Comedian and opening act for the late Sam Kinison, Carl LaBove claimed in court that the child that he has paid child support to his ex-wife for years was actually fathered by Kinison. The notorious Kinison died in a car crash in 1992.

La Bove, claims that he is obtained DNA test results that prove Kinison as the father. DNA tests taken from Kinison’s brother Bill allegedly show a 99.8 per cent likelihood the late comedian is the father of the unnamed offspring, who is now 21, it was reported in various news outlets. The test results also rule out any possibility La Bove is the father according to the claim.

La Bove has been paying maintenance for nearly 13 years after splitting from the girl’s mother, but he has now filed legal papers claiming the child is Kinison’s. There is speculation that La Bove came clean after such a long time because he hopes this news will free him from years of unpaid child support penalties.

As the speculation swirls in the media, Punchline Magazine reports that on Monday, an episode of WTF with Marc Maron will go live, wherein Maron sits down with La Bove to get the full story.

Tune in Monday for the link to Punchline Magazine’s exclusive audio clips!

While we wait for the real story, watch this signature Kinison routine, “Jesus Didn’t Have A Wife” (As for most of Kinison’s work, it’s NSFW)

An AmericasComedy.Com Interview

Andy Kindler likes to say that he has kept his career “under the radar.” As the voice of “Mort the Mortician” in Fox’s newest animated TV series, Bob’s Burgers, Kindler might not be the most recognizable person on the street.

Many people recognize him from his supporting roles in Everyone Loves Raymond, the Late Show with David Letterman (as Letterman’s “special reporter”) and even as “Chancellor Tootietootie” on Disney’s Wizards of Waverly Place.

However, for someone who has flown “under the radar,” Kindler is a substantial contributor to laughter in America, in general, and to the industry of comedy, in particular. And he’s gaining hilarious momentum. Comedy aficionados will immediately recognize Kindler as one of three judges of Season 7 of NBC’s Last Comic Standing, along with the late Greg Giraldo and Natasha Leggero.

Kindler is definitely a comedian in motion. Add to his portfolio that he is the annual presenter of the “State of the Industry” keynote of the Just For Laughs Comedy Festival in Montreal; and that he was a guest of such comedic shows as The Green Room with Paul Provenza on Showtime, Kevin Pollak’s Chat Show and Jimmy Pardo’s Never Not Funny podcast.

Recently, AmericasComedy.Com had the opportunity to speak with Andy Kindler about his experiences, the wisdom he has gained from longevity in the industry, and other stuff, too.

So how was your Last Comic Standing experience?
“It was amazing! I was very hesitant to do it. I’ve made fun of the show for so many years. I cannot stand contests, in general. But then, NBC offered me money and then, all of a sudden, things changed a little bit.”

Did you agree with the ultimate outcome?
“The fact of the matter is that Felipe [Esparza, the winner] is someone I really had to turn around on because, when he first entered the contest, I was really not excited about his act. I felt like maybe he was just doing this as a stereotype, but as he went along I realized he was the real deal. So I really felt like he came by it honestly.  As I travel around the country, I seem to hear that everyone wanted Tommy Johnagin to be the winner.”

In watching the season of Last Comic Standing, there were a lot of cattle calls, people sleeping outside waiting for an audition. How was that?
It was tiring, there’s no doubt about that. There were a lot of people who camped out and people who waited in line for hours, and there were also people who scheduled auditions. But there were no disagreements at all through he process. The network and the producer all agreed on what was happening. There were times when it was painful, with some people doing the old jokes about ethnicity and such. And there were certain themes I found disturbing that some of the comedians were touching on.”

What themes did you find disturbing?
“There are a lot of people doing jokes about the homeless, which I guess could be funny. But it just seemed like you can tell that we’re going through a weird time economically. It seems strange to me that suddenly the homeless become ‘the man’ so, you know, let’s gang up on them. That being said, I could never audition for a show like this.”

