When Louis C.K. said he’d grossed more than $1 million off his self-released, $5 stand-up special, “Live at the Beacon Theater,” the question wasn’t “Would others fo...

Watching “Key and Peele,” Comedy Central’s latest attempt to replicate the success of “Chappelle’s Show,” I couldn’t help but think about how long it’s been si...

When Wanda Sykes walked onto a D.C. stage in 1987 to do stand-up for the first time, she had never even set foot in a comedy club. Sykes, then 27, had just quit her day job at...

I never planned on visiting “Cougar Town.” When the series premiered in 2009, the idea of a sitcom about Courteney Cox chasing younger men had all the appeal of watching J...

Some of the best comedy comes in small packages. Whether it’s a “Saturday Night Live” skit or that joke you tell all your friends, humor is often most effective when kep...

John Mulaney could be the next breakout star of “Saturday Night Live.” The only problem: Most people who watch “SNL” don’t know who John Mulaney is. A writer for the...

Stephen Colbert might run for president. But is this just another publicity stunt, or is Colbert really going to be on the ballot? It doesn’t matter. Colbert is exposing the...

When IFC changed its slogan to “Always On. Slightly Off.” in 2010, it signaled the network’s transition from movie channel to home of quirky, underappreciated comedy ser...

In his first book, “The Nerdist Way” ($25, Berkley), comedian Chris Hardwick describes a Nerdist as “an artful nerd.” A Nerdist “doesn’t just consume,” he writes...

Comedian Billy Eichner is a game show host for the Twitter generation. On “Funny or Die’s Billy on the Street,” (Fuse, Thursdays, 11 p.m.), the Upright Citizens Brigade ...

Louis C.K. was already my favorite thing about comedy in 2011. Had there been any doubt, though, Dec. 10 would have settled it. That Saturday, he started selling his fourth st...

The title of the Second City’s new show at Woolly Mammoth doesn’t refer to the play itself but life in general. “Spoiler Alert: Everybody Dies” (through Jan. 8) remind...

It was hard to watch this past Thursday’s Christmas episode of “Community” without thinking about the NBC sitcom’s hiatus. So on second viewing, I tried to see “Regi...

When Dane Cook appeared on FX’s “Louie” last summer as himself, it felt like the beginning of the maligned comic’s redemption. Here was the most-popular and the most-h...

Marc Maron will be the first to admit he’s kind of a jerk. “That’s been a lifelong struggle,” says the 48-year-old comedian and podcaster. “For a good part of my lif...