• Hello Visitor!
  • Eugene Weekly loves you!
Home
Share |

Comedy

May 9, 2013
Eugene meet Eugene, Again

You know him as the voice of Gene on Bob’s Burgers and as a motley crew of characters on Adult Swim, but Comedian Eugene Mirman is perhaps most revered for his baritone stand-up: a slew of silliness, irreverence and observation. His latest Comedy Central special, Eugene Mirman: An Evening in a Fake Underground Laboratory, was given an A- by the A.V. Club, which Mirman says is “wonderfully reasonable.”

 

Have you ever been to a town that shares your name?

April 18, 2013
Morgan Spurlock’s Shadow

April 21 may as well be the new 4/20, as far as Eugene and comedian Doug Benson are concerned. The seminal stoner and star of Super High Me returns to WOW Hall for his 3rd annual celebration of giggling and giggle weed, hot off releasing his on-the-road documentary The Greatest Movie Ever Rolled — to continue in the vein of pot variations on a Morgan Spurlock theme — on Chill.com. Also the host of the Doug Loves Movies podcast, Benson sounds off on his favorite and most despised films of 2013, smoking with the stars and legalizing marijuana.

April 4, 2013
Ask Her About Her New God

Don’t let her sweet, Midwestern accent and bits about her pug Bert fool you — Maria Bamford is one of the bravest comedians of our time. The veteran stand-up comic, who openly talks about being bipolar II, tackles mental illness with a hilarious fearlessness that eases the mind like popping Xanax.

March 28, 2013
Talking to Strangers

Before Hannibal Buress started doing stand-up comedy at 19 in Chicago, he wanted to be the “black Howard Stern.” Since then he’s written for Saturday Night Live and 30 Rock and has appeared on Louie, Conan and Jimmy Kimmel Live! In 2012, he released his first Comedy Central special “Animal Furnace,” and now he’s working on his new web series Talking to Strangers, in which he interviews musicians like The Root’s Questlove. Just don’t ask him when it premieres, because, well, he has no idea. 

March 7, 2013
Not the Nerd Table

Mustachioed Renaissance man John Hodgman has accomplished pretty much everything a nerd-dandy could ever want: doling out advice for McSweeney’s, serving as humor editor for The New York Times Magazine, contributing to This American Life, appearing on The Daily Show, Battlestar Gallactica and Community, and writing a trilogy of deliciously fictional almanacs. Now, he takes on stand-up comedy, or his own esoteric, foppish version of it.

January 17, 2013
Fist-pounding Funny

Comedian Paula Poundstone has one memory of Eugene that stands out more than the rest. “There was a billboard that said ‘The wages of sin are death,’ Poundstone tells EW, of the Romans 6:23 signage near the airport. “The Bible can be so uplifting.” 

January 10, 2013
Robin Williams at the Hult Center

If the reach of your Robin Williams fandom extends no farther than Mrs. Doubtfire, then sorry to say it, but shame on you. While the old-school comic-turned-actor has made a lucrative career out of his (often family-friendly) portrayals on the silver screen, it should never be forgotten that his stand-up shows are iconic. Dancing from voice to absurd voice, bit to feverish bit, alcoholic yearning to reformed learning, Williams’ stand-up is near unmatched.

December 6, 2012
Chronic Comedy for a Cause

Question: How many stoners does it take to screw in a lightbulb? Answer: Ask Ngaio Bealum.

Beaulum, perhaps the Northwest’s premiere perpetrator of high-times comedy, is headlining the 8 pm Thursday, Dec. 6, “Cannabis Comedy Night” at WOW Hall, a fundraiser and evening of huffs and hee-haws sponsored by Northwest Alternative Health, an outfit supporting the rights of patients to get their Oregon medical marijuana cards.

November 7, 2012
Binders Full of Funny

Quick: Name ten female stand-up comedians … not as easy as you’d think, right? Naming ten male comics is much easier. But local comedian Leigh Anne Jasheway hopes to change that. “According to research, between 12 to 18 percent of professional touring stand-up comedians are women,” Jasheway says. “Of the top 100 American Film Institute comedy movies of all time, only two were written by women. Most daily and weekly comedy talk shows have one or no female comedy writers.” 

June 28, 2012
The Franz Kafka of Modern-Day Comedy

At first glance Richard Lewis might just look like a surly old white man who has every intention of keeping that baseball you threw into his yard, but the minute you strike up a conversation you’ll probably be ready to forsake the ball in place of escaping Lewis’ neuroses.