Why, because your act is so improvised?
“No, not because of that. A lot depends on where you are in your career. When I first started, we all did comedy contests. When I started, the San Francisco Comedy Competition was very well respected so I kind of had a good view of contests early on. I even won a local competition at the Ice House. But once you have some visibility, it becomes more problematic to do these contests. It also depends on the act. When Todd Glass was in it [Last Comic Standing -- Seasons 2,3], he was so funny, there was no way he couldn’t look good doing it. I don’t think I would look good in that ‘competing for comedy’ atmosphere.”

Since Dat Phan won in Season One, do you think it’s possible for an unknown comic to get into the finals or win?
“I think it’s extremely hard. It’s not like Dat Phan didn’t have a ton of material, and I’m using my sarcastic font now. Take a show like American Idol. I think that that show can only produce a great musician based on volume. Bob Dylan, the Beatles, Elvis Costello could never have emerged from a contest like that.

Stand-up is different. Stand-up requires time to get good at. You could be the most hilarious person in the world and still it takes you . . . well, except for people like Dave Chapelle and other people who were funny the first time on stage, people who were born to be there . . . it takes a long time to develop. For me, I’ve been doing this for twenty-six years and I’m still growing, so I think it would be very hard for an unknown person to win.”

You wrote the the very funny article called The Hack’s Handbook for National Lampoon back in the early 90s didn’t you?
Yeah. In 1991, right when stand-up comedy was booming everywhere and there was so much hack comedy out there. Even a few of my friends were able to contribute. The article was a listing of every cliché and hack line that had been used by comedians for years. From dog/cat, man/women comparisons to ‘I’m half [ethnicity] and half [ethnicity], so combined, I’m . . .’ jokes.”

So, there’s Andy Kindler the actor, the comedian, and the “comics’ comic.” It’s almost as if you have three careers in one. You have been featured on so many other comedian’s podcasts and TV shows. How much fun was it being on Paul Provenza’s showtime series, The Green Room?
“That was so much fun! You really have to hand it to the editors of that show. They do an amazing job. We talked for a long time and some of it was very disorganized. I really didn’t know how it was going to look, so I thought that it was so cool that they were able to put it together in a way that was so perfect.

Paul is a great guy who’s been around for a long time. Nobody knows more. In 1991, I was a guest on another of Paul’s shows where he interviewed comedians called Comics Only.  I remember we were talking about The Hack’s Handbook. I was doing examples from the article, but the people in the audience didn’t get that this was hack-y. So I had to explain it to them. I looked over at Paul and I’ll never forget that he just looked at me, shrugged and said, ‘You’re on your own man. You wrote it!’ ”

Every year for the last fifteen years, you’ve done a one-hour “State of the Industry” address at the Just for Laughs Comedy Festival where you basically bust balls about fellow comedians and people in the industry. How did you get that gig?
“I first did it in 1995 and it was just one of those things . . . I would never in a million years project that it would happen more than once. Again, this is all from the National Lampoon thing [Hack's Handbook] because I had done a live demonstration up in Montréal on how to be a hack. I was with comedians Patton Oswalt and Blaine Capatch and we had people demonstrating how to be a hack comic. It was really fun. Then the head of the festival, Bruce Hill, said, ‘Why don’t you come back and do another speech next year?’ My manager, who was my agent at the time, came up with the term, “State of the Industry,” which I thought was a great name. So I do one of those things every year. I do material that is all new . . . and hit and miss!

There’s stuff that I develop all year long about the business that goes right into the speech. But I can’t fill out an hour with that, so I read articles and I go off on different tangents. It has just been amazing!”

You work for NBC, CBS, Fox and others, yet you take them to task. Have you ever gotten any industry blowback?
“I was thinking about this the other day. The worst blowback is the stuff I never hear about. You know, the times I haven’t been called in. It’s one of those things where, when I got into the territory of making fun of other people in the business, I couldn’t turn back. One line that Letterman has that I love is when he does a mean joke, he says, “Oh, I’m sorry. I thought this was a roast.” I’m hoping that that is the way people take it.”

