comedy – Typical Jenn

Watch This, Not That | *Kevin Can F**k Himself vs The Crew*

I love a good underdog story. Did you know that right before she landed Schitt’s Creek, Annie Murphy was broke and on the verge of giving up acting? We almost didn’t have have the national treasure, which means we almost didn’t get to watch her in this incredible new show Kevin Can F**k Himself.

Holy shit, this show is amazing. Kevin Can F**k Himself rotates between corny CBS-type sitcom (husband and wife where the husband’s “jokes” are followed by a laugh track to drown out the sound of the channel changing) where Annie plays Allison, a dutiful housewife married to a chauvinistic prick and her real life where things are dark and she’s married to a chauvinistic prick.

Immediately we see that she’s done with his shit, his dad’s shit, and the neighbors shit. Immediately, women everywhere feel seen. Anyway, after Allison discovers that her dream of owning a home is going to have to remain a dream thanks to Kevin blowing all of their savings, she decides there’s only one thing she can do: kill him.

Will she? I don’t know but he’s got it coming. Let’s find out together. Join the lot of us dealing with our own sitcom-Kevin and tune in to Kevin Can F**k Himself every Sunday on AMC at 8 p.m. central time.

Speaking of “sitcom-Kevins”, my Not That pick features a Kevin that I’m sure Kevin Can F**k Himself is mocking. I’m talking about Kevin James and the Not That I’m referring to is his Netflix series The Crew.

First off, The Crew uses a laugh track, and not in the mocking way that Kevin Can F**k Himself does. I mean in a way that they have no choice because it’s the only way they’ll get laughs. The Crew is about a NASCAR team crew chief (Kevin James) that sucks. And that’s about it. I guess. It’s all I could watch.

The first episode was all over the place. We’re introduced to the shit driver, then there’s a party for the owner. One crew member is talking about squirrel sausage while another talks about fighting with his wife about bed shams. Then the owner retires and makes his twenty-something year-old daughter the new owner (duh) and then I’m assuming that’s when hilarity was supposed to ensue.

It never did.

In fact, the entire dialog between the actors sounds like they were just winging it. It was like Kevin James had to fulfill his contract obligations so Netflix gave him a set, some actors, a production team, and yelled “go!”. The outcome? Another unfunny Kevin.

Don’t be a Kevin. Get in on something funny, original, and fucking brilliant. Watch Kevin Can F**k Himself.

First pic by thewrap.com. Second pic by tumbral.com. Third pic by variety.com.

Review: A Very Punchable Face|Colin Jost

“To my mom and dad, and my brother, Casey. You’re like family to me.” It’s Colin Jost’s dedication and the very first joke of his book. Simple, absolutely hilarious, and sets the tone for the entire book.

In reading his memoir, A Very Punchable Face, it’s easy to see why Colin Jost is the head writer for Saturday Night Live as well as holds the coveted position as one of the hosts of Weekend Update. Simply put, Colin is one hell of a writer. It didn’t even feel like I was reading his book – it felt like I was listening to someone tell ridiculous stories about their childhood, how they got their dream job, and getting punched in the face.

His stories are awesome, particularly the one about his MOM WORKING AS A FIREFIGHTER DURING 911 AND BEING A HERO. There are no stories of hardship but his account of the events that unfolded that day tug at the heartstrings, and is an incredible story.

Aside from his 911 story, my favorite of his accounts are the ones that involve the development of his writing career. His work ethic is something to be admired and mirrored. Careers like his don’t just happen. He worked hard to earn his spot at SNL and continues to work hard as one of the top comedic writers in the business.

The world is a shit show, and it’s time we start laughing at legitimate things. Let one of those things be Colin Jost’s memoir, A Very Punchable Face. You will not be disappointed.

The Typical Jenn Experiment

Did you know there are perks to working a job you hate? There are very few of them, mind, and some people may think of them as “reasons to not set the boss’s car on fire” as opposed to “perks”, but they do exist. One is a paycheck. Another, for me at least, is sometimes a client of mine will host an event that buys them another 3 months before I start flipping desks.

A few weeks ago, I had the pleasure of doing marketing for their first big comedy show. Their special guest? Jamie Kennedy. Some of you may remember him as the nice guy from Scream or as B-Rad from Malibu’s Most Wanted. Some of you may remember him from his show, The Jamie Kennedy Experiment. Some of you may have no idea who I’m talking about. If that’s you – congratulations – you’re basically 90% of the people who saw my advertising. To be fair, I didn’t even know he did stand-up comedy which I think technically puts me right up there in that 90%.

The turnout was less than ideal, which was a shame because he was actually very, very funny. I can’t speak for everyone but I was surprised, primarily because when I was looking for clips of his stand-up to promote his show, I couldn’t find anything that even slightly made me giggle. Leading up to the show I thought we were screwed. On top of that, I’m in a pretty conservative town so images of people getting pretend offended were constantly swirling around in my head. Well, I was wrong.. kind of.

From beginning to end, his show was hilarious but, more importantly than that, it served as an odd source of inspiration for me and my writing. One of the first jokes he made was about the low turnout; he ended the joke by asking “who did the marketing for this?”

Yeah, that would be me who did the marketing.

I laughed so hard because you know what? When you’re right, you’re right. I probably could’ve done a better job promoting the show but I didn’t because the fact is, I’m not good at marketing. I don’t even like it. I got into marketing because I didn’t know I could make a career out of writing this kind of stuff and I wasn’t sure what else to do. (BTW, I still haven’t figured out how to make a living with my writing so it turns out I’m also bad at making progress.) Marketing is what I do to pay the bills but I know I’m just not very good at it. I can’t even properly market my blog. It’s true. Look at my follower count, I’ll wait….. Yeah, and this blog has been up since 2015.

Anyway, Jamie Kennedy’s comment made me realize that I need to be more aggressive about figuring this out because there are plenty more “who did the marketing for this?” where that came from. That’s a bleak future.

The laughter continued, and just when I thought “hey, there hasn’t been one ‘boo’ yet, this is great!”, Jamie Kennedy made the mistake that every comedian makes: he made a joke that offended someone. “Here it goes”, I thought.

Of course, I’m being sarcastic. Jamie didn’t make a mistake. He was doing what we paid him to do: tell jokes. And watching him explain to this heckler that everything he was saying was a joke and reminding her that she was at a comedy show was a fucking downer. He shouldn’t have had to do that. Luckily, her bullshit didn’t ruin the show; he even got a standing ovation when it was over.

I could debate about situations like this all day but that’s not the point of this post. The point is, I wrestle with posting some of the things I write about all the time, and it’s a bit of a problem. I’ve refrained from sharing some of my stories because I worry about how they’ll be perceived, even though I actually put a lot of thought into what I write. I was even hesitant about writing this.

Then I heard Jamie Kennedy asking “who did the marketing for this?” and I thought, fuck it. If I’m going to figure this out there’s only one way to do it, and that’s to write.

Not every story I share will be great, I know that, but I’d rather put them out there than risk the possibility of losing any opportunity to do what I’ve set out to do: make you laugh. Because in a time where everything seems to be going from worse to horrendous, I think we can all agree that laughter is one of the bright spots. So I hope you’re ready to read about my fucking TERRIFYING trip to Jamaica because that story and more are coming. And who knows, maybe I had nothing to worry about in the first place. It’s not like I’m attracting hundreds of thousands of readers. I do my own marketing after all.