Menu
Menu
I know that 2023 has just started, but before we jump too far into the new year, I wanted to give you my 5 favorite things in entertainment, including books, podcasts, shows, stand-up specials and more, from 2022. I hope you find them as entertaining and as inspiring as I did.
Here we go.
My Favorite Book of 2022: (tie) Hello, Molly! by Molly Shannon and Comedy, Comedy, Comedy, Drama by Bob Odenkirk
Hello, Molly!
This memoir, written by SNL’s Molly Shannon, hooked me from the first few pages, when she talked about her mother, sister and cousin dying in a car accident with her dad at the wheel when she was only 4 years old. Her story is gripping and brutally honest as she talks about her relationship with her father, as well as her struggle to get cast on Saturday Night Live.
She shares with the reader all the range of emotions she felt being on the show and the reality of show business. She is reflective about her time on SNL as well the tough decision she made to leave the show and that there is more to life than having a successful career.
I highly recommend this compelling story filled with so much heart and humor.
Comedy, Comedy, Comedy Drama
I wrote about this book last year, and it’s worth bringing it up again. In this memoir, Odenkirk looks back at his career in show business, and it’s not only inspiring, it’s downright funny, too. At one point in the book, I actually laughed out loud, and I rarely laugh at anything, let alone something written. What I really liked about this book is that it highlights both his successes and failures, making the subtle point that you have to have a lot more failures than successes to succeed in show business.
Odenkirk talks about creating the iconic SNL sketch with Chris Farley where Farley played the motivational speaker, the hard work that it took to get the cult classic sketch show Mr. Show on TV, and how he originally turned down Better Call Saul.
One of the themes that was prevalent in both books is that making it in show business takes a lot of hard work, perseverance, and being willing to fail and get help from others. A good lesson for all of us.
My Favorite Podcast of 2022: Conan O’Brian needs a friend
Conan has become funnier, wiser and more thoughtful in his old age, and if you haven’t heard his podcast yet, I highly suggest you check it out. The free-wheeling podcast format serves him even better than the confined late night talk shows because he has more room to rif. Plus, his great supporting cast of Matt Gorley and Conan's long-time assistant, Sona Movsesian, aren't afraid to team up on him and call him on his shit.
The interviews are revealing, as he gets some of the biggest names in comedy to share inspiring stories about their career struggles and their creative process.
Favorite Documentary of 2022: Stutz (Netflix)
In this documentary, Jonah Hill interviews his therapist, Phil Stutz, who also co-wrote the book The Tools and is a shrink to the stars. Although it’s shot in black and white and it’s just the two of them talking, I found it riveting. Stutz demonstrates some of his techniques and shares his unconventional philosophies. Stutz is also dealing with Parkinson’s Disease, so we see him willing to be human and vulnerable with Hill. Hill is open about his relationship with his weight and career and explains that his success did not bring him the happiness he thought it would. I found that Stutz’s Tools were very helpful for any of us seeking a bigger life. It's really quite a beautiful piece of work.
Favorite Streaming Show of 2022: The Bear (FX/Hulu)
This one wasn’t even a contest. Hands down, my favorite show of last year was The Bear. This series is definitely binge-worthy. I should know, I speak from experience. It's a Chicago story about a master chef's brother (Jeremy Alan White) who takes over his family’s beef stand after his brother commits suicide. The beef stand is in bad shape when he takes over, so he tries to make changes and is met with resistance from the skeptical staff and his hot-headed, alpha-male cousin, perfectly played by Ebon Moss-Bachrach.
This feels like an ensemble and the other actors are perfectly cast and totally believable.
The way the food is shot and how they capture the frenetic pace of the restaurant is a work of art, not to mention the acting, writing and directing. It’s really a perfect show that captures a slice of the city that feels familiar and authentic, and along with the music and images of Chicago, it plays like a valentine to the Windy City.
Favorite Stand-Up Special: Blocks (Netflix)
Neal Brennan is probably best known for being the co-creator of the Dave Chappell Show, but in this stand-up special, he really establishes himself as an innovative comedian.
He first came to my attention with his first special, Three Mikes, which I thought was quite good.
And what I liked about this special is it does a great job of mixing both observational and personal comedy. When it's over, you feel you got to know his struggles in life. In traditional stand-up specials, the comedian typically ends on the funniest bit. But in this one, that was not the case. Instead, he went for more pathos, which I thought was brave and fulfilling, plus there was plenty of hard laughs along the way.
Before I put my six-year-old daughter, Betsy, to bed the other night, she said, “Daddy, why are you sad?”
