myspace]16938919[/myspace]
This isn’t some bullshit, “I am a scientologist, so I have to buy Scientology junk” post. As an owner of Season 1, way before I started training at their training center, I will definitely buy this set. Season 1 was okay, but the commentary is like taking a $325 class with Matt Besser, Amy Poehler, Ian Roberts, and Matt Walsh. The commentary on season 1 is brilliant, but unlike the first DVD, the UCB4 put commentary on every episode including a question and answer at the Los Angeles Theater. This is huge for anyone who wants to understand the inner workings of 4 of the most talented comedians working today.
[myspace]16937057[/myspace]
Added into the press release is the announcement that Upright Citizen’s Brigade will be launching their third stage which will be a comedy video website, www.UCBcomedy.com featuring performers from the theaters. I’ve known about these plans for a while and it’s good to see the UCB pushing it forward into a reality.
(I am not a Scientologist) (Good luck Neil.)
Got Season 2 today in the mail from Amazon. I’ll be sure to review the discs on the site once I’ve watched the whole thing and drooled over the commentary. I’m converting the whole set into video files to watch on my iPhone, because I’m not home very often… plus, it’s pretty sweet to watch UCB on my evening commute.
Although the updates to the site’s main content have been limited in recent weeks, let me assure you that we are hard at work developing content for the website. We have been seeing more shows than is humanly possible, taking more improv and sketch classes than is recommended, and have been practicing in the fragments of time in between.
Things to look forward to in the coming month:
More swell daily news updates
More calendar updates
Articles galore
Interviews with performing improvisers, comedians, and writers
New improvoker.com authors to bring more perspective to the improv community
New and improved site design (we’ve been listening to your comments)
Presents from your family… well this isn’t really from us, but we thought we needed one more bullet item
Thanks for reading improvoker.com ~ we heart you. Hope you have a great Thanksgiving… I’ll dispense with the obligatory tryptophan reference as we have already recieved 9 bazillion e-mails with tryptophan references in them.
If you sent us an e-mail with a tryptophan reference, we thought your was hilarious. Really. I’m not just saying that.
That’s right, we now have our own super up-to-date calendar (in the sidebar, look to your right) of events around town, thanks to our very special friends over at upcoming.org. We’ll be adding new events as we see them, so if you have a show and want to be listed add it to upcoming.org with the tag improv and comedy. We’ll be checking those two tags daily.
For anyone new to upcoming.org, it’s a free service that allows for public calendars. It’s invaluable place to find like-minded people. As I said it’s free, so what are you waiting for?
The story behind Del Close’s bequeathing his skull to iO Chicago, to be used in theatrical productions, has always been the subject controversy. The New Yorker has finally unconverted the truth behind Del Close’s skull at the Improv Olympic.
She [Charna Halpern] now pleads guilty” with an explanation. “After Del died, I asked the hospital people if they would help me by taking off the head, and they just laughed,” she said recently. “They suggested I call the Illinois Society of Pathologists. I told the pathologists, “I will give you Del’s body, and it’s a great body, because you can study the effects of smoking, alcohol, cocaine, and heroin on the brain. All I need is the skull.’ They thought about it, and then said, “There’s a fine line between research and art, and we’re concerned about our funding.’ I called labs, researchers, anatomy shops, and it was “No, no, no.’ ”
While it saddens me to know that I shall never be able to manhandle Del’s noggin, I have to say, that I think Charna’s attempt to give Del what he wanted was ambitious. I certainly wouldn’t know who to approach for the skull of a loved one and god knows I couldn’t cut a straight line with a handsaw.
