3 Things Comedy Nerds Should Watch or Read Right Now
With the summer heat rising, this is a good time to hunker down inside in the air conditioning and catch up on some streaming and reading. I have put together a short list of recommendations that would appeal to a comedy nerd, like myself.
1. Hacks, Season 4 (HBO Max)
I originally watched half of the first season of Hacks before I lost interest. Then I heard Conan O’Brien talking about Season 4 on his podcast, and I was intrigued by the storyline, in which legendary stand-up Deborah Vance (Jean Smart) gets a late-night talk show. I liked it so much I binge-watched the whole season.
The relationship between Deborah and her head writer, Ava Daniels (Hannah Embinder), is not only dysfunctional but speaks to a generational approach to comedy. Though some critics did not think Season 4 was not Hacks’ best season — and I agree that the back biting between Deborah and Ava was too much at the beginning — I have not seen a series that understood the process of comedy better than this show. It feels very insider baseball, but in a really good way.
2. Pee Wee As Himself (HBO Max)
Paul Reubens created one of the most iconic comedy characters with Pee-Wee Herman. In this two-part documentary, we get to see the actual person behind the character. And for someone like Reubens, who constantly controlled the narrative when he was playing his Pee-Wee character, it's hard for him to let go and trust the director. That added tension to the documentary, which comes out during Reubens’ interview and gives us an insight into the man as both a brilliant artist and a person.
What’s most compelling about this documentary is seeing Reubens’ process of developing the character when he was an improviser at The Groundlings to performing it in a live stage show to doing it in movies, and ultimately to his creation of the Saturday morning TV show “Pee-Wee's Play House.”
3. Comedy Samurai: 40 Years of Blood, Gust, and Laughter (Grand Central Publishing)
This memoir by Larry Charles — who wrote and produced for Seinfeld and Curb Your Enthusiasm and directed Borat — not only takes the audience on a journey through Charles’ career, but it is also filled with practical advice for aspiring comedy writers. Charles talks about the high and lows of his career and talks honestly about the people whom he worked with, as well as himself. He shares some of the mistakes he made along the way and how important relationships are in making it in the dog-eat-dog world of comedy.
Have you watched or read anything that comedy nerds would enjoy lately? If so, let me know in the comments below!