Seth Herzog Archives - Jeffrey Gurian

Posts Tagged Seth Herzog

COMEDY MATTERS SUPER ISSUE CELEBRATES 25 YEARS, WITH NIKKI GLASER, KEVIN HART, CHRIS DISTEFANO, D.L. HUGHLEY, SETH HERZOG, KRYSTYNA HUTCHINSON, PAUL RUDD, ALEX MOFFAT AND SO MUCH MORE!!!

Posted by Jeffrey Gurian on October 3, 2024

COMEDY MATTERS 25th ANNIVERSARY

It may sound strange, but it wasn’t until I started writing about Seth Herzog’s 20th anniversary of his show Sweet, and acknowledging what an amazing achievment that was that I started wondering how long I’ve been doing Comedy Matters, and realized that I had started it in 1999, which made 2024 it’s 25 year anniversary of covering the comedy scene.

It’s been a few months since my last post and if you read on you’ll see why, so I’m going to briefly fill you in on what’s been going on in NY comedy thru the eyes of Comedy Matters.

TOM BRADY ROAST IS HUGE FOR NIKKI GLASER

Everyone totally crushed on the Tom Brady Roast. Kevin Hart was an amazing host and Roastmaster General Jeffrey Ross added to the hilarity with his never-fail killer jokes. That’s why he’s the Roastmaster General! Tony Hinchcliffe, Andrew Schulz, Tom Segura, Bert Kreischer, every single one of them killed. (Sorry if I left anyone out!!!)

But as a result of Nikki Glaser’s incredible performance roasting Tom at the very non-politically correct Roast on Netflix, she’ll be hosting the 82nd Golden Globes coming up on January 5th on CBS. I remember going to the premiere of the Nikki and Sara Live show on MTV back in 2013, when she had her own show with Sara Schaefer, and it’s so cool to see her reach superstardom. Nikki is a force. Her latest special on HBO, “Some Day You’ll Die” is up for an Emmy. She hosted and Exec. Produced F-Boy Island for three seasons which led to her hosting and Exec. Producing the spin-off “Lovers and Liars.” So major congrats to Nikki!

**(L-R) BERT KREISCHER AND TOM SEGURA TEAM UP ON THE BRADY ROAST**

**WITH SARA SCHAEFER AND NIKKI GLASER AT MTV BACK IN 2013**

GROSSINGERS DOC DUE FROM BUNGALOW ENTERTAINMENT

The popularity of the Netflix hit The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel had led to a resurgence of interest in that era, the 1950’s and particularly about what was known as The Borscht Belt which were the incredible hotels in upstate New York like Grossingers, The Concord, The Nevele, The Raleigh and so many more.

Bobby Friedman the head of Bungalow Entertainment is producing a documentary on Grossingers, and it’s owner Jenny Grossinger who paved the way for powerful women in the entertainment business. Grossingers was one of the best known hotels, that even had it’s own airstrip to fly in the big stars that performed there. I was interviewed for the doc because I was at Grossingers at two different points in my life, … as a kid singing solo in a famous Hebrew choir that sang at the hotels for the High Holidays, and again as an adult writing comedy for many of the big stars that performed there.

My interview was to be held at a comedy club which turned out to be, where else but Chris Mazzilli’s Gotham Comedy Club where so many amazing things take place. Judd Apatow was just there doing a special show about a week ago. The doc is being directed by award winning director Paula Eiselt who interviewed me, with the assistance of Bennett Elliot and Catherine Rierson from Bungalow Entertainment. Can’t wait for it to come out!

**WITH AWARD WINNING DIRECTOR PAULA EISELT AT GOTHAM COMEDY CLUB**

UCB IS BACK WITH ASSSSCAT BETTER THAN EVER

In a never-ending list of things lost to Covid, UCB was one of them. Fortunately it’s back in a killer new location on 14th Street. Amazingly huge space. I attended the grand opening on Sept. 13th, and was pleasantly surprised to see Sasheer Zamata, Chris Gethard, and Zach Cherry among the improvisers. The host that night was James Austin Johnson from SNL. Improv may not be as reliable in terms of laughter as stand-up, but it may be the hardest thing in the world to do and they totally have my respect!