“My friend Noah died today,” I said.
“Who was Noah?” she asked.
I thought for a minute and told her this story.
Once upon a time there was a man who lived in a far-off village, and his name was Noah Gregoropoulos. Noah was a teacher, though he never wanted to be one because his father was one.
His father, who was named Del, was so respected that the townspeople referred to him as a master.
Even when Noah was still young, the townspeople started going to Noah seeking his wisdom and approval. When Noah’s father died at 100, the townspeople came to Noah and asked him if he would be their teacher.
Noah thought for a minute, and said in his deep, booming voice, “Yes, I will be your teacher, but under one condition. Do not call me a master. Do not put me on pedestal or worship me like a false God. I am like you. I will always be like you. I will continue to play in the fields and perform the same tasks you do. This will keep me humble and will ensure that I will continue to learn.”
The townspeople agreed, and Noah taught during the day, and he worked beside the townspeople at night and on weekends, for he knew this would make him a better teacher and artist.
Soon thousands of people came to the village from all over the land to study with the teacher.
Some would leave the village, taking what they had learned from the teacher and receive accolades and accumulate great wealth.
He never took credit for their successes. He was stoic in nature. He became respected, admired, and beloved by the townspeople as their teacher, just like his father. He was content.
But there had always been one thing missing from his life. The teacher did not have someone to share his life with. He had always longed for a fair maiden, a partner. You see, when Noah was a child his mother got sick and died. He did not want to experience that kind of loss again. He did not want to get hurt again. So he tried to avoid falling in love so that wouldn’t happen, even though part of him wished for it.
But that changed one night when he met a beautiful maiden named Linda.
They fell in love and eventually wed.
They moved into a small cottage with a dog. They were about to live happily ever after, but after a few years, the teacher got an incurable sickness and was going to die.
The news spread quickly among the townspeople, and they sent messages of love and gratitude to Noah and Linda’s small cottage. But there were so many messages, and the teacher was so weak that he could not read them all. Some of the townspeople wanted to see their teacher one last time, but he was a proud man and did not want that, so they respected his wishes.
Love is stronger than a message or seeing someone in person for the last time. It is in your heart. It is always there. The love the townspeople had for their teacher was so strong, that they believed that gave him the strength to die gracefully.
And after his death, the teacher taught the townspeople the most important lesson of all.
As the townspeople grieved his lost, they began consoling each other, and at that the end of every conversation one person would say, “I love you,” to which the other person would say, “I love you.” This was happening not only in the village, but throughout the land. Their love for their teacher had now spread to each other.
In his death, the teacher taught his greatest lesson: That love comes from being a part of a community. And this would be one of his greatest contributions.
Good night Betsy, and good night Noah.
I have been improvising and teaching improv for the last four decades. I don't know what has changed more: improv or me. But since the year is coming to a close, I thought it was a good time to reflect back on the past, so I wanted to go through the decades with you. Are you ready?
My 20s (1982-1994)
When I first started out in my 20s, I was consumed by improv. I was taking classes, doing shows. I was close to 300 lbs. and was drinking too much, as a result of hanging out at the bar before, during, and after said shows.
People still thought improv was stand-up comedy then, since there was no “Whose Line Is It Anyway?” I, of course, thought I was a better improviser than I really was. I was full of myself. When my family and friends would come to my shows, they would say things like: “Is this supposed to be funny or was it just over our heads?” and I just thought they didn’t get it. My friends who weren’t in improv thought I was crazy and my family thought I was wasting my time and thought I had joined a cult.
My 30s (1994-2004)
When I was in my 30s, people who I started out in improv with started leaving Chicago and becoming famous. Not a great decade. I kept believing I would be the next one to be famous.
Spoiler Alert: It did not happen. I was putting way too many expectations on improv. I was still playing to prove to myself and others that I was talented and thought the Chicago improv community should give me the respect I deserved, while I watched people who started out after me pass me up. One of the highlights of the decade, though, was I started teaching improv full time and developing my Art of Slow Comedy curriculum.
My 40s (2004-2014)
By the time I got into my 40s, I actually began to get good at improv, because I stopped doing a lot of the bullshit of comparing myself to others and constantly trying to prove to myself. I had nothing to prove anymore, because most of the people I started out with were gone. And the ones who were still here, I appreciated even more. I started to learn from the younger people I played with and my students. It was a real shift. I felt the pressure was off, and I started to understand that the results I was looking for in improv didn’t come just from doing a show. Even better, I met Lauren (on New Year’s Eve 2008) and we got married.
