San Francisco Comedy Blog

Christian Finnegan is perhaps best known as one of the original cast members of VH1’s “Best Week Ever.” “Chappelle’s Show” fans will recognize him as ‘Chad’, the only white roommate in the infamous “Mad Real World” sketch.

This Wednesday, June 24th, Christian will be performing at the historic Purple Onion in North Beach for one show only. He usually plays at much bigger clubs when he stops in the Bay Area, so this is a rare opportunity to see him in such an intimate venue as The Purple Onion, and this will be his debut performance at the legendary club.

Wednesday, June 24th
8pm (doors open at 7:30)

Last night, Bill Burr became The Tonight Show with Conan O’Brien’s very first stand-up guest. Click here to check out our interview with Bill from back in March.

On Saturday, June 6th, our illustrious hosts of Comedy Speakeasy at The Purple Onion made a visit to the KRON-4 studios in San Francisco to chat about comedy, the upcoming Bay Area Laugh Leader competition and even more comedy coming to North Beach – weekend shows at The Purple Onion starting in July!

Beginning July 1st, 84 comedians will compete over 10 weeks at the historic Purple Onion. The championship round will be held on September 2nd, and one winner will be crowned the SFstandup.com Bay Area Laugh Leader (B.A.L.L.). Scoring will be based on a combination of audience vote and judges’ vote.

Visit the competition’s official site at SFstandup.com/ball.

To be considered for this competition, please email purpleonion@SFstandup.com by Monday, June 14th.

(more…)

by Adrian Palenchar and Jimmy Lillard

The Adrian Palenchar TV Show for the Internet, by Adrian Palenchar and Michael Sanchez, with appearances by Jeff Andrews, Duat Mai, Squeeks Morales, and Kevin O’Shea.

Do you have any advice for the budding humor writer?

“There are two things I would say are the key to comedy. One is character. All good comedy comes from character. In my mind, jokes are one thing, but without a convincing protagonist and somebody you care about, your comedy is on a path to nothing. All my favorite comedies are character-based, whether it’s George Costanza in Seinfeld, David Brent in The Office, or Woody Allen. Character, character, character.

Number two is to have a voice. Have an opinion. Try and say something. I don’t think it’s enough to just write trifling jokes. You should have a point of view. Have the confidence in what you think. Don’t let the executives or your own self-doubt dilute what you want to say.”

-Dan Mazer, co-writer and former classmate of Sacha Baron Cohen, in Vanity Fair magazine.

In their new web series “Elevator To Space,” comedians Alex Koll, Louis Katz, Chris Garcia, and Sean Keane ride in a… yes, you guessed it, elevator to space.

Below are the first 2 episodes. Click here to watch all of the released episodes and keep up with the new ones.

“The Comic College is like a donut factory in that you can watch the donuts being made. You are seeing the unfinished product. Comedy clubs just sell them at retail. We make them.” -Kurtis Matthews, founder of the SF Comedy College, as told to The Examiner.

Tom Rhodes has a neat series of videos on YouTube called “Rhode Scholar,” documenting his travels around the world as a comedian. (This week he’s at Rooster T. Feathers in Sunnyvale- click here for more details and a special ticket offer.)

Here he is in San Francisco, including a performance at The Punchline, and a chat with his friend Brian Regan.

And in this one, Tom travels around the desert towns of Southern Arizona, stopping to visit his friend Doug Stanhope in Bisbee. (Doug is performing at the San Jose Improv on Thursday.)