**(L-R) Sasheer Zamata with a shaved head, James Austin Johnson in front and Zach Cherry in the rear with the glasses. Other names unfortunately are unknown to me! Send them in if you know!!!**

CELEB PHOTOG MARCUS RUSSELL PRICE PRODUCING SHOWS

Marcus Russell Price is at every major comedy event shooting photos at the request of whoever is headlining the event. And it’s because he’s that good! I will always be indebted to him for shooting the two photos that appear below, at the exact second that I walked through the door at Carnegie Hall to congratulate Nick Kroll on his sold-out show, only to find out that due to Covid, they blocked everyone but me from coming backstage to see Nick, … even his family!

**NICK KROLL FILMING ME AS I ENTERED HIS DRESSING ROOM AT CARNEGIE HALL WITH MIKE BERKOWITZ LAUGHING HYSTERICALLY!**

Nick thought it was so funny that he took out his phone and filmed it for Instagram. The only other person with him was uber-agent to the stars Mike Berkowitz of WME fame who was laughing hysterically at the fact that they didn’t let anyone in but me! When it comes to super agents you would be hard pressed to find a comedy superstar not repped by Mike. To name just a few, … Bill Burr, Hasan Minhaj, Nick Kroll, John Mulaney, Amy Schumer and John Oliver! To see Nick’s reaction when I walked into his dressing room click the link below!

So when I heard that Marcus was actually producing comedy shows at Lincoln Center there was no chance I was not going to attend. I was almost expecting him to perform but he just introduced the evening and each of the comedians. Both shows were great and sold out and I hope he decides to do more this coming year.

**(L-R) MARCUS RUSSELL-PRICE, JOEY DARDANO, JORDAN ROCK, ROSEBUD BAKER AND THAT SAME GUY!**

NEW YORK COMEDY CLUB TAKES OVER STAND UP NY LOCATION

Emilio Savone and Scott Lindner are killing the game. I think this makes five New York Comedy Club venues, and Emilio always makes sure that I get to attend every special event he does. They totally renovated the old Stand Up NY space on West 78th Street and had a grand opening. I particularly appreciated the huge green room they created downstairs where offices used to be. It’s always nice to have a cool place to hang before going up.

It was a star-studded line-up including two of my faves, Chris Distefano and Corinne Fisher who I absolutely love! Always so glad to see how well she’s doing. Her comedy partner in crime, Krystyna Hutchinson will appear in this column a bit further down. And I just got word as I’m writing this that Chrissy scored a Hulu special! Well deserved Chris!!!

**WITH CHRIS DISTEFANO WHO JUST GOT A HULU SPECIAL**

COMEDY TIDBITS

I’m involved in something that could be HUGE thanks to the two guys you see standing with me below. No more can be said, but if it happens it will involve many of my big-time comedy friends so when D.L. Hughley was at Levity Live in Nyack, I made sure to stop off and ask him in person if he would be kind enough to participate. He said I didn’t even have to ask and that of course he’d be involved! A true friend!!!

We reminisced about the time he took me out to dinner to make sure I ate!

I was at Sheba Mason’s show one night at Three Monkeys waiting to go on when I heard them announce a comedian to the stage and I thought maybe I heard wrong. I was pretty sure I heard them say Greg Giraldo Jr. What a nice surprise to find out it was Greg’s son. I’m sure he knew already, but I got to tell him what a great, talented guy his Dad was and afterwards sent him some photos of his Dad and I from back in the day!

**WITH GREG GIRALDO JR. A VERY FUNNY YOUNG GUY**

We lost a great actor and dear friend Tony LoBianco and at the funeral service at St. Patrick’s I ran into two other old friends, comedy legend Joe Piscopo and radio legend Frank Morano!