My 50s (2014-today)
In my 50s, my responsibilities changed. I became a dad at 52. Now I have a lot more life experience to draw from in my improv. My daughter teaches me to be more silly and playful. Today, I improvise to express myself, which is the whole reason I fell in love with improv in my 20s in the first place. Today, I realize that I love improvising, but I love teaching people to improvise even more than doing it myself. It feels good to stop trying to get laughs and instead pass on what I have learned.
As we enter a new year in 2023, I’m interested to see where my improv career goes next. What has your improv journey been like? Tell me in the comments below.
Want to take your improv to the next level? Don't miss Jimmy's Long Form Tune-Up on Dec. 31! Or want to try it for the first time? The next Level 1 class starts Jan. 12!
What I love about improv is that we are part of something that is larger than ourselves. One person will never be bigger than the international improv community. That makes us humble, and it’s one of the reasons I like to hang around improvisers.
We speak a slightly different language than the rest of the world. From the outside, people think we can be annoying, but also hilarious. That’s another reason I love most improvisers. Yes, I have met some jerks in improv, but they always stick out and end up not staying long.
What makes improv so special is that it is dependent on people.
But although improv can be a super supportive environment where people can make a lot of friends, it can also have a dark side. Sometimes the improv world can be competitive, cliquey and judgmental. I know, because when I started out, I was all of those things.
Earlier in my career I was obsessed with fame, and before that, I was obsessed with becoming great at improv. When I started out, every second of my day was consumed with reading about improv, going to shows and taking classes. I was an improv nerd way before I had the podcast.
I enjoyed the social aspect of it, but when I was younger, it seemed like a means to an end. I looked at it as networking (back then we called it schmoozing), rather than making true friends. I thought people were disposable: They were either in my way —because I thought they sucked, and I didn’t want anything to do with them — or I thought they could do something for me.
And God forbid you got something I wanted. Then I would tear you down to make me feel better about myself. The sad thing is I didn’t even know I was doing it.
The last couple of years, however, I’ve started to truly cherish the lifelong friends I have made in improv. Maybe it's age, or fatherhood, or that I feel more secure in my life, but those people I didn't care about 30 years ago, today, I love them.
If you’re really lucky, you’ll make a handful of really good friends in improv, and unfortunately, as you get older, some of them will die.
When I started doing improv, I was in my early 20s. That was 38 years ago, and sometimes I really mourn some of my friends who have passed away.
Over the last 38 years, I blew a lot of career opportunities due to my self-sabotaging and addictive ways, but by far the biggest regret I have was that I wish I had been as concerned about making friends as I was about my career.
"I know you can’t go back," as my Dad would say. But if I could go back in time, I wish I had been less focused on doing a show where I got a million laughs and more focused on hanging out at someone’s apartment or at a coffee shop late into the night.
I used to fight the idea that I was a “softie.” I wanted to be edgy.
But guess what? I’m not. Turns out I never was. Just ask my friends.
Peace and love. And have a great holiday season.
Every improviser wants to do great scene work, but one of the biggest things that I have seen that gets in the way of that is when an improviser is not emotionally connected with their scene partner. And most of the time they don't even realize it.
And once improvisers start becoming connected to their scene partner, it can turn them from a good improviser into a great one.
Is it that simple?
Yes. If you are not connected, you are relying on yourself to try to “figure out” what comes next in the scene. And that means you are very limited in where your scene can go. But when you are connected with your scene partner, you are relying on others and the scene will just go on its own. Suddenly, the possibilities become unlimited.
Connection is the current between two players, and it typically happens before the scene even starts. You don’t need words to create a connection. I have actually seen words kill the connection. You need to trust the silence at the top of the scene and try to feel the connection before you speak.
Whether you’re in person or on Zoom, all you have to do is look into the eyes of your partner, feel the energy going on between you, and trust the clues you are getting from your partner.
Does your partner look happy? Maybe that means that your characters are old friends that had a crush on each other who haven’t seen each other in a long time.
Does your partner look sad? Maybe your characters are a couple breaking up.
That is enough information to begin a scene with a strong initiation.
Warning: You might think that forming an emotional connection with your scene partner will always make your scenes depressing and heavy. And sometimes it does happen like that when you first start working this way. Just remember connection = tension, which is important when doing comedy. The more you do it, the better you will get at finding the funny in the tension. Trust me, in the 30 years I have been teaching, I have seen improvisers make some pretty heavy subject matter hysterical.
The best part about becoming more connected with your scene partners is that you’ll get more laughs, because suddenly the audience will be able to recognize themselves in the characters you are portraying.