But isn’t your address just like a roast?
“I have found over the years that the stuff that’s pure anger is inappropriate. I understand why I’m doing it, but it doesn’t work as well as stuff that’s lighter at the end. If it’s funny enough, then it takes the sting out of the meanness or my anger about it. So, it really depends. As I do it year after year, I become better at identifying when it’s just my anger and whether it might need another year to percolate.

Giving the address has taught me so much about how to do comedy or how to organize my stand-up because one of the reasons why people don’t progress doing stand-up is that they don’t write down everything. I have a joke where I tell people, ‘I have a reality show with my wife. It’s called Don’t Write That Down.’ I tend to write down half-baked ideas and she tries to stop me. A lot of comics judge the joke before they write it down, but that’s bad — so I write down everything that I think is funny. Giving The State of the Industry address taught me to put a date on it so that I can go back later and see what might not be funny. Something that happened in the business today might not be that funny come July. Again the main thing is to make sure that it’s not just pure anger.”

So how do you prepare for a performance? Do you have a set list that you follow or you just go with a few basic premises?
“Almost everything I have is in a joke form. I have always admired people like Kathy Griffin who can really launch into an antidote and fill it out and make it hilarious, but I find that very hard to do. What I have are jokes. So what I do before I go on stage is take index cards, I have hundreds and thousands of index cards, where I’ve written down all my ideas. I might plan the first couple minutes, but I always hope that the material lends itself to the environment. I try to do jokes that aren’t too old, although I will do any joke if it comes up in the right atmosphere. So I will do twenty-year-old jokes. And I will do impressions of my mother.”

So isn’t it a bit hack-y for a Jewish man to do jokes about his mother?
“When I first met my wife back in 1992, I bombed all the time. It just happened to be a point in my career where it was bomb city. But the one bit that she loved, well, that she said she loved, was about my mother coming to California and sitting in a restaurant (this actually happened) — she looked at the menu and then looked at me and said, ‘Andy, you live in California. How are the fajitas?’”

You grew up on the East Coast. When did you come over to Southern California?
“I went to college in upstate New York, in Binghamton. I graduated in 1978 and then, a couple of months later, I drove all the way cross country with a girlfriend who wanted to break up with me at the time.”

So you kidnapped her and took her across the country?
“No, it was more like I tried to repair the relationship. You know how that works. But it was pretty amazing. I used to think of myself as being on the cowardly side, but there’s definitely a certain amount of bravery required to drive across the country and starting brand new.”

We’ve uncovered a couple of fun facts about Andy Kindler. One is that you are a black belt in tae kwon do. Is this true?
“That is true. I would not want to brag about it because I wouldn’t want people to assume that I could defend myself. I took tae kwon do because I’m 5′ 5 1/2″ and I was always scared of physical provocations. I just couldn’t go my whole life without knowing how to defend myself. It’s pretty amazing.”

You also used to play classical violin?
“Yeah, that is sad. I played classical violin from the fourth grade through college. I didn’t love it enough though, and then I got into ‘regular music.’ My wife tells me not to use the term ‘rock music’ anymore because it dates me.”

If you were in a room full of fledgling comedians and were asked to give them advice about growing their career, what would you tell them?
“That it is a hard thing — especially now when so many people are struggling. I’ve been making a living since 1987 and it is still feast or famine. What I think people can do is give themselves a break on their own path.

One of the things I feel very lucky about was that, when I first moved to LA, I moved just to move here. I had a couple of things that I wanted to do. I wanted to be in a rock band and I wanted to do acting and stuff. But I think the technique of stand-up only develops from doing it. There really is no other way. That’s the bummer. That’s the trouble with living in a city where there aren’t a lot of places to play. This can be limiting in the beginning. I think that people should just try anything and don’t judge themselves too much.”

Do you think some of the problem is that people look at comedians like Dane Cook and think that success can come quickly and easily?
“Yes, look at Dane Cook [Kindler has been very outspoken regarding Cook's meteoric rise to fame].  He was so involved and all about his career, that it so obviously became not about the act. Also, I always thought it was weird that Jim Carrey once wrote a $20 million check to himself [to visualize his future earnings per movie]. Personally, I would try to come up with the funniest material.

