Preface This article is the first in a two-part series. In this two-part blog series, I will cover in depth the two major conflicts in the history of The Tonight Show, starting with the 1992 conflict between David Letterman and Jay Leno, which occurred after Johnny Carson’s retirement from the show. Next week’s article will…

Parody documentaries, often called mockumentaries, have been a comedic technique in film and television for a long time. The various types of documentaries, such as sports, music, and history, can be easily parodied or satirized by using the mockumentary format. The conventions of the documentary format naturally lends itself well to comedy and comedic characters.…

The Comedy Team of the 21st Century Comedy teams go back to the early days of comedy and vaudeville with acts such as Stan & Ollie, Abbott and Costello, and George and Gracie. Comedy teams can come in duos, trios, or large ensembles, sometimes referred to as troupes. In the 2000s, a comedy trio on…

It has been thirty years since the news satire late-night show The Daily Show premiered on Comedy Central in July of 1996. The Daily Show was created by television producer Madeline Smithberg and comedian Lizz Winstead and was originally hosted by former ESPN anchor-turned-actor and late-night talk show host Craig Kilborn. When The Daily Show…

The 2000s were a brilliant time for comedy movies. With stars such as Will Ferrell, Judd Apatow, and Ben Stiller cranking out hilarious hit after hit, the decade is responsible for some of the funniest, most quotable comedies of all time. This list was created through an analysis of these films based on their humor,…

Eddie Murphy has had one of the most prolific entertainment careers of all time. He has starred in some of the most memorable and successful movies ever made and has been widely recognized for his achievements and performances in film. But before he found immense success in movies, he burst onto the comedy scene in…

A comedic revolution began in 1970 with the publication of National Lampoon magazine. The satirical magazine was known for pushing the boundaries of taste and for a distinct dark form of satire strongly informed by the sensibilities of the counterculture movement of the 1960s and 70s. National Lampoon was the precursor to Saturday Night Live…

Weekend Update is the longest-running recurring sketch on Saturday Night Live, first appearing on the show’s debut episode on October 11th, 1975. A news satire segment in which an “anchor” (or anchors) lampoons the news of the week, Weekend Update has remained immensely popular throughout the show’s over fifty-year-long run, and has inspired many other…

At one point in time, studios were producing comedy films left and right. As recently as the 2000s, comedy films dominated the box office, and even if they didn’t, they were often able to recoup their budgets through home video rentals and purchases. Since the mid-2010s, production of theatrical comedy films has gradually declined. Today,…

Steve Martin’s approach to stand-up comedy made him a sensation in the 1970s. Viewing stand-up comedy as an art form, Martin analyzed the science of what makes an audience laugh and then flipped that science completely on its head. Martin’s act was him essentially putting on a performance of an entertainer with no real discernible…

Celebrity roasts have been a staple of comedy for generations. The tradition of inviting a “Guest of Honor” to be “roasted” by a dais comprising their friends and peers in the entertainment industry (or whoever needs a check) has gone through many phases and changes in style and format. In the days of the New…

Late-night talk shows are among the most sacred and long-running traditions in television. Ever since Steve Allen started NBC’s The Tonight Show in 1954, television audiences have ended their days watching an amiable comedian, dressed in a suit, making jokes about the news of the day, interviewing celebrities, and indulging in various bits of variety…