2008: The Year That Was

Boy, there goes another year. Way to go, Earth! You knocked another one right out of the park. Now, there were tons of great moments in 2008, but this blog is not infinite, so I've whittled down a list of what I found to be the most significant moments of 2008 (and I'm sure you'll agree!).

January 1
Akrotiri and Dhekelia Adopt The Euro
The world breathed a sigh of relief when the two "sovereign base areas" (source: Wikipedia) finally quit being sassy outsider emo kids and conformed to European monetary standards. Fun fact: the merging of world currencies is an early stage of the biblical apocalypse.



March 19
Exploding Star Is The Farthest Known Thing Ever Visible To Earthling Naked Eyes
And you missed it, probably because you were wasting time with your video games. For shame. The demise of poorly named GRB 080319B (made fun of all the freakin' time in grade school) could be seen from Earth, a distance of 7.5 billion light years (give or take). Interestingly enough, to the gas-based inhabitants of GRB 080319B it was actually the closest thing visible to the naked eye, until the naked eye also exploded.


August 17
Swimmer Brendan Hansen Wins Gold At The Summer Olympics
That's right, Phelps! You're not gettin' the headline this time! Not on my watch.



August 17
Aaron Peirsol And Jason Lezak Win Gold, Too
Oh no, Phelps, whatcha gonna do? Cry?




October 20
UCBcomedy.com's Blog Has Its First Post
I'm obligated to include this.


November 4
Historic Election Celebrated
That's right, November 4, 2008 marked the 84th anniversary of the election of Wyoming's Nellie Tayloe Ross as the first state governor in United States history. Whoa, Nellie! Some other important elections may have happened, too. Haha, get it? I'm being flippant.


December 29
Santa Clara University Retires Kurt Rambis' Basketball Jersey
Rambis, the first Greek player ever to play in the NBA, played for the LA Lakers, Charlotte Hornets, Phoenix Suns, and Sacramento Kings before being given the prestigious honor of popping up in the lyrics of a rapper named "Hot Karl," whose name is as vaguely gross and/or innuendo-laden as it gets. He's best known for having the sweetest mustache-glasses combination in NBA history (see: photo evidence at right). He truly was, as a nickname goes that I am just now bestowing upon him, the "King of Hoops and Handlebars."


And Rambis will carry us on through to 2009! That's MMIX to all you Romans. That about covers everything that happened in 2008, at least, everything important. The Celtics won their first championship in a long time, too, but until they learn to pronounce "kel-tik" I'm not giving 'em a lick of respect. Also not listed was the Hadron Collider because it broke, and we don't do failure here at the UCB. Happy New Year, everybody! We'll try to do better in 2009!

A Two-Minute Review, Holiday Edition

There are only so many hours in a day, and you just want to know which movies are worth your time. So what's not to like about a two-minute movie review? This week's review, in honor of the holiday season, is of Frank Capra's Christmas classic, It's a Wonderful Life, starring Jimmy Stewart. For the two minutes, I chose to watch a two minute span about half way into the film. The following paragraph is a transcription of my thoughts from when I was watching. Beware: minor spoiler alerts!

Oh man, what a crummy house. Life would be unwonderful for someone living there. Oh no, Mr. Smith lives there! Oh dang, and he's got a wife, too! And kids! But they're so poor! That must suck. Oh crap, and it's the holidays. I don't think it gets any less wonderful than that guy's life. Dude might as well jump off a bridge.

So, to sum up, It's a Wonderful Life is too negative a movie for my liking. Who'd have thought a movie title could be so cynical? Whatever happens in the moments following the part I watched, it probably just gets more and more negative. Capra should try making a happy film sometime, a joyous slice of quaint Americana maybe, rather than darkly pessimistic films like this one.

Kids Are My Favorite

Seriously. They're awesome, and what they make is usually a million times funnier and more brilliant than what I can come up with. To wit: these two videos, made by the children of Amey Goerlich's five-year-old film production class. That's a production class for five-year-olds, not a production class that's been going on for five years. The videos:


Penguin Scientist:



Lost Ice Cream Pitch Meeting:



See? Amazing.