I would also tell them to remember that you are doing it [comedy] for the same reasons that you did it when you were ten-years old. You are doing it to get noticed and recognized. I think anyone who says that they don’t want to be recognized on the street isn’t really telling the truth. I was lucky enough to be friends with Zach Galafianakis before he got famous, so when I was out with him after he became so recognizable, I saw how bad this could get. Luckily, I’ve kept my career under the radar.”

Since the airing of Last Comic Standing and Bob’s Burgers, we doubt that Kindler is flying under any comedy lovers radar.

Enjoy this clip from Kindler’s second Comedy Central Presents special.

An AmericasComedy.Com Interview

Whether she’s playing a hooker in the Cohen brothers’ film Fargo, headlining comedy clubs across the country, starring in a one hour comedy special, hosting CMT’s Country Music Awards Red Carpet Show, or watching her on re-runs of the hit sitcom Reba, Melissa Peterman never fails to dazzle.

Peterman is now starring in her own show, CMT’s first scripted show, “Working Class.” The sitcom debuted on Friday with the first two of 12 episodes. The show stars Melissa Peterman as Carli Mitchell, a working class single mom with three children, who moves into a rich neighborhood in search of better opportunities.

The show sports a supporting cast that includes star Ed Asner as her cranky opinionated neighbor, co-worker and Korean War vet, Steve Kazee as Carli’s rock-star-turned-community-college student brother who is allowed to crash with his big sis in exchange for help with the kids, (when he isn’t being one himself), Lachlan Buchanan as Carli’s athletic and hunky clueless old son, Courtney Merritt as Carli’s brainy daughter, who hides her insecurities about not fitting in behind her wry sense of humor, and Cameron Castaneda as Carli’s adorable six-year-old caught between his mom wanting to keep him her “baby” boy and her teaching him how to “man” up.

Rounding out the cast is Patrick Fabian who plays Rob Parker, Carli’s polished, Ivy League boss who finds his straight-laced world upended by Carli’s unconventional and offbeat charms.

AmericasComedy.Com caught up with Peterman by phone to personally congratulate her on her stunning debut.

Melissa, I just read a press release that said:  “CMT’s first scripted series Working Class has broken a record for the network as it’s Friday night January premiere was the highest rated, most watched series debut in CMT history.”   What do you have to say to that?
Isn’t that fantastic?

Yes, 6.7 million people seem to agree…
You do things and then you wait for everyone to see it. Its like you wait to show the world your baby and you just don’t want them to think that your baby is ugly!

Have you already wrapped up the whole season?
Yup, we filmed all 12 starting in October and we finished December 19th. It was fast and furious but we pulled it off.

Have they renewed the show for next season?
We haven’t heard yet but all signs point to the positive that we will be doing a second season. Nothing is official but we are hoping that people keep watching and we want to do more. We just have so much fun. I mean, I’m telling you, getting to work with Ryan Stiles [in the second episode] was just a dream come true.

So my wife, who is one of your biggest fans, feels that the name of the show should be “The Melissa Peterman Show” or maybe just, “Melissa.”
(laughing).. Well, lets wait until Season 4 and then maybe we’ll do that.

So how’s the swag looking these days? Are the network executives doing your shopping and washing your car yet?
One of them right now is rubbing my feet, which is fantastic! (shouting) Hey! You missed a spot!

I got to tell you I am a little jealous of Jim, your prop man. In the Working Class Facebook page, you spend a lot of time with him letting him pick and model your wardrobe!
Well, if you were in town you could be trying on my dresses too. Because you are my nugget.

I am and will always be… thank you. Last week’s guest star was Ryan Stiles and in this week’s episode you feature John Schneider, Kathy Kinny ..uh..and someone else…
Ummm, it rhymes with Meba. She’s a red head, I guess she’s a singer of some sort…

Oh, REBA!
And apparently she’s pretty funny.

On the hit show, Reba, you played Reba’s ex-husband’s new wife. I heard that there is going to be a similar role reversal in the episode that she plays in.
Yeah, she’s playing the new girlfriend of my ex-husband, played by John Schneider and so its a complete role reversal. She’s a little more sassy then the Reba people know from TV. So we kinda get down and dirty and we get to wrestle in the ball pit. You can’t beat that!

