Comedy Central Taping #2: Wyatt Cenac

I'm not sure if Wyatt Cenac is Paul's favorite Daily Show correspondent, but Paul does think that he is the correspondent with the best name.


We hadn't even entered the lobby at the Skirball Center for the Performing Arts on Friday night before Paul whipped out his iPhone and posted this Facebook status update:

"In line for Wyatt Cenac, wish I had some Wyatt Cnacks."

Yes, it's funny. But less so when you hear it every time he appears on TV.

Needless to say, Paul was delighted to see a taping of the comedian's Comedy Central stand-up show. Truth be told, I was pretty happy, too.

Yes, for the second weekend in a row, we were at New York University for a free Comedy Central taping. No VIP tickets like we had for John Oliver's show, so instead of sneaking straight into the warm lobby we had to wait outside in the biting cold for about 20 minutes.

But the momentary discomfort was well worth it. The show was funny, even if there were no Michael Steele impressions. Or Cnacks.

The cameras never came close to where we were sitting during the hour or so Cenac was on stage, and so much the better. Actually, there are no guarantees the show we saw will even be shown on air. We were told before the taping that Cenac was performing his show in front of two audiences that night -- the second show was directly after ours -- and the show with the better audience would be on TV.

Even if I see the show on TV, I probably wouldn't know if it was the one we actually saw.

Now that we've gone to two of these tapings in two weeks, I feel like I've gotten my live comedy fix for awhile. But if John Hodgman is taping something next week, I'll be there. Or Jason Jones. Or Samantha Bee ...

John Oliver's New York Stand-Up Show

It started a couple of Mondays ago, when I came across a solicitation online to request tickets for a free taping of John Oliver's New York Stand-Up Show.

The Daily Show correspondent was filming episodes of his Comedy Central show over the weekend at a theater at New York University, and Paul and I both thought it sounded like fun. I requested tickets and almost immediately received an email confirming two passes for last Friday's evening taping.

Then, a couple of days later, I received an email from a coworker. A friend of hers works for the show's production company and could get us VIP tickets. Were we in? Yup.

VIP tickets meant very little other than a purple wristband and the ability to wait for the show's seating to begin inside the lobby rather than in an outside line with the huddled masses. And I do mean huddled. It was a bitterly cold night, snow still on the ground.

Taping two shows took roughly three hours, and no one was allowed to leave the theater the entire time, bathroom breaks not excepted. John Oliver's jokes were spot on, as expected, but the eight comedians he introduced were hit-or-miss. Bashing bankers in business suits for our economy's crash, for example, didn't strike me as funny for two reasons:

1. The jokes were too easy.
2. My husband is a banker in a business suit.

I'm not sure when the shows will air, and the website for John Oliver's New York Stand-Up Show didn't help me out on that front. And don't bother asking me what comedians I saw; I'm not really sure of that either. Overall, however, it was a fun experience with a good bunch of coworkers at an excellent price.

Sunday Night with the Upright Citizens Brigade

The one thing that's been on my New York to-do list the longest finally got checked off on Sunday: a visit to the Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre.

The theatre is well-known for its improv and stand-up shows that rarely cost more than $10 bucks a pop. Paul's friend Ryan was visiting from Columbus, so we decided to check out the free Sunday night show.

I'm not sure why it was free, because I gladly would have paid. In fact, you reserve your tickets online for most UCB shows and then pay when you get there. Not this one. We got to the theatre a little after 7 p.m. so we could snag tickets when they were released at 8:15 for the 9:30 show.

So there was a lot of waiting. The worst part: a pop-up shower forced wimpy ol' me into a nearby grocery store while Paul and Ryan held my place in line. The best part: The guy behind us in line was celebrating his birthday with friends and gave us some leftover donuts.

I love New York.

Our reward for waiting was Horatio Sanz (of SNL fame) and Jack McBrayer (Kenneth on "30 Rock") along with a handful of lesser-known but just as talented comedians in a two hour improv show.

The theatre was tiny -- only about 150 seats. Actually, about the only way our seats could have been worse is if we wouldn't have had any -- and there were plenty of people standing. Even still, we were three or four rows from the stage, so close that our location on the far left didn't really matter. And the $3 PBRs helped.

All in all, I had a great time, and Paul and I left wondering why we'd never done it before. We'll definitely do it again.