2015 07 08 Janeane Garofalo @ World Cafe Live Philadelphia

This past Wednesday night Janeane Garofalo’s brought her Stand Up act to Philadelphia’s World Café Live. The Veteran Comedienne put on a great show that kept her audience laughing for the entire 90+ minutes she performed.

Garofalo briskly moved through several divergent set pieces which evolved/devolved on amusing tangents. When she veered off topic some subjects got dropped, but she typically returned.

Janeane Garofalo 2014 1226 at EastVille Comedy Club

I didn't take any pictures at WCL on Wednesday Night, so you get this one from last winter.

At the time Garofalo was working on new material during at a Comedy Club in New York City. A couple of those pieces were brought out more fully during the long format show including bits on Student Debt, House Hunters, and Elitist Food Trends.

She did extended routines on How to Handle Your Intervention, Walking/Talking Dead, Danny Aiello, and the Sierra Club repeatedly asking her for more money even though she is already a monthly contributor.

The Aiello was particularly memorable, On most of her Celeb bashing Garofalo tended to open with I don't know (miscellaneous celeb), I am sure they are very nice but... Well with Danny she had a personal experience, the two shared a train car and she painted Aiello has a person in need of chronic attention. He kept begging people to notice him on the train car - including singing.  Then Aiello kept repeating his love of congressman Ted Cruz. And as she often does in her set Garofalo was able to tie a funny story to a political point.  

Classic bits of hers were updated. She has been doing a Prescription Drugs and their Side effects routine since I first saw her in the early 90s apparently the side effects have escalated to death at this point. She also continues to name dropped Law & Order mentioning to Millennials that yes there was a time that L&O did not exist.

2015 07 08 Janeane Garofalo ticket World Cafe Live Philadelphia 

etc,,
--Opener David Hill delivered a decent opening set, His delivery takes a bit of getting used to it, but he had enough good routines to earn a twitter follow.
--I was presently surprised how much warmer World Café Live had felt this visit. In the past the room seemed a bit too bland. There didn’t appear to be any major changes – maybe some subtle ones or possibly I am just getting used to the place.
--Lastly there was a 10 year girl performing on WCLs other stage. It was a bid odd to emerge out of the main room to see a 10 year autographing CDs and other keepsakes.
 

Conan: May 22 2014

Conan show ticket: 2014 05 22

As part of our recent trip to LA Team Phungo met TeamCoco. TeamCoco is the name for the fine group of folks that put together the Conan O'Brien show aired by TBS.

I think this is the first time I ever got to see a show taping. It was an interesting and fun process. The Guests for our show were Ellen Page (who we knew from "Juno" but was discussing X-Men ), Comedian Bob Saget who was plugging his new biography "Dirty Daddy", and Country artist Jennifer Nettles.

Conan's monologue was solid, timely and he worked well going to the audience to show off some of his improv skills.

The show also included 2 video segments and one featuring Andy putting together his outdoor furnishings for a barbecue (essentially an ad for Lowe's) and a second with Conan (a non-gamer) reviewing the upcoming "Watch Dogs" 

During the show I didn't feel that any segment was outstanding. This is partially because I was watching the workings of the show, also it is a bit disconcerting to see Conan looking into the camera rather than to the audience. But when I re-viewed the show that night I really enjoyed it.

Pre-Game
One of the things you don't get to see at home is Jimmy Pardo warm up the audience for the show. What Pardo does is much more similar to what a standup comedian may do during a comedy club gig. He has maybe 15 minutes to make you laugh and really can't bomb.

During his bit he also covers some legalese - no cameras/phones don't be a jackass etc and he also introduces a fire chief who lets you know to behave if there is an emergency. The whole day at Conan struck me as getting ready to board a plane - you stand in a line a lot, go thru a metal detector, and just before take off somebody tells you what to do if there is an emergency.    

Pardo is assisted by the very capable Basic Cable Band led by Jimmy Vivino. They do a terrific job firing up the audience. Different members of the band parade through the aisles of the 300 seat theater while playing a rousing version of the Conan theme.      

One odd thing happened during Jimmy Pardo's pre-show bit. He was bonding with the audience and one of the folks he talked to was a rapper, Asoka.  I don't want to accuse him of being a plant but it just so happens that Asoka had a song featured on a Conan Christmas Album


Conan Tickets

Getting tickets for the our show was not a problem. We went on-line picked out a date and filled out a request. A few weeks prior to the show I received an email containing a pdf "voucher" which was used to get the ticket above.

The day of show formalities are a bit of a hassle. You need to get to the lot (actually a parking garage) fairly early in the day - they recommend between 1:30 and 2pm with a hard cap at 2:30. Since we were unfamiliar with the area and LA Traffic is unpredictable at best we got there on the early end. Unfortunately The Conan show doesn't start till 4:30 and a Conan Ticket does not entitle one to get onto the Warner lot. This creates the issue of being stuck in Burbank with nothing to do but wait. As noted LA Traffic is a hassle so you don't want to get to far away, and other entertainment options near the Warner lot are limited.  We did run some errands during the middle couple hours and checked out the scenic LA River.

Post Show
Following the show Pardo returned to introduce a clip from the Pete Holmes show which airs after Conan on TBS. I had never heard of the show but the clip (a fish barrel parody of the Duggar family show) was a) Terrible and b) unbearably long. A Day later I read the Pete Holmes show had been cancelled.

Yes the Pete Holmes Show really did exist - and it shared a parking garage with Conan and "2 Broke Girls".