Wound up on one of Victoria Arnstein’s shows with Mae Planert and saw what her husband Mark Normand did to her! (LOL) Such a nice girl! Major congrats to the expecting parents! I keep telling him how great it is to be a Dad!

**WITH THE VERY FUNNY MAE PLANERT WHO IS “WITH CHILD” THANKS TO MARK NORMAND!**

Got on an AA flight to Minneapolis to be a Keynote Speaker to 500 doctors on Happiness and as I boarded the flight, the main flight attendant yelled out, ” Hey Jeffrey!” Turns out it was Soo Ra a very funny comedian who’s in my new TV pilot “The Raw Side of Comedy.” I knew she was funny but never knew she was also a flight attendant for the past 7 years! I made her take photos on the plane!!!

**WITH SOO RA THE COMEDIAN/FLIGHT ATTENDANT**

Zeuses Muses an entertainment company hired me to do a show with funny comic Anna Manis at The Red Room above New York Comedy Club’s 4th Street location. It’s like a speakeasy, and it was part of a national tour. Very fun show!

**ON STAGE AT THE RED ROOM WITH ANNA MANIS**

“A Walk In The Park” the Woody Allen-ish type film I co-starred in with writer/director Noel Leon was chosen as an official selection for the NY Shorts International Film Fest slated to be shown on Oct. 14th, at the Cinema Village Theater, and if I’m lucky I’ll even get to see the final version beforehand! It’s a really sweet film about an unlikely friendship!

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HOLISTIC COMEDY

Everyone’s heard the saying that laughter is the best medicine. Well because of my double career as a doctor (20 years on the Board of The Assoc. for Spirituality and Psychotherapy, 12 years on staff at NYU in Oral Medicine and Oro-Facial Pain, and 25 years as a Cosmetic Dentist) and an Amazon best-selling author with 8 books, three on Happiness, mindset and changing negative thinking to positive thinking, I’m getting asked to speak at holistic-type events bringing comedy into the mix.

In July I was the Keynote Speaker in Minneapolis at the Minneapolis Convention Center to about 500 doctors and the topic they gave me was ” Surviving A Career in Dentistry Using Positive Thinking and Humor”, and about a week ago I led a weekend workshop at the prestigious Omega Institute for Holistic Studies where Deepak Chopra speaks. Big honor! The topic they gave me was ” Heal Your Heart With Humor.” The middle photo below shows the line going out the door of people wanting to say hi and have me sign a book for them. I guess what I had to say resonated with them! (LOL) ( Humble brag!!!)

To help promote the event I went on WABC radio with my buddy Frank Morano on his hit show “The Other Side of Midnight”, i-Heart Radio with the amazing Xen Sams on her hit show “A Moment of Xen”, and had the honor of being the very first guest on Krystyna Hutchinson’s new podcast “The Voices In Our Heads” in her amazing new studio, and produced by my old pal Mike Coscarelli who’s producing a bunch of podcasts now. Krystyna of course is still doing “Guys We F**ked” with her comedy partner Corinne Fisher!

Even better Krystyna asked me to release her TMJ cause she’s been getting jaw pain from grinding her teeth from stress, and that just happened to be my specialty at NYU.

Got to exchange “best-selling” books with Mick Jagger’s girlfriend Melanie Hamrick and tell her my Mick Jagger story!

SWEET CELEBRATES 20 YEARS

I swear, … this is the last item. I can’t write anymore! Sweet is almost old enough to vote! Seth Herzog has achieved the impossible and kept a comedy show running for two decades. In next month’s column I will do a deep dive into the two shows he did at Chelsea Music Hall with owner Michael Ginsberg, but suffice it to say that both shows were amazing. I’m excited to say I’ll be doing Seth’s Halloween show on Oct. 22nd also at Chelsea Music Hall telling the scary story of my heart attack!

One show was on a Sunday night and the other was on the following Tuesday night. Huge crowds, and interviews were done for an upcoming documentary. Got to re-connect with Michael Ian Black, Todd Barry, who always makes me laugh hard with his sarcastic point of view, Jeaneane Garofalo who opened her set by giving away three pair of pants from a Target bag, and Richard Kind who improvised a song about people in the audience with Seth and Michael Ian Black. Michael and I co-wrote the very first interactive film for Sony back in 1992 called “I’m Your Man.”

