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In the late ’80s, L.A. performance artist and musician Craig Roose took his breezy, ‘60s-obsessed “drag” character “Miss Summer Caprice” to the airwaves, making “her” the star of his music and comedy cable TV show, Decoupage! With Summer Caprice!  PKM’s Anthony Mostrom dives deep into the obscure history of this pioneering public access cable program that was rich in colorful kitsch, and important musical guests like X, Redd Kross, L7,  Phranc, Julee Cruise…and even comedian Fred Willard. By the late 1980s, the punk scene in […] The post DECOUPAGE!: L.A. POST-PUNKS ON TV! SEALED WITH A KITSCH! appeared on PleaseKillMe.
Allan Sherman, a pudgy TV game show producer, dominated the pre-Beatles record charts with a string of hit singles and albums. His blend of post-Borscht Belt humor and pop-culture references, flavored by wit and warmth, found a ready audience in the early 1960s. He was a Mad Magazine feature come to life, counting Harpo Marx, Jerry Lewis, Jack Benny and JFK among his fans. He would go on to influence the likes of Weird Al Yankovic, Doctor Demento and The […] The post ALLAN SHERMAN: WEIRD AL’S FOUNDING ‘FADDAH’ appeared on PleaseKillMe.
The Mad genius (in more ways than one!) kept going after parting company with William Gaines, creating other bastions of enduring satire, cartoons and humor in the 1950s and 1960s, such as Humbug, Trump, and Help! Contributors included John Cleese, Terry Gilliam, Robert Crumb, Gilbert Shelton, Gloria Steinem, even Arthur C. Clarke and Ray Bradbury. It was the winter of 1964. I was about to turn 14. I was visiting my grandparents’ house in Bayonne, N.J., when, perhaps just a […] The post HARVEY KURTZMAN AND HIS CRY FOR HELP! appeared on PleaseKillMe.
Publisher/editor of The Realist, satirist, comedian, Merry Prankster, Yippie co-founder, and compatriot of a who’s who of the counterculture is still shocking all the right people at age 86. In the first part of this long interview, he talks about the founding of The Realist, the origins of the antiwar movement at Berkeley and his friend and collaborator Lenny Bruce. Reel One: Paul Krassner’s Vocabulary is Leaking How to describe Paul Krassner in a word? Legend? No, that’s too simple. […] The post ‘ZEN BASTARD’ PAUL KRASSNER HAS THE LAST LAUGH AND THE LAST WORD appeared on PleaseKillMe.
The brilliant cartoonist, comic strip artist, creator of Zippy the Pinhead, inspirer of Belushi/Ackroyd and keeper of the underground comix flame, turns his hand to his Levittown childhood and to the life and times of Schlitzie, circus sideshow star Bill Griffith, along with Robert Crumb, Spain Rodriguez, Victor Moscoso, Trina Robbins, Diane Noomin, Art Spiegelman and many other kindred spirits started a comic art revolution in America. They didn’t necessarily plan it that way, but such was the case. Once […] The post BILL GRIFFITH: THE VIEW FROM HIS COMIX OBSERVATORY appeared on PleaseKillMe.
SNL got all the ink but SCTV was the place for serious comedy in the 1970s. PKM revisits the funniest clips from the Great White North, featuring greats like John Candy, Eugene Levy, Andrea Martin, Catherine O’Hara, Rick Moranis and Harold Ramis It’s time to face the truth: Canadians are funny. Samantha Bee and Mike Myers have proven this, beyond any reasonable doubt, in the past few years. Bee, on her Full Frontal cable show, has us laughing nightly and […] The post WHEN SCTV RULED THE WORLD appeared on PleaseKillMe.
Longtime singer, bawdy comedian, and retro icon Rusty Warren talks about her career, the Pomp Room in Phoenix, the early days of Las Vegas and the unbreakable bond among veteran female performers by Burt Kearns and Jeff Abraham Rusty Warren is sitting in a Polly’s Pies restaurant in southern California in the early weeks of 2018. Her once-fiery red hair is now snow white. There’s a bottle of oxygen standing by where a fifth of bourbon may have once balanced […] The post RETRO ICON RUSTY WARREN – THE ‘KNOCKERS UP’ GAL! appeared on PleaseKillMe.