Did I also read somewhere that there might also be mud wrestling in a future episode?
Yeah, it’s pretty much that I want to wrestle in all sorts of mediums, (laughing). So we got to do ball pit and mud wrestling. The cool thing about the mud wresting episode is that the woman who played, I think the character’s name is Tammy, is actually Patrick Fabians wife. Patrick Fabian plays my boss and it was his wife Mandy, who played the character. Mandy is a hilarious, hilarious actress/comedian in her own right.  So when the role came up, of course we said that she should do it. It’s all in the family.

In the first two episodes you seem to blow off a suitor in each. Is this going to be like a rejection of the week or is your boss going to develop into a love interest?
Well, the whole storyline between Patrick and I was to give the whole “Sam and Diane” [from Cheers] kind of feel about it. We both at some point realize that we’re probably ‘meant to be..’ but there are always obstacles in the way.

I knew that I wanted him [Fabian] as soon as we were picked up [by CMT]. I was like, ‘this is the guy who has to do it’ as he just looks like he smells rich. He smells like money. I’m sure that when he smiles, there is actually a twinkle. He’s just so perfect at it. We have a lot of fun and the season finale is a big cliffhanger between us and our relationship.

It’s kind of fun to play a girl that has guys who like her and they have to like her because it says so in the script (laughing). It’s pretty awesome. In Reba, I was married to Brock and I never had suitors. So I was really nervous, like when Ben came on to play Buddy as my suitor [in the first episode], it was just so weird to me to have those scenes with a guy. Usually my romantic scenes with guys are always pretty funny or comedic and I have a couple of very real ones [romantic scenes] coming up. I realized that in ‘normal life’ I am a horrible flirt-er.

The writers of the show must know you well. They seem to have written that show just for you. Did they just follow you around?
When Brad Johnson, who is the VP of Comedy at CMT, read the script, he said ‘ this sounds like Melissa.’  The writer is Jill Cargerman and when I met with her, we really clicked and we would meet periodically in order to infuse her already brilliant scripts with my point of view such as the way I talk and react. The whole process with the writers was very collaborative.

Is your show recorded in front of a live audience?
Because the schedule was so fast, literally doing 2 episodes every 7 days, we did not have a studio audience. I didn’t think I could pull it off because you know me, I feed off of the audience and the energy. But the reality was that while I missed them for their energy and response, it allowed us to work things out more out on the floor during a scene that we wouldn’t normally get to do.

With such an accelerated schedule, thank God we had the crew that we did. From the camera guys, to wardrobe, everyone was from the top of their profession. If it had not been for them we could not have done it. We went from a beautiful grocery store and then to a mud pit, then to a kids arcade with a ball pit, to a dentist office. And they’re doing it with no lag time! There were times when we would finish an episode and they would be working all night. Once, we walked in the next day and there was a whole Renaissance fair.

Though I’ve only seen the first two episodes (because CMT publicity seem to have lost my e-mail), the sets I’ve seen look fantastic. I actually thought you were filming inside of a real dentist office.
I’m going to fix that. Heads will roll.  Literally we were filming a scene in the living room and the director would yell ‘cut!’ and you would immediately hear the saws and hammers going off next to our set as they were building the dentist office. They even had a ‘dentist expert’ come in and show Ryan how to hold the instruments. My big disappointment though was that it wasn’t real laughing gas. I requested it but they didn’t give it to me.

In the opening episode we saw Ed Asner briefly and he didn’t appear in the second episode. So is he just a figure head or is he in more episodes?
When Ed was originally hired, as he’s a legend and always busy, we knew we couldn’t get him for all 12 episodes but I think he is in nine of the 12.  I’m hoping next season that we do all 12 out of 12 with him because there is no one I would rather play with than Ed Asner.

I still think you stole the show.
You’re sweet. I was so intimidated meeting him for the first time. But he was lovely and so generous and the first person to say, ‘this is your moment, your scene.’ He loves to let everyone shine and also, he’s hilarious!