If you start working this way, plus make sure that you are improvising only one or two lines at time, which I recently wrote about in a blog, you will see a big difference. Your scene work will soar.
Try it and let me know how it goes.
Want to experience Jimmy's method of improv? Check out his virtual workshop on Dec. 8. Or sign up for the Long Form Tune-Up happening in-person on Dec. 31. Sign up today!
This year instead of sharing my annual Thanksgiving gratitude list, I wanted to pick one thing that I was really grateful for. I didn’t have to put much thought into it. It came to me easily -- it's people.
Maybe it's because of Covid or my age, but today I really appreciate people more than ever. And I lesson I keep learning over and over again is that some of the best opportunities comes from relationships.
And the last I checked, that means people. So this Thanksgiving, I am grateful for all the people in my life and here are some of those people.
What is the one major thing you are grateful for this Thanksgiving?
Sometimes we need a gentle push. Sometimes we need a piece of wisdom to inspire us. And sometimes we just need a nap.
For today's blog I have gathered some wisdom from past blogs and put them in bite chunks for you. Think of them like fun-size Snickers bars.
I am hoping today's blog is both a gentle push and wisdom to inspire you. The napping is up to you.
This sounds like click bait, but trust me, it’s not. It works.
I have been teaching improv since 1992 and this is the one thing I have seen over the years that improvisers always need to work on, and when they do, they usually improve instantly. When improvisers use this tip, good improvisers can become great, and great improvisers can become brilliant.
Have I built up the suspense enough?
Tip: Improvise Only One or Two Lines at a Time.
When you do this, it's almost like it changes your brain chemistry. It slows you down and forces you to listen on a deeper level. You choose your words more carefully. Plus, you’d be surprised how much you can pack into one or two sentences. When you are really listening, your sentences become more concentrated, and the scene won’t meander as much as you try to figure out where you’re going.
When you say only one line at a time, you make it easier for your partner to improvise and you can truly create something together. It stops a scene from becoming a monologue where people are fighting to take up space and instead lets each person take a turn, something we all learned in Kindergarten.
And, if you respond to what your partner says and build off of it, your improv will go to the next level. It's a very simple note, but it takes discipline and some adjusting. Give yourself permission to do it poorly first, and trust me, if you stay the course with it you will see improvement in your improv.
It doesn't matter who I am teaching, what country they are from, or if they are seasoned improviser or new to improv, not taking time to improvise one line at a time is the number one issue I see in scenic improv today. Yes, 20% of the time "monologuing" works for the character or the scene, but 80% of the time, it’s better to focus on doing one or two lines at time.
Del Close used to use the tennis game analogy, which I have stolen from him. Improvising should be like hitting the ball and waiting for your partner to hit it back.
The best part is when my students start doing this, their scenes hold together better and they often surprise themselves and their partners with how well they do. The best part is they are even more excited about improv, which is a good thing. Try it and let me know how it goes. I hope you have the same success as my students have had over the years.
When I started out in improv, I had no clue what I was doing on or off stage. I knew I wanted to be famous — that was it. I was a mess. Looking back, I wish I would have done things differently. So, today if I could talk to my younger self, this is some of the wisdom I would pass down to him, and to you as well.
Off stage, I’ve realized that important being generous with compliments, instead of being so withholding and feeling threatened, is important too. And I would also tell my younger self not to be so judgmental and jealous, which leads to talking shit about people.
When you first start improvising you are told to listen to your partners on stage. Sometimes you focus on them so deeply, you forget there is an audience.
One of the things that makes improv so special is that it’s a shared experience between the player on stage and the audience. One of the best ways to honor that is to be aware of the audience’s reactions, because they can tell you a lot.
One of the most obvious ways improvisers can listen to the audience is when we are taking suggestions in either long form or short form shows. When we get a suggestion such as “bear,” the audience is waiting for us to acknowledge it by seeing how we are going to use that in our improvising. Even though I have mixed feelings about using a suggestion to heavy handily, it is important not to ignore the audience entirely. And when we use the suggestion in some way, audiences seem to love it.
Listening to the audience can really help with the pacing of the show and can even influence the content of the show. However, it’s important to understand that there is a difference between paying attention to the audience’s reactions and going for the joke or playing to the audience. If you’re doing this, then you’re listening to the audience more than your fellow players, and that is never a good thing.
A lot of times when I am improvising, I can’t see the audience, but I am tuned into them like they are on the radio. And by listening to them, they help guide me and they give me information. Do they want the show to be a laugh riot? Or do they want it to be more theatrical?
Here are three ways listening to the audience can help you as an improviser: