As Seen on TV

I was watching Ben Siemon's Infomercial Date and I realized that I am a victim to As Seen on TV scams. I'll admit this to you: I have purchased a lot of As Seen on TV products. I am so vulnerable to infomercials. They make it seem that with this product, my life will totally improve. I get the product, and, at first, I think, "Wow, this product is amazing!" Then, after two more tries I realize I purchased the most defunct product in the world.

Okay, so here's a list of some things I've purchased:

1.) Strap Perfect. This was my latest purchase. My bra straps are always falling over so I decided to get this 20 dollar piece of plastic to keep them in place. Basically, this thing is a piece of plastic that is snug against your skin all day. I have very sensitive skin, so the strap perfect permanently indented itself on my back and now it looks like I have a weird Satanic symbol branded on me. It's not that big of a deal... since I'm a Satanist (a Jewish Satanist at that), but if I weren't, I would be a little peeved... and a little Born-Again, too. Cost: $20.00.

2.) Tweez-E. Tweez-E is a pair of electric tweezers, promising to get it's job done painlessly and in half the time. No way. Tweez-E is not eaz-E. All it does is pinch your skin and make a weird vibrating noise that makes your roommates think you cannot stop using a vibrator, while cursing, whenever the bathroom door is shut. Cost: $30.00

3.)The Ab Glide. Okay, I didn't actually purchase this product, but I did waste a Hannukkah on this. Every year for Hannukkah, my parents use to allow me one "big" present and the rest of my presents were cheap or free little tokens like a sheet of price stickers from ShopRite or fun-shaped erasers that my mom usually gives to her students. That year I asked for an Ab Glide as my "big" present and the second after I performed my first glide, I wished I had asked for an Ab Doer. Cost: Hanukkah of 1998.

Fair and Balanced

On Tax Day, Matty posted a blog and featured a link to President Barack Obama's Homepage. Now, I know that he was already elected president, but as a UCBComedy.com blogger, I feel it is my duty to make sure each and every one of our posts are fair and balanced.

Not everyone voted for Obama and not every agrees with his leadership. UCBcomedy.com strives to be as unbiased as possible. Therefore, here is a link, that we fully support, that offers a fair balance to our previous posting of a pro-Obama link.

3 Songs That Are Actually About Doing Taxes

Wednesday was April 15th, Tax Day. Hope I'm not the first to tell you, because if I am and you're an adult you're probably gonna go to jail. Taxes are pretty important. Without them, we wouldn't have freeways, we wouldn't have firefighters, and most importantly, we wouldn't have hope.

As long as there has been pop music, there have been artists eager to load their music with subliminal messages. Lyrics are often chock full of innuendo and hidden meaning, and for years artists have utilized clever wordplay, metaphor, and more to sneak messages about doing taxes into their songs. So much so, in fact, that I'm almost forced to agree with all those parents' groups arguing about the evils of popular music's influence on children. Here are five songs you may think are about other things, but are really about doing taxes.


Blister in the Sun - Violent Femmes
Body and beats, I stain my sheets, I don't even know why
My girlfriend, she's at the end, she is starting to cry.
This song's lyrics are pretty overtly about doing one's finances. The protagonist of the song, feeling the financial strain of blistering in the "sun" that is the federal government, fears his yearly dues so much that he actually wets his bed. The Violent Femmes are also one of the few bands on this list willing to acknowledge the effects of financial woes on relationships, as the protagonist's girlfriend is also affected by his having to file taxes each year. Full lyrics here.

Praying Hands - Devo
You got your left hand,
You got your right hand.
The left hand's diddling
While the right hand goes to work.
Devo was a band known for their satirical commentary and off-kilter humor, so it's no surprise that they'd turn their acerbic wit on the mundane task of filling out that 1040 form. As the right hand, the writing hand, fills out the form, the idle left hand "diddles," which can only be interpreted as the urge to get back to exciting, non-tax-related activities. Later lyrics take it a step further, as Devo tells the listener to "assume the position, go into doggie submission"-- commanding the citizen to assume their position at the desk with pen in hand, filling out the yearly form with the rote animal instinct as a dog would have. Full lyrics here.

I Touch Myself - Divinyls
I love myself I want you to love me
When I feel down I want you above me,
I search myself I want you to find me,
I forget myself I want you to remind me,
I don't want anybody else
When I think about you I touch myself.
It's pretty clear what the Divinyls are trying to say here, but I can go down the line in case it isn't clear. The first three lines speak of an individual thriving in the consumer culture, succeeding through the ideals of individualism and group responsibility in a strong capitalist economy. In the fourth line, the singer acknowledges the tendency to sometimes forget civil duties even with the desire to fulfill them. Line five admits that despite the surface faults of taxing it's the best system we've got. Last, the singer admits that whenever they think about doing taxes, they are forced to take an introspective look at themselves and explore the person they've become over the past year. It truly is a song that follows the ups and downs of doing taxes. Full lyrics here.

