Comedy

Egypt's Jon Stewart Says He Won't Back Down Amid Charges

Leila Fadel — Wed, 24 Apr 2013 11:20:00 +0000

It's 9:30 p.m. on a Friday night, and Bassem Youssef's show is on TV screens at cafes throughout downtown Cairo.

It's the Egyptian political satirist's first show since he was summoned to the prosecutor general's office to answer questions about the jokes he makes on TV.

Funny Man Jonathan Winters Dies

Mark Memmott — Fri, 12 Apr 2013 17:28:00 +0000

Jonathan Winters, known to one generation for his 1960s comedy albums, frequent Tonight Show with Johnny Carson appearances and comic movie characters, and to another generation as Robin Williams' baby on Mork & Mindy, has died. The news is coming from The Associated Press, TMZ, the NPR Arts Desk and other news outlets.

Winters was 87. TMZ says he died Thursday night "of natural causes in Montecito, Calif. ...

'It's Pat' Creator Muses On Motherhood And Family Life

NPR Staff — Sat, 06 Apr 2013 12:55:30 +0000

Julia Sweeney is a figure of bicoastal sophistication. She's a comic actor who does one-woman shows about love, illness, faith and family. She's still remembered for creating the androgynous Pat on Saturday Night Live. She hobnobs with famously glamorous and witty people.

So how did it come to pass that she wound up in Wilmette, Il., driving a minivan and dreaming of solitude?

Rob Delaney Talks About Gratitude, Perspective, Spaceships And A Career With Teeth

Linda Holmes — Wed, 21 Nov 2012 22:01:00 +0000

Full disclosure: The first thing I said when I saw that Rob Delaney would be talking to NPR's Audie Cornish on today's All Things Considered was that I was curious to see whether he had ever said anything on Twitter — where he has almost 670,000 followers (including me) as of this writing — that they thought they could read on the radio. It's an exaggeration.

Comedy's Self-Deprecating Pioneer Phyllis Diller Dies

Elizabeth Blair — Mon, 20 Aug 2012 20:13:00 +0000

A queen of comedy has died. Phyllis Diller had audiences in stitches for more than five decades with her outlandish get-ups and rapid-fire one-liners. She died at her home, where she had been in hospice care after a fall. She was 95.

Diller was glamorously outrageous — or at least the character she created was glamorously outrageous, the one who wore wigs that made her look like she had her finger in an electrical outlet, who wore gaudy sequined outfits.