Behind-the-Sketch: Chris Kelly

If you haven't noticed by now, Chris Kelly has had a slew of videos featured on UCB Comedy in recent weeks. Chris also has a new "sketch play" starting its run on the UCBNY stage August 11th-- the hilarious Oh My God, I Hear You're Dying, about seven family members, friends, coworkers and a neighbor of seven weeks accidentally ruining their final goodbyes. (Make your reservation now!)

Chris Kelly

Chris was nice enough to give us the inside scoop on some of his latest work on UCB Comedy.

"How To Make A Situation About You" (UCB Comedy Original Webseries):



CK: So I really just wanted to write something with this type of person. It's maybe my favorite type of person, and maybe I am this type of person, too. Everyone sort of is, right? I love people who veer conversations back to themselves or sigh deeply in your direction so that you'll be forced to ask them, "Oh no, what's wrong?" So that's how this web series started; I just liked the idea of this self-absorbed woman giving tips on how to go through your life making situations about you and never ever for a second being bogged down in the sound of other peoples' voices and opinions. As soon as I wrote this, I thought, "Oh Pam Murphy should play this!," not because she is this type of woman, just because she is fucking hilarious in every single thing she does. However, I will say she has been doing some pretty awesome meta-promotion of these videos. I have been out with her on more than one occasion when she has made the conversation about her my mentioning these "How To Make A Situation About You" videos. It's a delight.

"Crying" Movie Trailer



CK: I wrote this video while working on Matt Besser's Comedy Central pilot out in LA. It didn't make it in the pilot, but he had me get together some people to produce it in LA anyway. The BETA team FIX made it and I think it turned out really well. I came up with the idea because I feel like a lot of these indie movie trailers are just shots of people crying and you have absolutely no context for what this movie could possibly be about in 2-hour form. But I never care, I eat these types of trailers up. I also came up with this idea because sometimes if I'm walking down the street listening to music like this, I'll want to just start running and crying like I'm in one of these trailers. The song they used in the video, the Arcade Fire song, came on my iPhone the other day, and I felt the overwhelming urge to cry and I didn't know why at first. Maybe I did end up crying. Don't worry about it.

Eating Lasagna on the Toilet



CK: I came up with "Eating Lasagna on the Toilet" while eating carrot cake on the toilet, because before I am a comedy writer, I am a class act. If people want to date me, they can email me directly. But seriously, I didn't wanna stop eating said carrot cake but I also needed to go to the bathroom, and then I thought the only thing that would make that sadder is if I was naked and was delusional enough to think I was hosting a talk show in my bathroom. This is another video I originally wrote for the Besser pilot, but it didn't take. I don't know why - it has lasagna, Shannon O'Neill's adorable dog, and copious amounts of crying. Plus, it's got Jim Santangeli's bare butt, so I don't know why Comedy Central would wanna pass on that.

Chris is also a full-time staff writer and director at The Onion News Network and a Contributing Writer for The Onion's new show on IFC. Chris is a writer and actor on the Maude Team "Stone Cold Fox" and a sketch teacher at UCB. He also directed Michael Hartney's one-man show "So I Like Superman," which is currently running at UCBNY.

Visit Chris Kelly's website.