Those are the three most popular songs about doing taxes. For more, check out Billy Idol's "Dancing With Myself," The Vapors' "Turning Japanese," and Stan Freberg's "The Masturbation Song." That's all for tax day this year, kiddos-- hope you didn't get audited! Bye!

New UCB Comedy Original!

When I was in high school, we had a lot of bomb threats and the whole community was concerned. Apparently, the bomb threats were written on the boy's bathroom wall. There was a whole investigation into this and the school even sent us letters home talking about the situation. The letter included a picture of the bomb threat written on the wall...

and...

..."bomb" was spelled incorrectly.

Why would the school think this "terrorist" was smart enough to concoct a bomb when they spelled the actual thing, they were supposedly concocting, "bom"?

Wat a idoit.

Oh, what a surprise! This story segues perfectly into the topic of UCB Comedy's newest original that's all about bombs and idiots. Check out Bomb Squad F-Up and please don't let the hotness of the nurse character distract you from the comedy of the video.

New Videos!

Hey Peoples.

We've got some new original comedy videos. Check them out at UCBComedy.com.

My favorite comments on UCB Comedy's YouTube Page.

Have you been to UCB Comedy's YouTube Page? Not to brag or anything, but we're like YouTube gods. Like, we're supercool. So, beenerkeekee can go screw himself... which I think he can physically do because I believe he's a hermaphrodite.

What am I saying? Beenerkeekee is adorable. I'm sorry.

Anyway, some people leave hilarious comments on our YouTube videos and I feel as if i should share some them with you.

1.) I Washed My Hands!

- Someone asks "Is that Ethan Suplee in the background?" That's hilarious because it's not. It's Harrison Brown. As in Harrison Brown-Suplee. Ethan's identical twin brother.

2.) Ipod Shuffle

Someone says "just like ur mom." This isn't as funny as it is true. Yes, this internet video does resemble my mother. This comment is far from ambiguous or retarded because this user really understands every detail of my mother. Thank you for that, Mr. Commenter.

3.) Infomercial Date

Someone writes, "Makes you wonder...why the fuck are we paying NASA for all of this info crap. Can we cut them out of the national budget? I don't need a magic mop or a magic magic set or a tape recorder that can fit into the palm of my hand...all of that stuff was around when I was 2, but it was bigger, and suckier."

Yeah, fuck NASA! You, NASA, accidentally send teens into space and make them put their differences aside and work together to make it back to Earth. Fuck that shit.

I'll be adding some more YouTube comments later because it's my nap time right now.

For now, you can write some hilarious comments below.

iPod Shuffle Is A Dick

So out here in New York we have this guy Adam Frucci. He performs at the theater (on Bastian, a Harold Team) and also is an editor at the tech gadget blog Gizmodo. We're going to be teaming up with him to make videos about the gadgets they review. Here's the first one, iPod Shuffle:



Frucci's hair flips were totally improvised.

Reading the script, I thought the shoot would be very simple. But walking backwards along 22nd street with one intern (Carmen Angelica) trying to hold a boom mike and another (Sara Rubin, who also is the girl who enters the shot while Frucci is wrestling with his iPod) reading the lines of the iPod was a bit tough. At least two takes I tripped over the tiny fences we keep around our trees here in Manhattan. Embarrassing, but it was for art so it's okay.

April 1st News Bulletin

Guys, sad news. The Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre Los Angeles is closing, because we all decided to move to Portland. It turns out that LA's not the best place to go if you're looking for work in the entertainment industry, so the UCBTLA is closing, for serious. It really is.

I know it's April 1st and that's April Fools, but this is a real serious post for real, guys. It's really sad and the UCB Theatre LA's gonna be closed in, like, a few weeks. So when you come to the UCBTLA in, like, a few weeks after today, April 1st, don't be sad when it's just some dude doing a one man show that sucks because one man shows suck.

Also, it's today, on April Fool's Day, that we'd like to announce that the Upright Citizens Brigade will be opening a new theatre in Portland, which is in Montana. This is really real and on April 15th, two weeks after today (which is April Fool's Day), that thing I just said is totally gonna happen. Totes mcsproderboats, you guys, for realsies, and dat's de gawdshonest twoof!