CollegeHumor: Comedians Articles This Month http://www.collegehumor.com http://www.collegehumor.com/article:1791640 Mike Sacks: A Very Unfunny Talk About Very Funny People Wed, 23 Sep 2009 14:00:00 -0400 http://www.collegehumor.com/article:1791640 <table border=0 width="360px"> <tr> <td colspan=2>
In these bleak modern times, even a book devoted to comedy isn't without it's dark side. Mike Sacks's And Here's the Kicker, in which the Vanity Fair writer interviews 21 humorists (including Bob Odenkirk, Harold Ramis and David Sedaris) is decidedly serious, dissecting not only comedians' work and lives as pro joke-tellers, but their fears and anxieties, too. Mr. Sacks spoke with CollegeHumor about these grimmer aspects of comedy, including serial killers, chronic loneliness, and how telling a joke can be a lot like a diagnosing a disease.

Even though you talked to dozens of funny writers in researching this book, it aggressively favors analysis over jokes. Was there a lot of goofing around on either end of the interviews?
Definitely not. They were all serious. And they appreciated the fact that I didn't want them to be clowns. You know, just because you can write funny doesn't mean you're "on." In fact, usually it means just the opposite.

What determined the kinds of questions you did wind up asking?
It was just basically avoiding the questions they'd been asked a million times. In a lot of cases I'd come across one reference to something [in my research] and it was never mentioned again, but it was fascinating. When I interviewed Marshall Brickman, who co-wrote Annie Hall and Manhattan, I read close to 30 interviews, and in this one interview he mentioned that he almost attended Sharon Tate's house the night of the Manson Murders.
Keep Reading
]]> </td> </tr> <tr> <td colspan=2> <hr> </td> </tr> <tr><td valign="top" width="35px"> <a href="http://www.collegehumor.com/user:101226"><img src="http://3.media.collegehumor.com/collegehumor/ch6/2/b/collegehumor.bf47a312f8c3b3d327c1333b4268bdca.jpg"></a> </td> <td valign="top"> Written 2009-09-23 14:00:00 by <a href="http://www.collegehumor.com/user:101226">Patrick Cassels</a> <a href="http://www.collegehumor.com/school:857"></a> <p> <img src="http://www.collegehumor.com/artwork/icon_likeIt_noLink.gif" align="texttop" /> 9 likes </p> </td> </tr> </table> <hr /> http://www.collegehumor.com/article:1717380 CH Interviews: Paul Mecurio Wed, 31 Jan 2007 14:28:35 -0500 http://www.collegehumor.com/article:1717380 <table border=0 width="360px"> <tr> <td colspan=2>

Paul Mecurio is Wall Street Lawyer turned comedian who has won an Emmy Award and a Peabody Award for his work on The Daily Show. Paul also does some hilarious stand up and is developing his own show that looks to be to Sports Center what The Daily Show was to the news.

When you graduated law school from Georgetown did you have any inkling that you might want to make comedyyour career? No, I thought I would eventually leave the law and pursue my true love of competitive Bedazzling but alas, carpal tunnel made that a mere dream.

Actually, truth be told, I had written some short film ideas while in law school that I intended to make (which I did)  once I got some money but no, I never intended to make comedy a career.

When did you decide that comedy, not Wall Street was your thing? There wasn’t a definitive moment but I started to think seriously about it after I saw Jay Leno perform one of my jokes on “The Tonight Show.”  Even though I was working on mergers and acquisition deals on Wall Street as a lawyer first, then as an investment banker, seeing Jay do that joke was the most powerful thing that ever happened to me.  I’d say that was the start of the comedy career path.

Were you a good lawyer? If by good you mean six malpractice suits … one pending … then I was EXCELLENT.
Keep Reading
]]> </td> </tr> <tr> <td colspan=2> <hr> </td> </tr> <tr><td valign="top" width="35px"> <a href="http://www.collegehumor.com/user:298"><img src="http://9.media.collegehumor.com/collegehumor/ch6/b/1/collegehumor.2618616bb5cffc06c7d7b8216893ee97.jpg"></a> </td> <td valign="top"> Written 2007-01-31 14:28:35 by <a href="http://www.collegehumor.com/user:298">Jake Hurwitz</a> <a href="http://www.collegehumor.com/school:55"></a> <p> <img src="http://www.collegehumor.com/artwork/icon_likeIt_noLink.gif" align="texttop" /> 8 likes </p> </td> </tr> </table> <hr />