I also read that CMT has picked up your show, “The Singing Bee” for a third season?
Yes, we just got picked up for our third season and we’re going to begin filming ten new episodes this month.

Wow, you are busy! What’s next, a feature film?
Well, I could find some free time for George Clooney. I’m still touring with Reba and George Strait, I still have plans to finish up my comedy album and being a mom. Well, maybe I don’t have time for the film. ‘Sorry George, you missed out!’

I remember when you signed with Big Machines Records last year. When is your comedy CD debuting?
I did a bunch in the studio before I started taping Working Class and then it got pushed to the side when the show got picked up. So, I am hopefully going to Nashville the end of February and, this is sooo unofficial, I am hoping for a Mother’s Day release in May of this year.

Your fan base has just exploded. I think you now have almost 22,000 followers on Twitter. Impressive!
So much of getting the word out for Working Class I owe to them. They have been phenomenal. I have one awesome fan, Robin, who made me Working Class magnets and buttons! If I could go and visit each one of them and bring them a cake, I would! They have been awesome. Well, a cake that I didn’t bake, I bought.. cause I don’t bake.

How has your husband John and son Riley handled your full schedule?
John has been great about picking up a lot of the slack while I was doing the show. Around Thanksgiving, he just put a blond wig on a blow up doll and told Riley that that was Mommy. No one noticed that it wasn’t.. (laughing).

I think that we are all just really excited about ‘that thing where you dream about something happening and it didn’t happen when you thought and you waited and then when it did, it was better than you ever dreamed it was going to be, and the timing was perfect and it is the project that you were supposed to wait for. I really feel that this is the one.

So do we Melissa, so do we!

Watch Melissa’s show, Working Class on CMT every Fridays at 8:00 PM/ 7:00 Central

Here is a sneak peek at this week’s episode of CMT’s Working Class. Enjoy!

In one of Saturday’s sketches that the SNL crew aired was a commercial parody called “Estro-Maxx” which features men taking a daily estrogen pill to help the “average Joe” become a woman very quickly.

“You deserve to be in the body you want but most hormone replacement therapies require you to take five estrogen supplements a day…five! Who has time for that?” said SNL cast member Bill Hader who was playing a “pre-op transsexual” in the commercial.

Members of the transgender community are speaking out against the sketch, GLAAD reported on their blog, “This segment cannot be defended as “just a joke” because there was no “joke” to speak of. The attempted comedy of the skit hinges solely on degrading the lives and experiences of transgender women.”

Watch the controversial SNL sketch here, courtesy of Hulu.com

According to Sportsgrid.com, this isn’t the first time Tracy has called Palin “hot”. Last week Morgan talked about the former vice-presidential candidate again during TNT’s NBA pre-game talk, claiming that she is “great masturbation material,” leaving host Charles Barkley feeling a little uncomfortable.

Tracy Morgan is best known for this work in 30 Rock, Saturday Night Live, Death at a Funeral, and Cop Out.

Amazon.com Widgets

The comedian/political activist have recently used his show to promote a federal bill to treat workers who became ill from the World Trade Center dust.

National headlines are no biggie for Stewart because on his Emmy-winning show, The Rally to Restore Sanity/and or Fear with Steven Colbert, and he was even named “Man of the Year” in 2010 from askmen.com.

Check out AmericasComedy.com past story about the Rally in Washington.

http://www.americascomedy.com/thousands-gather-in-washington-to-restore-sanity/

Deadline HOLLYWOOD reported that Ferrell called the producers of the show because he is a fan and wanted to be a part of Steve Carell’s final season. Ferrell and Carell will work together once again just like old times from Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy.

“We found Steve Carell when he was nothing but a movie star and we turned him into a television star,” said The Office exec producer Paul Lieberstein. “We are proud to continue The Office’s tradition of discovering famous talent, and we hope that once America gets a good look at Will, they’ll see what we see, tremendous raw sexuality.”