In the Tuesday show it was Alex Moffat, Mark Normand, Paul Rudd, Justin Theroux, Richard Kind and more and I got to re-connect with the great Dave Hill who told me he loved my performance in Joe DeRosa’s video “Mouth On My Money”! Dave’s new one man show at the Soho Playhouse is called “Dave Hill-Caveman In A Spaceship”! Gotta see it real soon!!! Those photos in the next column coming very soon!!!

**JANEANE GAROFOLO AND HER BAG OF PANTS**

IF YOU’RE NOT TOO TIRED AFTER READING THIS WHOLE BLOG POST YOU CAN FOLLOW JEFFREY ON INSTAGRAM AT @JEFFREYGURIAN AND ON TICKTOK AT @JEFFREYLGURIAN SEE YOU SOON!!!

Tags: 77WABC, Alex Moffat, Andrew Schulz, Anna Manis, Bert Kreischer, Bill Burr, Bungalow Entertainment, Chris Distefano, Comedy Matters, Corinne Fisher, D.L. Hughley, Emilio Savone, Frank Morano, Jeffrey Gurian, Joe DeRosa, Joe Piscopo, Kevin Hart, Krystyna Hutchinson, Mae Planert, Mark Normand, Melanie Hamrick, Mick Jagger, Mike Berkowitz, New York Comedy Club, Nick Kroll, Nikki Glaser, Noel Leon, Omega Institute for Holistic Studies, Paul Rudd, Paula Eiselt, Robert Friedman, Sasgeer Zamata, Seth Herzog, Soo Ra, Tom Brady, Tom Segura, UCB, WABC, WME, Woody Allen, Zach Cherry, Zeuses Muses

Posted in: Celeb Photos, Celebrity Death, Celebrity Passing, Comedians In The News, Comedy, Comedy Central, Comedy Clubs, Comedy Events, Comedy Matters, Comedy Thoughts, Comedy Videos, Entertainment News, Film Festivals, General Information, Jeffrey Gurian News, New Films, Podcasts, Radio Show, Red Carpet Events, Stand-Up Comedy, TV Show, Variety Show

Comedians Rule Boy Band

Posted by Jeffrey Gurian on March 7, 2019

With comedian/actor/writer Seth Herzog

When you hear the words “Boy Band” maybe you think of The Backstreet Boys, NSYNC, or New Kids on the Block. Well change that image cause from now on you’re gonna be thinking of Seth Herzog, Dave Hill, Jordan Carlos and Steve Agee, who played part of a gay couple with Brian Posehn on the Sarah Silverman Program.

(L-R) Stephen Levinson, Dave Hill, Jordan Carlos, Joel Levinson and Seth Herzog

All four of the above are comedians who thanks to first time feature screenwriters Joel and Stephen Levinson play members of a boy band called “The Heartthrob Boyz” who were wildly successful in the 90’s, and went into the studio 15 years ago to record an album and are still there working on the same album. They’ve aged, gained weight and lost hair but didn’t lose their childish sense of humor.

Joel and Steven wrote the script together and Joel directed it. They screened it last night at the Chelsea Music Hall on West 15th Street in Manhattan and preceded the screening with a VIP cocktail party at 7 P.M. I who am never late for anything was literally the first one there which is how I got to talk with Joel and Steve, and Seth who was there early too making sure that everything went smoothly, which it did.

Stephen Levinson holding the film poster with his brother Joel Levinson

I brought the lovely, talented and amazing Jessica Robinson with me, who is kind of my muse, and we had the best time!

