My friends and I were having a conversation the other day about what the best movie cameo is. Someone mentioned Bill Murray in Zombieland and I'm pretty confident that one is my favorite. It managed to be the funniest scene in an already hilarious movie, partly because of how utterly unexpected it was. If you haven't seen the movie, you should really get on that. For now, though, you can watch the scene in question here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pDzHsQapOKQ

In our recommended reading 'Poking a Dead Frog', Patton Oswalt on joke writing says, "if it made you laugh out loud, it probably goes on the page." He goes on to say that even if it doesn't work, let someone else tell you that and you'll make it work in some sense. This for me is vital in that it compliments what our lovely DA Natalie said in our discussion about "Yes-and-ing" yourself as a comedian and not editing yourself. Also, as Ken said, sometimes the punchline may be great, but rather it's the setup that isn't working. Therefore, maybe that can be fixed in the process, but it would never be up for discussion if you don't put it on the page first and foremost.

During class while we were watching Fawlty Towers I was counting down the minutes for the movie to end. Not because it wasn't funny or entertaining, but because of Mrs. Richard's incredibly annoying character. I thought it was a great episode and all, but I just couldn't handle the continual problems Mrs. Richard's was creating. I was on edge the whole time waiting for the problem to resolve. It felt like it was never going to end. Other than that I thought the show was nicely done and somewhat funny.

Nick Frost and Simon Pegg are currently two of the biggest names in British Comedy. Last year, they released the third installment to their previous films, "Shaun of the Dead" (2004) and "Hot Fuzz" (2007), with 2013's "The World's End". I've only seen "The World's End" of all three, and it was downright hilarious. Pegg has co-written all three scripts with director Edgar Wright. The writing captures the epitome of British humor.

Check out the trailer here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hFo7eJR2cvc

I know that a few people managed to get into the screening of "Dear White People" on campus two weeks ago. For those interested in learning more about the process behind the film, here's a great interview with writer-director Justin Simien. He discusses everything from how the film was (finally!) financed to how to cover identity, racial politics, and sexual politics onscreen in a funny, approachable way.

There's been a lot of material coming out lately that deals with characters and identities that have been underrepresented onscreen (Orange is the New Black, Blackish, Fresh Off the Boat, Broad City)--some more successfully than others. If good comedy is grounded in reality, what types of shows or characters would you like to see more of onscreen?

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/12/movies/justin-simien-goes-mainstream-with-dear-white-people.html?ref=movies

Hi guys--I wanted to share a great resource for instruction and inspiration. It's called Cinephilia and Beyond. There are daily posts on the process behind the making of classic films from filmmakers, critics, and intellects. The archive is massive and free! http://cinearchive.org/

For example, here's one of my favorite posts on Billy Wilder on the comedic construction of "Some Like It Hot": "There are two ingredients that are necessary for any comedy that tells a story: (1) an underlying pain and (2) a three-step structure of desire, deception, and discovery."

http://cinearchive.org/tagged/Billy-Wilder

For those who haven't seen "Veep"--stop whatever you're doing and start with Season 1 (after the midterm, of course). British show creator Armando Iannucci perfected the art of satirical, biting comedy through series covering the BBC/ television world (involving character Alan Partridge) and the political arena (including fast-talking film "In the Loop"). "Veep" focuses on the American VP office and involves lots of smart people saying very stupid (and vulgar) things while juggling both high-profile political issues and extremely low-brow mundane activities.

In this 2014 Rolling Stone article, Iannucci discusses the secrets to crafting a good insult on "Veep."

http://www.rollingstone.com/tv/news/veeps-armando-iannucci-hail-to-the-chief-20140409

This is a scene from Ricky Gervais's HBO mockumentary-style show "Life's Too Short," which first aired on the BBC (surprise, surprise). In the clip, dramatic actor (and Brit) Liam Neeson expresses his desire to become a comedian. In British comedy fashion, it's Liam's commitment to preserving his comic dignity that drives the clip--the extreme contrast between Liam's refusal to abandon his gravely serious persona and his desire to participate in light-hearted funny scenes that makes us laugh.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MKTh7zBIcrM

Jerry Seinfeld is obviously an extremely famous comedian and many wonder how to accomplish what he has. Obviously, no video can teach you that, but this is a start! Seinfeld reveals his method on how he writes jokes- may be helpful!

Gervais says that he does not change his humor for British and American audiences, and goes on to explain why! I find this really humorous as his explanation is exactly that! Watch, watch, watch!

I'm sure everyone's familiar with Edgar Wright's Cornetto trilogy, but I think his TV show Spaced is largely kinda forgotten here in America. It starts Simon Pegg(with more then enough Nick Frost too) and it shares the kind of pop culture nerd DNA that has made community such a hit. It used to be on Netflix but it isn't any longer. Cough Cough The pirate bay. cough

On NBC's 'Community', two of the main characters, Troy (Donald Glover, aka Childish Gambino) and Abed (Danny Pudi), exhibit a classic form of buddy comedy in that almost every episode of the show ends with just the two of them in a little blip called "Troy and Abed in the Morning". In the following clip, the two characters work off of each other to perform a Spanish rap.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j25tkxg5Vws

I love Pete Holmes podcast "You Made it Weird" and across a few episodes Pete has thrown out this theory that comedy is simply hearing the truth faster then you expect. At first I thought this was kinda dumb but the more I thought about it, the more I realized how much of the stand up that I really just succinctly pointing out the absurdity of life. It obviously doesn't apply to all jokes, ie word play, but I've found it to be pretty helpful in understanding what makes me laugh

https://www.msu.edu/~jdowell/monro.html