NBC has picked up Are You There, Vodka? It’s Me, Chelsea, a new series inspired by Handler’s autobiography, an untitled project by Whitney Cummings about the good, bad, and ugly of everyday relationships, My Life as an Experiment with Jack Black about an eccentric magazine writer, and Brave New World by Peter Tolan that focus’ on a group of characters at a theme park.

So get ready to laugh until you cry with NBC!

An AmericasComedy.Com Interview

So what’s a good Sicilian girl from Cleveland doing in Meadville Pennsylvania? Being a wife, mother, stand-up comedian and reality show star. That’s what.

A comedienne for over 16 years, many of you know Tammy Pescatelli as  one of the top five finalists in NBC’s Last Comic Standing’s Season 2 in 2004 and again in 2005 as LCS alumni in Season 3. Pescatelli learned her funny skills growing up in a large Italian household outside of Cleveland.

With the success and exposure from Last Comic Standing, Pescatelli has won a slew of new fans, solidifying her as one of the sharpest women in the comedy world. Pescatelli just won “Comedy Central’s 2010 Stand-Up Showdown,” and has appeared twice as a guest on “The Tonight Show with Jay Leno.” She has also appeared on National Lampoons “Funny Money” and numerous appearances on the syndicated show “Comics Unleashed,” and was included in their “Best of the Best” worldwide top-selling DVD.

Pescatelli now balances her family and her growing career with a lot of laughs on WEtv’s new reality series, “A Stand up Mother.” Her show premieres on Tuesday, January 25, 2011 at 10 PM/9 Central.

Pescatelli and her husband moved from the city (LA) to the small town of Meadville, PA to raise their son. In 6 one hour episodes, the docu-series follows her life as she juggles a career as a stand-up comedienne, being a mother and a wife, and dealing with a large and funny extended family.

AmericasComedy.Com had an opportunity to talk to Pescatelli though she was a little late because she had to put her son, Luca down.

“When you say ‘you put him down,’ is  that in the taking a nap sense or in the Italian sense?” we asked.
(laughing)  “No, it’s naptime and you just have to take advantage of the quiet time when you can.”

So how did you end up going from Cleveland to Los Angeles to Meadville Pennsylvania?
“When I joke about my cousins in my act,  (10 boys and I’m the only girl), this is where we all lived. I remember it being a good time and a great childhood memory.

After Last Comic Standing, I was looking for a place to buy to just hang out and my brother got a coaching job here at the college and I said ‘ let’s just use this as a getaway place.’ The next thing you know, I’m married and pregnant and I decide Hollywood just isn’t going to work for the baby. So we came here [to Meadville] to stop over,  but by the time I had the baby, my parents and my other brother both lived here.”

Tell us a little bit about your experience at Last Comic Standing.
“Oh, it was a great experience. I’m still friends with Kathleen Madigan, ANT, Alonzo Bowden, John Heffron and the others from the show. As a matter of fact, both Kathleen and ANT did guest shots on my show. I was thrilled to be able to do that.  And Kathleen just spent the holidays with our family.”

Whose idea was it for your reality show?
“It was a pretty long process. I have a co-creator, Carla Kaufman-Sloan. She is an Emmy award winner for her TV game show called  ‘Street Smarts.’ While she had always been a fan of my act, she and I were living parallel lives. She got pregnant, her husband was a producer like mine, they married and she left Hollywood to raise a family, only they went to Florida.

When she heard my story, she just felt that ‘so many others are doing that and trying to still keep a balance.’ We were just of an age, that we were not ready to give up our careers yet.

So we came up with the idea and did the “March of the Networks.” We had a lot of interest but they weren’t sure what to do with us. One day, about six months later, we got a call from WEtv [Women's Entertainment TV Network]. It seems that our demo got hidden in someone’s desk drawer. When that person got let go, they found it when they were cleaning out the desk. They just popped it in and the whole office went crazy! We sold them the show a week later and three weeks after that we were filming.”

With all six episodes shot, are you hoping for a renewal?
“At best, I have the greatest home movies ever, but you have to be careful what you wish for. I always wanted my own TV show. I never knew I wanted it from my living room.’”