The Levinson boys wrote the script over a six month period and shot it in 10 days in Yellow Springs, Ohio, the home of independent film! (JK) They shot it there because it’s near Dayton where they live and because that’s where they had connections for locations and also they said that the rates of everything else were much lower. ( Lower than New York? Who would have believed it? LOL)

I always like to know how things come about so I asked them how they met Seth Herzog. They met through comedy writer Rob Kutner who wrote for The Daily Show and Conan through a project called Purim Shpiel, a sketch comedy show in honor of the Jewish holiday of Purim, and Seth always played a wicked character named Haman, who to this day is responsible for Jewish people eating what’s called Hamantashen on the holiday of Purim, actually coming up later this month. (Google it!)

They said that Seth played the perfect asshole so he was the first one cast in Boy Band to play the bad boy of the group. He’s also a producer on the film. Last May at a John McEnroe charity event at Carolines on Broadway where I covered the red carpet I got to interview my buddy Seth and he told me all about Boy Band before it was shot.

The film was loaded with recognizable faces, like David Gruber Allen and Julie Goldman, and I was pleasantly surprised to see my pal Jerry O’Connell in a pretty big role as a newscaster, opposite Seth’s wife, on-air journalist/actress Hitha Herzog, who he somehow coerced to be in the film. (LOL) Jerry will soon have his own talk show called Jerry O. on FOX owned stations, and it’s set to begin on August 12th. It will feature celebs and comedy for sure because Jerry is a funny guy, who appreciates the importance of comedy.

Hitha Herzog and Jerry O’Connell

They even had Questlove from The Roots in the film playing an alien, hence the horns, also appearing in the newscast with Hitha and Jerry.

Seth as you should know is the warm up comic for The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon, and so works with Questlove on a day to day basis. Stephen Levinson is also a writer on that show. And Gilbert Gottfried’s voice made an appearance speaking as a puppet named Morty who played an accountant.

The film also featured comedian Esther Ku playing the character of Tina, Steve Agee’s character’s girlfriend. Esther recently co-hosted the AVN ( porno) awards in Las Vegas, and she had a big part in this film.

Esther looked absolutely gorgeous as she did hosting the AVN awards, and it’s so nice seeing her owning that power and not playing down her looks like many female comedians of the past felt they had to do in order to be taken seriously as a funny person. (Having to be taken seriously as a funny person is a funny concept!) And Esther had the foresight to be Asian before it was even popular!

The screening had a great turnout, and was packed with lots of industry people. I ran into comedy exec. Maureen Taran, and Ali Farahnakian founder and owner of The P.I.T. who many people may not recall was also one of the founding members of USB. He was there with wife TV producer Beth Saunders, and he showed her the photo he took of me in the street many years before that wound up, unbeknownst to me, on the wall of the Men’s Room in The P.I.T.

Funny story, … I was walking in the street at a street fair when this nice guy who I had never met before asked if he could take my photo. He said he thought I had an interesting look and because he was so nice I agreed. At the time I didn’t know who he was. So one night I’m at The P.I.T. and I had to use the Men’s Room and while I’m standing there doing my business, I happen to look to my right and see my photo staring me in the face. It was hilarious and we’ve been friends ever since. He’s just a great guy.

And when Bravo TV wanted to shoot scenes with me for RHONY, with Countess LuAnn de Lesseps and Princess Carole Radziwill for a sketch I created and co-wrote for them, Ali was kind enough to give us The P.I.T. for the shoot and after-party.

Boy Band was a fun 90 minutes with a sci-fi element and even a touch of zombie stuff, and it’s available to be seen on all platforms that show movies! Make sure to check it out.

And with that, … I’m OUT!!!

Oh yeah, … and please make sure to like this post, comment and “Subscribe” to Comedy Matters TV by clicking on the “Follow” button at the bottom of the post. Also follow Jeffrey on Twitter and IG at @jeffreygurian.