Late Friday Night Fun Fact

Question: What does Howard the Duck creator Steve Gerber cite as his main inspiration for the talking alien duck?


Answer: Albert Camus' pseudo-existential 1942 novel The Stranger. Seriously


And now you know! Share it with your friends!

Honestly, who throws a shoe?

Thaaaat's right. Because nobody asked for it, I'm bringin' back the Austin Powers quotes.

But seriously, if there's one Dubya-shoe-video you watch, make it this one. Or if you've already watched one, erase your memory* and watch this one:



*For information on free memory erasing clinics, please contact W. Smith and T.L. Jones.

Welcome to My Study

Are you a fan of awkward, lonely humor? Do you like finding things in desks? I am, and that's why I'm digging deep into the UCBComedy archives (from, oh, about a year ago) to bring you Mitch Magee's, Welcome to My Study:

Sleep-Shoe-Thrower

Someone threw a shoe at my head at a sleepover once.

Growing up, I would always have these friends that I thought were pretty cool. We would become super-close and we would have our first sleepover. I would go over to their house for a sleepover, and I could never fall asleep because I was always supine on the hard floor, with one pillow, sleeping in my dad's dusty sleeping bag from his bachelor/anger days.

I would stare at my new friend and watch her sleep and realize how weird she was. I had one friend who used to snore out of her ears. (I swear to God! She had really bad asthma or something.) I had another friend who used to whisper parts of the female reproductive system in her sleep.

Finally, I had a friend who would throw stuff in her sleep.

Her name was Becca and for a while she didn't like me because my name was Becky and it was too much like Becca and I was totally stealing her thunder, despite the fact that I was six months older than her.

Needless to say, back then I probably won her over by doing my only character: Cereal Killer. (It was an old lady who used to like to murder cereal.) She probably thought I was hilarious and we became fast friends.

We had our first sleepover. She slept on the couch in her basement and I slept on the Laz-E Boy.

Since I wasn't sleeping on the floor, I was actually able to fall asleep. Just as my dream was about to begin, I felt something hit my head. I woke up and found a sneaker on the floor next to the chair.

Becca threw a sneaker at me!

"What the hell, Becca?" I asked.

She didn't say anything.

I walked over to her and saw her fast asleep. She looked like a retard.

"Becca?"

She picked up a pillow on the couch and threw it in my face.

"Why are you being such a bitch, Becca? I thought you found Cereal Killer to be funny!"

She didn't respond.

She was fast asleep.

A few days later I told her about it and she totally denied it. Years later I even made fun of her for it and she still continued to deny it.

But I swear to God she threw a shoe at me in her sleep! She's a sleep-shoe-thrower!

Is that so hard to believe?

Un-Vanilla

Seriously, this is about me. My name is in it. Also, I sing the opening song.

Funny People Can Be Good People, Too

Below is a video made by the Los Angeles chapter of Mustaches for Kids, a charity that raises money for several children's charity organizations, mainly by growing mustaches. It's just a fun, great charity that we're happy to say includes members of the Upright Citizens Brigade community. Visit www.m4kla.com for details on the charity and to donate, but act soon-- donations end on Wednesday, Dec. 16th!

A Two-Minute Movie Review

There are only so many hours in a day, and you just want to know which movies are worth your time. So what's not to like about a two-minute movie review? This week's review is of the 1968 "classic," Planet of the Apes. For the two minutes, I chose to watch the last two minutes of the film. The following are my thoughts from when I was watching. Beware: minor spoiler alerts!

All right, he's on a beach. That's cool, good setting. What the heck is the Statue of Liberty doing there? That's supposed to be in New York. Major goof on the set designer's part. And why's that Moses guy so angry now? Of course you're on Earth, retard. What's the big deal? I'm on Earth every day and I don't fall on my knees and yell curse words all the time. Holy crap, those monkeys are wearing clothes!

To sum up, despite creative choices in locale and interesting use of animals, Planet of the Apes ultimately fails due to an extremely one-note performance by Charlton Heston (all he did was yell!) and major logical errors (I saw no reason why the protagonist would think he was on any planet other than the planet Earth). Planet of the Apes just doesn't hold up for today's audiences.

