Three Funny Things

a recommendation of three funny things

me in Portland

I’m in Portland Oregon for the 10th Anniversary of Kickstand Comedy. Even though it’s in the same time zone, the travel up here has left me feeling a wee bit more completely stupid than usual.

So rather than try to lead a discussion or offer any advice I wanted to list a few things out there in the world that I think are really funny. Just three, actually. Daniel Kitson’s “A Story For Christmas,” Dan Harmon’s instagram post about an AI personality named Hunter and Gil Ozeri’s recent appearance on Comedy Bang Bang.

It’s a gift guide, in a way. But it’s a gift guide that you can give yourself by clicking on things.

1. A Story for Christmas - Daniel Kitson. My American friends don’t seem to know about Daniel Kitson. He is a UK stand-up/storyteller and is one of the funniest people I’ve ever heard. The UK readers of this blog will be like “uh, yeah, duh, Daniel Kitson” but trust me the US folks are in the dark on this. Kitson is, to my ears, so insanely British. Which to ME means he is extremely funny and dry and also cannot construct a sentence with less than 300 words.
   
   Here is my impersonation of Daniel Kitson describing a fake character I’m making up named Alan turning on the lights in his room.
   
   ”The room was dark. Which is to say, without light. Which is to SAY, you couldn’t see anything. When you are a creature who can see, you really take it for granted, seeing things. It’s just always there, your sight. So when you are in a situation where you canNOT see, it really throws you. So Alan stopped for a moment, completely overwhelmed at being in the dark. Maybe not fully overwhelmed. But at the very least, whelmed. He found himself thinking about his childhood cat, which was strange, because he hated that cat. Not without reason, since it was a hateful creature, truly evil. Bottom 10 cats of all time, this cat. Still, Alan missed him. It. After a moment of missing this vile creature, Alan flipped on the switch.”
   
   Okay, it no longer sounds like a recommendation. I’m just making fun of Daniel Kitson. But he’s the absolute best. His mailing list is a joy. I highly recommend joining even though you’re just going to get notifications of shows in England you can’t go to.
   
   ”The Story for Christmas” is a story of woman named Polly who is driving up north to see her mother for Christmas and accidentally hits an old man named Nicholas, and then agrees to drive him up north to where he’s going.
   
   There’s a twist in the story that is so obvious I bet you can already see it. It doesn’t matter that you see it coming. This one hour and twenty minute story is one of the most fun, funny, sweet and terrific things I have ever heard. If you’re someone like me who has to drive all the time, I suggest you buy it and listen to it as you drive around. You’ll find yourself impatient to get back in the car to finish the story. It’s ALSO very sentimental, manipulative, obvious and long, sure, yes —- I truly can’t believe how much I like it.
   
   Get it on Bandcamp and if you don’t have the Bandcamp app, get the Bandcamp app. It’s one of the best ways to support musicians/comedians and support them.
   
   I discovered Kitson because he came to LA a few years ago and did a show at the Lyric Hyperion. My friend Ashley said “You’ve got to see this guy” and I DIDN’T GO. Truly stupid. But I joined his email list and heard his stuff and was forever thinking “I blew it.”

2. Dan Harmon’s creation of the AI personality Hunter. On June 12 2024 Dan published some screenshots of a conversation he had with ChatGPT in which he created the AI personality Hunter. Dan’s prompts to create Hunter as a smug, judgy extremely-online jerk are so… perfect. An excerpt:
   
   ”You think ‘literally’ means ‘seriously,’ you think entertainment is a public utility overseen by appointed officials and laughter is an emoji that means ‘i dismiss you.’ You think every object, human and idea in the world is submitted to you for disapproval. Decade of social media have deconstructed, optimized and reassembled your brain into a compact chip that received ‘content’ through two eyeballs, process the first available ‘problem’ inside of it and farts it back out through a pair of thumbs.”
   
   Then the next few posts are Harmon interacting with Hunter. It’s all great.
   
   I became aware of Harmon when Channel 101 started putting stuff online back in 2003 or 2004 or whatever it was. Channel 101 is a whole phenomenon unto itself, as it introduced The Lonely Island, Yacht Rock, Rick and Morty to the comedy world (and if you count the NY sibling program Channel 102 — you’ve also got Human Giant, Gemberling, Jesus Christ Supercop and the future directors of the Spider-Man franchise). Harmon has always written essays —- I remember on MySpace he’d publish hilarious diary entries and essays. I don’t think any of them get saved, they’re just kinda out there somewhere.
   
   Anyway, this Hunter one is a great one.

3. Gil Ozeri on the Comedy Bang Bang 2024 Holiday episode. Comedy Bang Bang is its own great thing, and if you’re a fan you already know about it and love it. I say this as someone who is on the show a lot: it’s not for everyone! It’s a very dense, inside-joke-riddled, half-meta thing where a lot of the fun is what goes wrong. But if it’s up your alley, you love it. Lots and lots of people love it. I’ve been recognized more for being on CBB than anything in my silly “career.”
   
   But this recommendation is not about Comedy Bang Bang. It’s about Gil Ozeri, a very funny and ridiculous man. When he comes on Comedy Bang Bang, he does so with a pre-written piece. That’s rare for the show. Most people are doing a character and doing lots of improv. Gil comes on with written things which are somehow more demented and wild than the improvised segments.
   
   For this year’s Holiday Spectacular, Gil came on and “performed” an interactive restaurant menu with host Scott Aukerman. I was sitting across from Gil as he did this and it made me laugh in two ways. One, the bit itself made me laugh. Here’s a sample.

   But the also, as he went along, Gil started just getting more an more frantic. I didn’t catch him at his peak, but here’s where he was starting to really get worked up.

   There is no warning or prep on Comedy Bang Bang. You just come on the show and discover whatever everyone brought as it’s being recorded. I think it’s the coolest? Oh, that reminds me! I was on the show December 1 and Kyle Mooney was on and did one of the funniest characters I’ve ever seen on the show named Ian who was promoting a restaurant named Ian’s Place, but he’s also in a war with a villain named Dr. Hammers, and anyway: that one is really really funny too. Skip to Kyle’s character about 1/2 of the way through.
   
   Anyway. Gil is funny. Comedy Bang Bang is funny. Subscribe to CBB World, I’ve got lots of stuff behind the paywall there is you’re into Will Hines Stuff.

That’s really all I had! Hey there’s lots of other really funny things out there, please enjoy them all!

I normally put plugs here but I’m too tired. Consider subscribing to THIS VERY SUBSTACK to support it/me, please! But I’m gonna keep almost everything free from here on out so I have no way to convince you. :)

Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays, etc etc!