Tags: "Comedy Matters TV", Boy Band, comedians, Comedy, Comedy Matters, Dave Hill, Esther Ku, feature film, first feature, Hilarious, Jeffrey Gurian, Jessica Robinson Jewelry, Jimmy Fallon, Jordan Carlos, Questlove, Seth Herzog, Steve Agee, The Roots, The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon, The Tonight Show"

Posted in: Breaking News, Celeb Photos, Comedians In The News, Comedy Events, Comedy Matters, Comedy Videos, Entertainment News, Jeffrey Gurian News, New Films, Stand-Up Comedy

Nat Geo Gets Into Comedy With Duck Quacks Don’t Echo

Posted by Jeffrey Gurian on November 18, 2013

They always say that everyone wants to be in comedy, and now I’m sure it’s true. Even Nat Geo is getting into the mix. I attended a taping the other night in the AMV/Unitel studios on West 53rd Street in Manhattan, where Wendy Williams does her show, to see “Duck Quacks Don’t Echo” with three of my comedy friends starring in the show, Tom Papa, Michael Ian Black and Seth Herzog.

I had just seen Tom kill it at The Village Underground, a beautiful venue recently taken over by Noam Dworman of The Comedy Cellar. Noam is very proud of the space as he should be. He put in great lighting and sound, and every show I’ve seen there so far has been super!

Tom Papa on stage at Noam Dworman’s The Village Underground, now part of The Comedy Cellar

Last week Paul Provenza came in to do his new show Set List, and everyone is talking about Jim Norton’s performance, and how great he was doing it for the first time.

The reason it’s called Set List is because Paul gives each comic their “set list” when they hit the stage, and not a moment before. They have no idea what it’s going to be, and it’s not topics like “Internet Dating” it’s more like “Anorexic Dog”, or “Penguin Sex Therapist” which one comic actually got stuck with, when I saw the show in Montreal this past summer at Just for Laughs.

So I ran into Tom Papa at The Underground, and he invited me to see his new show and two days later, before I even got a chance to make arrangements with him to attend I got an invite.

Duck Quacks Don’t Echo is a comedy/science show where each of the three stars gets to present weird, unusual and incredible facts. In addition to telling us the fact, they will each participate in an on-the-spot experiment proving each fact. It kind of reminded me of the stuff I used to do in science class to make the other students laugh when the instructor wasn’t looking.

On one occasion I mixed the wrong ingredients together and accidentally created poison gas, and they had to evacuate not only my class, but the entire floor.

The fact that stuck with me was than you can’t hum while holding your nose. It’s true. We tried humming Yankee Doodle, which was a very synchronicitous choice as I’ll explain in a moment, and then Tom instructed us to hold our collective noses and all the humming stopped. Who know that humming comes through the nose?

Another thing they could not have known is that I’ve always been fascinated by humming and actually did my college thesis on Abe Bembelman, the man who invented humming, back in the day when Yankee Doodle was popular. Before Bembelman people would hear a song they liked and have no way of recalling the tune. Then Bembelman came along and changed the entire world.

Bembelman was actually English but moved to this country during Revolutionary times, and during the Revolutionary War he was responsible for teaching the English to hum when they went into battle. Fortunately for us, the English hummed so loud that the American’s heard them coming, and that’s how we won the war, because basically you can’t sneak up on anyone while you’re humming! As a result Abe Bembelman became an American national hero. It’s in the history books! Look it up!

So towards the end of “Duck Quacks Don’t Echo” the guys took a break for a costume change and I was wondering what was going on, until they came back in what turned out be motion detection outfits but what at first looked like a re-enactment of “Blue Man Group Attacked By Ping Pong Ball Gang.”

Tom Papa in his new look for the film ” Attack of the Ping Pong Ball Men!”

(L-R) Michael Ian Black, Jeffrey Gurian, and Seth Herzog in a very strange stance that goes perfectly with his outfit!

Seth Herzog is used to wearing costumes as he’s been known to do when doing his popular Wonder Woman routine, so he took to this quite naturally, as you can see in the photo. Seth is the warm up comic for Jimmy Fallon and plays all the hot clubs in the city.

He also has his own show called “Sweet” every Tuesday night at The Slipper Room on Orchard Street, in NYC, where I hope to perform one day! It’s one of the few stages I haven’t been on.