One Great Sketch for Monday

This week's Monday video is from Neil Campbell. In addition to being the artistic director of the UCB Theatre in Los Angeles, Neil's a really, really funny guy. Enjoy!

This One is About High School Musical

Okay, I was just reading this thing on a blog that is not as nearly as good as this blog about Zac Efron and Vanessa Hudgens spotted going inside of a sex toy store!

Omg!!!

I have my opinions about this hot teen couple and I think that just because they were spotted in a sex shop does not mean that they are sex-crazy maniacs just constantly making like bunnies.

Here is what I imagine the couple talked about just seconds before entering the sex store:



INT. MELROSE AVE. BETWEEN ALTA VISTA and POINSETTIA

ZAC: Where are you taking me? I'm scared.

VANESSA: It's fine. Ashley Tisdale told me about this store and I really think it will help us.

ZAC: But I already saw you naked once, do we have to do it again?

VANESSA: I want to have sex with you!

ZAC: Wait, that wasn't sex before?

VANESSA: No! The dance routine to "Mixin' My Turn" doesn't count as sex. How many times have I told you this?

ZAC: But what if someone sees us? Like every single one of my fans?

VANESSA: We're just walking in, buying a dental dam, and leaving! What's worse? Being caught in a sex store or being a child star who is pregnant caught in a sex store?

ZAC: My mom was pregnant once.


The end.

Has This Ever Been You?

I saw Ben Siemon's "Date with an Informercial Actress" at Not Too Shabby once and I thought it was the funniest thing I had ever seen. Since then I've been stalking Ben Siemon. However, now that this hilarious sketch is finally on ucbcomedy.com, I can pretend he's my husband from the comfort of my own home/wi-fi hotspot.

Check it out:

ur docter wil c u nau KTHXBAI (also, One Great Sketch for Monday)

All right. So last night, I was indulging myself in a little Dolphin Olympics 2. If you don't know it, you should, because it's great. Fireworks, Mars, and dolphins. The whole shebang. Also good is Zilch, an online dice game (at least, the online version is online). Online dice games are fun because they take away everything about dice that make dice dice-- mainly, the physicality and the randomness (Did you know computers can't be random, but can only do their best to simulate randomness based on probabilities and whatnot? Fun fact #43!)-- so really you're almost not even playing a game at all. That's how I like to spend my free time, anyway.

But I digress. What's more important is that on the website where I was playing these marvelous games, there's a little open chat room that's always running to the side. I never partook in the banter that took place there, but I did check on it every now and then to notice a fellow whose name was something along the lines of "kidninja472." Kidninja's side of the chat went a like something like this (copy n' pasted):

"just out of school"

"wat u on"

"no u kk i c"

"im n med school"

Yup, med school. Kidninja's in med school. People, future doctors are going online and chatting in chat rooms, and even they have felt the need to throw grammar to the wind in that violent manner unachievable through mere spoken word. Basically, kidninja is either a horrible future doctor, or somebody who's horrible at pretending they're a doctor. I'll let you take your pick, but neither choice speaks too well of anything. Then again, I'm not in med school, so I really have no room to criticize.

There's probably a pretty good argument for or against universal healthcare in there, too, for people who like to look for something in nothing. Or as I like to call them, Cubs fans! Badabing. I promise you nobody who read that thought it was funny. And in what people in the biz refer to as a "perfect segue," we go from this discussion of doctors to Hospital Bits, which I find to be really funny. It's got Drew DiFonzo Marks, Marisa Pinson, and Jon Glover, along with the direction and voicework of Andie Bolt, and it's pretty great. If you don't agree, lemme know with a comment why don't ya. There's ten of 'em, so when you're done with the one below you can head to UCBcomedy.com and check out all the rest of the magic.

Relationship Advice

I'm like the Nora Ephron of Generation X. Wait... I think I'm part of Generation Y. I don't know.

All I know is that I am surrounded by people in many kinds of relationships and I've noticed many of my friends run into similar issues when it comes to love. Since I am a love expert, here is some general advice to improve your relationships to make them long-lasting.

