Tag Archives: tom scharpling

The Funny

“The Closest Thing to Shangri-La on Earth”

Readers of this site know that I’m a huge fan of The Best Show on WFMU. Last night, host Tom Scharpling welcomed famous comedienne Paul F. Tompkins into the the studio. Mr. Tompkins is a frequent guest, and he always brings The Funny when he makes the trip out to Jersey City.

But even judged against these high standards, last night’s episode was more wonderful than one could possibly imagine. Paul and Tom took a piece of YouTube straw and spun it into Comedy Gold. Nay, Comedy Platinum!

The YouTubery in question: a promo for the 10th Annual Gathering of the Juggalos!

Tom and Paul went through this video piece by insane piece, examining just how moronic/white-trashy/lawsuit-inducing the whole affair is. Ninety seconds of commercial led to a good hour and a half of non-stop hilarity.

I encourage everyone to go listen to the archived show now (if you must skip ahead, The Gathering discussion begins at 1:27). You will not be sorry. Their dissection of the curious etymology of Violent J’s Beach Boys BBQ Blowout Bash Blast is worth the price of admission alone. But there’s oh so much more. Last night, I was pacing my kitchen and punching my fridge in a vain attempt to catch my breath. That’s how hard I was laughing. (And my fridge has had it coming for MONTHS now.)

I won’t go through the video, since Tom and Paul did it so brilliantly already. But here are some things that I was blissfully unaware of until last night:

  • The Insane Clown Posse still exists.
  • Not only does the Insane Clown Posse still exist, but they’ve built themselves into a white trash media empire. Kinda like Jimmy Buffett, but with more barbed wire wrasslin’.
  • This Gathering thing has been going on for ten years. Nirvana didn’t exist for ten years. Black Flag didn’t exist for ten years. The Beatles didn’t even exist for ten years. But this thing has.
  • Rowdy Roddy Piper is apparently a comedian. Or at least he will appear at The Gathering’s Fresh Ass Comedy Tent. My guess is his act involves taunting Hulk Hogan and buffing Gene Okerlund’s bald head with a chamois. Or he just recites lines from They Live.
  • Among its many attractions, The Gathering includes seminars. On what? No idea. Maybe an afternoon of affirmations and punching with Violent Joel Osteen? And are ICP signed up with WebEx? Because I’d love to catch a webcast of that seminar if I can’t go in person.
  • ICP describes itself as “the most hated band in America” with “the most understood fan base”. I think The Grateful Dead might take issue with those statements.

Did that video whet your appetite? If so, check out this 14-minute infomercial on The Gathering of the Juggalos to check out some of the worst things Humanity has to offer. I just hope this video hasn’t been beamed out into space. Because if an advanced alien race sees it, they will lay waste to this planet as soon as they can.

If nothing else, The Gathering of the Juggalos should help law enforcement officials. If they just rounded up everyone who showed up to it, both meth consumption and meth production would be cut in half overnight.

Breaking News!

Martin Short Alert! Martin Short Alert!

I usually don’t announce impending events on this site, but I had to share this with the Interweb public. Tonight’s Best Show on WFMU will feature as its guest none other than Martin Short, SCTV/SNL alum and all-around funnyman extraordinaire. So tune in at 8 pm this evening. UNLESS YOU HATE HILARITY.

I imagine host Tom Scharpling will ask him many questions about Clifford, the aggressively weird/dark 1994 film starring Short as a crazed man-child and Charles Grodin at his grumpy best. This all-but-forgetten cinematic tour de force has been a running theme on The Best Show for several months now. All of Tom’s recent “guests” somehow manage to mention the same exact scene from it, regardless of whether it has anything to do with what they’re talking about or not.

The Academy must forever live with the shame that Mr. Short was not Oscar-nominated for this role.

However, I hope Tom also makes time to ask non-Clifford-related questions. I for one would love to hear exactly how The Completely Mental Misadventures of Ed Grimley got made–and when we can finally see this masterpiece on DVD, dammit. Now that The State has been preserved in digital form, Ed Grimley is the only outstanding piece of True Comedy still confined to the vaults.

This is as good a time as any to point back to a post I did a few years back about that brilliant cartoon, which starred the voice talents of other comedic giants like Joe Flaherty, Andrea Martin, and Jonathan Winters. Thanks to Roger Clemens, the YouTube clips no longer work. But if you never saw the show when it was on (and it would’ve been very easy for you to miss), I hope my humble post gives you a glimpse of its majesty.

Tuneage

REMINDER: Give ‘Til it Hurts So Good!

goodguys.jpgAs I alerted this readership last week, the WFMU Pledge Marathon is afoot. So pledge today!

Or pledge tonight, during The Best Show on WFMU. Ted Leo and Aimee Mann will be in studio, playing songs for pledges. Paul F. Tompkins and John Hodgman will be there to provide hilarity. And a pledge of $75 gets you a brand-new pledge-exclusive Scharpling & Wurster CD. Wow! A bargain at twice the price!

But not only that! That same $75 pledge earns you another pledge exclusive: an all-star tribute to the Paul & Linda McCartney album RAM, with songs covered by such esteemed artists as the two titans mentioned above, plus Death Cab for Cutie, Times New Viking, Portastatic, and many more.

What else do you get? Much much much much more! Actually, just a totebag, near as I can tell. But that can be much much much much more, depending on what you intend to use it for.

Actually, you get the satisfaction of knowing you helped one of the funniest radio programs of all time and one of the few radio stations in the NYC area worth listening to. So if you give no other monies to charity this year–and you know you won’t!–give to this!