What made the evening even more special was getting to re-connect with two guys I hadn’t seen for a long time. Michael Ian Black and Duck Quack’s producer Jim Biederman.

Michael and I have history. Back around 1992 Michael and I and Ben Garant wrote the first ever interactive film for Sony called “I’m Your Man.” It was shown in the Sony Theatre on 19th Street and Broadway and the audience got to change the outcome of certain scenes by pressing buttons from their seats. From what I recall Sony spent about half a million bucks on outfitting the theatre with the buttons that attached to the arm rest of each seat.

Michael Ian Black with Jeffrey Gurian at a Roast, possibly for The Naked Angels!

This was before Michael went on to co-create MTV’s The State and the sketch group Stella of which he was a founding member, along with Michael Showalter, and David Wain. They performed together from 1997 through 2005. The photo below was after one of the Stella’s performances at a place called Fez, which was their home base, and Ben Stiller and Janeane Garofalo both came by that night.

(L-R) David Wain, Michael Ian Black, Jeffrey Gurian, and Ben Stiller at Fez, circa 1997.

Duck Quacks producer Jim Biederman is the head of JimCo Productions and I hadn’t seen him in maybe 15-20 years. Jim was at Lorne Michael’s company Broadway Video back in the day working with a guy named John Head, who as I recall was in charge of film acquisition, and I was making short, bizarre little films in those days.

I had been sent up to see Herb by another legend Jack Rollins, best known for managing Woody Allen and producing all of Woody’s movies, and in those days was also managing Robin Williams and Billy Crystal. When I first met Herb he said he didn’t even have to look at my stuff because if Jack Rollins said I was funny, I was funny!

I was still a practicing Cosmetic Dentist in those days, which is why in the photo below Billy Crystal is pointing to his teeth. Jack Rollins had wanted to do a sit-com based on a dentist in show biz and thought Billy would be great to play me!

Jeffrey Gurian with Woody Allen who he had met many years earlier through his mentor Jack Rollins!

Jeffrey Gurian with Billy Crystal pointing to his teeth, referencing Jeffrey’s history as a dentist!

But Herb did look at my films and set me up with a meeting with Jim Biederman. I was doing a comedy news broadcast at the time with stories like ” Several men were arrested for smearing creamcheese on the ankles of elderly women who wore their stockings rolled down like bagels”, and “The Masters of Disguise” which were two master criminals who disguised themselves as inanimate objects to commit their crimes.

It started with two men disguised as coats who robbed a hat store by coming in over the arms of two other men who claim they had no part in the crime. I did an interview with one of the victims who gave his account of what happened, and said that one of the coats pulled a gun and said, ” Just act natural like we’re your coats and no one’ll get hurt!” Police artists did a composite drawing of the perpetrators. One man was described as a tan trenchcoat, the other man was said to resemble an overcoat, possibly black, … but could have been navy blue!

I had several crimes like that culminating in 250,000 men disguised as vests robbed a suit warehouse taking all 250,ooo suits and the police artists were going out on strike so as not to have to draw pictures of all 250,000 vests! As I recall Jim set me up with a meeting with John Head who said ” I see no reason why you shouldn’t be doing films for SNL”, and the reason it didn’t happen is a story for another day.

Jim went on to produce a ton of TV shows including “The Whitest Kids You Know” and the Onion News Network, and I went on to write a column for Weekly World News called “Gurian’s World of the Bizarre” which the guys from The Onion told me they were fans of. So it all comes full circle!

And the wild stories I was writing also became part of a comedy news broadcast which I shot up at WPIX TV. Check it out here:

It was great to see Jim again after all these years and I wish him luck with Duck Quacks!

Tags: "Comedy Matters TV", "Tom Papa", Duck Quacks Don't Echo, Jeffrey Gurian, Michael Ian Black, Nat Geo, Seth Herzog, SNL, Woody Allen

Posted in: Comedians In The News, Comedy Central, Comedy Clubs, Comedy Events, Comedy Festivals, Comedy Matters, Comedy Videos, Entertainment News, Jeffrey Gurian News, New TV Show