1.) When you first start to become intimate, purposely be bad at sex. Lie there still, make ugly faces, or hum Night Ranger. Then, gradually improve your techniques. That way, sex will never get boring. It will only improve. Once you've reached your peak, however, simply get divorced and blame it on your kids.

2.) Someone in the relationship needs to be a 14 year old. Or at least dress like a 14 year old.

3.) Do it in front of people and don't wait for them to ask to watch you do it.

4.) Never fart in front of each other.

5.) Always be pro-active together. For example, you can look at the right side on your computer screen and vote for you favorite UCBComedy original together. Put your finger on top of your partner's finger as you vote for "Funny Cats"... or whatever. Finger is such a funny word. But seriously, doing things together instead of apart is better, unless you like doing things apart.... or just doing things with other people.

6.) Don't give up who you are. If you like looking for Casual Encounters on Craiglist, keep doing it! It's who you are! Never let another person change you, unless they murder you. You can't really do anything about that.

But, what you can do, right now, is watch our newest original called eMotionallyfucked.com written by Michelle Thorn. It will also inspire you to improve your relationships.

M.Y.R.K.L.'s Up!

Check it out! Part one of Matt Walsh's sci-fi epic.

Time Travel Tuesdays

Oh, what's that? It's not Tuesday? Maybe not where YOU are...or should I say when you are. See, right now, it's Tuesday the Glorby-Seventh in the year 6280 from where I'm thinking about writing (nobody actually types here, you just think about things and they appear on the internet).

I'll answer some of the obvious questions you've got: 

-Yes, there are flying cars.

-No, licorice no longer exists.

-Yes, Obama fixes a lot of stuff.

-Yes, Matty's Twilight fan fiction garners him extensive posthumous success like no other, rivaling the likes of Vincent van Gogh and Val Kilmer (he's really popular in the future).

But I'm sure you're tired of me droning on about the future. In honor of Time Travel Tuesdays, here are some of UCB's finest time travel sketches:

1. Time Travel Expedition


2. Paul's Time Machine


3. Time Pot


Yours in Kilmer,
Justin

It's Official! We Did It!

That's right, folks. With the Dow closing down 680 points, recession has been declared for the United States. Grab a bag of oranges and claim the nearest street corner, kiddo, because rough times are ahead. You might also want to brush up on your Grapes of Wrath, just for good measure. Except for that part about breastfeeding a grown man, that's just nasty. And wasn't Tom Joad a murderer, now that I think of it? Jeez, John Steinbeck was nutso. The Associated Farmers of California were right to label him a communist. On second thought, stick to the John Ford movie version-- it has less murdering and man-breastfeeding, if I recall correctly.

But really, recessions happen all the time. According to CNNMoney.com, there were recessions in 2001, '90-'91, '81-'82, '80, and more. And all that happens is that a lot of people lose their jobs and don't have enough money to afford food and stuff. No Okies escaping the Dust Bowl, no Tennessee Valley Authority, no FDR trying to pack our Supreme Court. B to the oring. What could be cool and stylish, like the Great Depression, is really just a big bummeroo.*

Of course, there's always the possibility that this:


Could turn into this:


See what happens? All the colors will go away, and someone will steal our giant nice letters and replace 'em with janky ones. Also, there's gotta be some town somewhere that's actually called Hooverville that'll be upset that it's no longer the only one. So get out there, folks, and enjoy Four Christmases while you can, because soon enough your local theatre'll be converted into a food shelter, and that's nowhere near as charming as Reese Witherspoon's winning smile. Also notable is that both pervy perv John Steinbeck and darling Reese Witherspoon dropped out of Stanford University without receiving degrees. Quitters.



*Matty's not a total idiot. He realizes that a recession is not some little thing to scoff at, and does value the lives and families of those hurt by the recession. He doesn't just think it's "B to the oring." Just wanted to say that before you started writing letters and petitioning congressmen and protesting on street corners, you hippie.

One Great Sketch for Monday

Here's a great sketch written by (and starring) Ryan Perez. Enjoy!