We once read that you decided to become a stand-up comic when you saw a woman comedian as a MC. Tell us about that epiphany.
“Well, I guess it’s basically like that. I always used to go to comedy clubs and would sneak in tapes [at home] because I wasn’t allowed to listen to Eddie Murphy, Rodney Dangerfield or Sam Kinison. My mom still cringes when she hears that but she had no idea.

I love stand-up, but it just never occurred to me because the women that I saw, I just couldn’t relate to. It wasn’t that they weren’t fantastic but, Joan Rivers was married with kids, exactly where I am now, but I couldn’t relate at the time. Roseanne was married with kids. I could never find anyone that I related to.

Then one day I went to a comedy club and this woman was working as the MC. She was a working comic and she wasn’t famous. I went, ‘Oh, my god, you don’t have to be famous to be a working comedian and you can be a woman,’ and I was just as funny as that girl. So, that’s how it all started.”

From that point, did you have to do do a lot of open mics and showcases? Was it a long trip to stardom?
“It was really simple. I did an open mic contest that was sponsored by radio station, they offered me the morning show on my very first day, so I went to morning radio as a sidekick and became a full-fledged co-host six months later. I made every mistake live on the air. Meanwhile, I was also doing open mics for those two years, and then became a house MC at a comedy club. I met so many  comedians that I started doing what you’re doing. I would bring them in on Friday, and interview them on the air. It was great for the radio but after two years I decided that this was not my goal so I quit the job at the radio station and went on the road. The first year I worked 38 weeks.”

Did you feel being a woman comedian helped or hindered your career?
“Well, for one thing, I made it a rule never to date another comic. Growing up with boys, I knew that if I dated one it would open the door to others saying stuff so I avoided it altogether. It was also very different 16 years ago. While all my friends were getting married, I was doing stand-up. The first baby shower I attended was my own.

I also never did “The Funny Women of Playboy,” when it was offered to me when I was 25 and my breasts were really high.  I  should have, because I would love to have some photographic evidence that they were that high.”

But, I never wrote my act like a woman, I always tried to write it as a comic. People used to give me a bad time about talking about being an Italian, and I would get upset thinking ‘I could be writing about chick stuff,’ but then, I realized that I just needed to write about what’s funny.  (laughing) Now I am on the Women’s Entertainment Network.”

I’m very blessed. Joan Rivers and I are the first women comics, in five years to lead their own shows. The last female comedian to get a TV show, excluding Chelsea Handler, because her’s is a talk show, but the last female comedian to have her own sitcom/reality show is Sarah Silverman and that was 7 or 8 years ago.”

You are now a wife, mother, stand-up comedian, reality TV star, movie actress and hard-ass poker player. If you could only do one role for the rest of your life, what would your choice be?

“I can’t just say one, I’ll take the ‘wife and mother’ because they are one and the same to me. That’s what it’s it all about. But  as long as I am my husband’s wife and this kid’s mother, the comedy is going to come.

View this ‘sneak peek’ of Tammy Pescatelli’s new show:

Listen and buy Tammy Pescatelli’s hit CD:

The filming of a pilot will begin in late February in Baltimore. Dreyfus will play a fictional Vice President Selina Meyer, a former senator, “who finds that being vice president of the United States is nothing like she expected and everything everyone ever warned her about.”

According to Big Hollywood, characters like “sharp-tongued chief of staff,”  ”a slobbish press secretary” and “the President, who is extremely unattractive and creepy, but hopes his role as a White House “big shot” will someday impress the chicks” are planned to dominate the small screen.

The state of Maryland will benefit financially if HBO picks up the pilot. The local officials are ready to greet the whole crew with open arms.

“Maryland has had a long and successful relationship with HBO,” said Gov. O’Malley in the statement. “We are pleased to welcome HBO back to our state for another first-class filming experience.”

Dreyfus is an American actress and comedian, mostly known for her roles of Elaine in a popular sitcom of 90s Seinfeld and Christine in New Adventures Of Old Christine.

Check out Julia Louis-Dreyfus on Inside the Actors Studio, courtesy of Hulu.com!