Headlines September 18 For One Night Only!

“Lady Business,” the name of the newest, and to our knowledge only, all-female improv troupe in the Sacramento area is quite the misnomer. These six very funny girls certainly aren’t “ladies” in the conservative, Emily Post kind of way.

We were able to meet up with this troupe of very sexy, very funny ladies as they were practicing together at the Sacramento Comedy Spot in mid-town in preparation for their fifth monthly appearance there on September 18th.

Improv-ers all, Micaela Smith, Mel Gelbart, Becca Costello, Brittany Birrer Stacy Beckley and Lisa Spivak constitute this hilarious and ribald troupe that presents a point of view that women can relate to and men can only fantasize about.

Using the long form improv style as their vehicle, the women break down their 40 minute show into two main categories. During the first half, the women each do monologues and group montages and in the second, they utilize the audience for ideas and concepts for them to create from.

The women are all veterans in improvisation and regular players at the Sacramento Comedy Spot. Birrer and Shultz are also full time members of the long running improv troupe, Anti-Cooperation League and many of the other members are regulars in the Comedy Spot’s Wednesday HAROLD night show and are all currently competing in the 3 on 3 competition at the mid town venue.

“We swear a lot but so far have not done any masturbation sketches,” Gelbart replied to our questions of what constituted a women’s point of view. “Not stupid boy humor,” added Shultz.

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In this segment however, we move to celebrate a very select few; the few that take that “best foot” and keep moving it forward; the ones that set aside a very low budget and a huge amount of time to produce that of the Webisode. This month we take you deep inside the psyches that created everybody’s favorite kid-brother to a Sith Lord, Chad Vader —Day Shift Manager.

Click Here To Watch The Chad Vader Video

Borne from the minds of Aaron Yonda and Matt Sloan, founders of Blame Society Productions, (www.blamesociety.net) Chad Vader – Day Shift Manager is a series of eight webisodes (so far) that follow Darth Vader’s younger sibling, Chad, (played by Yonda and voiced by Sloan) through the day to day on goings as the Day Shift Manager of Empire (Super) Market.

To date, Chad Vadar is Blame Society’s most popular feature, boasting over 20-million hits on Youtube and five-million on Myspace since launching in July of 2006. Aside from the Internet views USA Today, New York Times, VH1 and Good Morning America have recognized Chad’s creators for their successes in the “Web Realm.”
In 2007 Vader also picked up the “George Lucas Selects” award for the Star Wars Fan Movie Challenge, as Sloan was hired by Lucas Arts to be the voice of Darth Vadar in the “Empire at War: Forces of Corruption,” video game.

Yonda and Sloan’s joint movie making endeavors began in 2001, when their initial production goal was “to just make one movie a month,” said Yonda. “We started out making films because we just wanted to do it,” he added. “Like most people with their art, they do it because they almost have to.” “In the back of our minds we thought, “Sure, it would be cool to do this as a day job,” but were not going to expect that.” “That would be like lightning striking.” “But it did,” Sloan chimed in.

While Vadar’s fame continues to flourish, Blame Society stays busy with dozens of other projects. One being a mock court show, called McCourt’s in Session, where Sloan plays the Honorable Pontiff Leonard J. McCourt, an all/no-nonsense judge who hands down hilariously absurd verdicts with an almost Judge Judy meets George W. Bush air. McCourt’s was featured on VH1’s Acceptable TV in 2007 and is now available on DVD at Blame Society’s website.
Another popular feature on their site (and my personal favorite) is a mostly improv based show called Fun Rangers. Fun Rangers stars both Yonda and Sloan as a couple of nearly catatonic dullards that wonder through random scenarios while employing the hilarious improv technique of “Rolphing.” (See “Why Rolphing is funny part 1 & 2” at blamesociety.net for a full disclosure on “Rolphing.”)

Since receiving that afore mentioned flash of electricity, Yonda and Sloan have been producing films full-time over the past year and a half from their home state of Wisconsin. Surprisingly, the itch to move to LA hasn’t been too irritating for the pair. “Although we have made a hell of a lot of trips to LA, we’re doing so well here, we don’t really see a need to move,” said Yonda. Sloan added, “Right now, moving would kind of be a step backwards.” “We’re surrounded with such a great crew and good people.”

With plans for a “tongue in cheek” book on the “How to’s” of Internet Superstardom, and a few TV pitches in the works, (including a possible Chad Vadar pilot) Blame Society obviously doesn’t rely too heavily on the Hollywood springboard to get them where they want to be. In fact, Hollywood has been a bit of a hindrance.

After releasing the last episode of Chad Vadar season one, Blame Society was on an unintended break from production, mostly due to legalistic red tape. “Every time I’d read a post asking, “Where the fuck is season 2?” I’d cringe,” explains Yonda. “We were ready to go with the production of season 2 and then out of nowhere comes this TV offer and all the clearances that go along with that.” “We would also like to know when season 2 will be made,” added Sloan. “It’s either going to be made into a TV pilot or we’re just going to get tired of waiting and make it ourselves.”

Despite the Vadar hold up, Yonda and Sloan have been producing and pitching a number of sketch based television shows, as well as maintaining a web presence with a show called Celebrity Bric-a-Brac Theater and their latest cooking show web series called Thor’s Kitchen.

“We really don’t want to be just ‘the Chad Vadar guys,’” said Sloan. “A lot of people found our site because of Chad,” added Yonda. “Then they end up liking the other stuff more.”

Jamie Kennedy – Heckler- (movie review)

“Heckler” begins as an exploration into the relationship between hecklers and today’s top comedians like Patton Oswalt, David Cross, Nick Swardson, Bobby Lee, Bobby Slayton and many others. Sadly, it quickly turns into a film about Kennedy’s pathetic personal vendetta against the many critics of his other horrible movies.

The documentary works best when the comics are left to retell their harrowing stories from the road of their many encounters with raucous or drunk crowds.
The comedians tell very interesting and enlightening tales about their early days that really help the viewer understand what life as a comic is like. The film is billed as that. Supposedly this is a movie about comedians dealing with hecklers and experts telling us why people get the urge to heckle.

This is only the first quarter of the movie. Once this portion of the documentary ends, the film quickly delves into Kennedy’s film career and his comparison of film critics with hecklers. From here the movie is hard to watch. Kennedy pouts and whines his way through the rest of the documentary wondering why people and critics hate his movies. It is a spectacle and quite fascinating to see Kennedy confront critics like Richard Roeper on why they didn’t like his movies.

What begins as a good idea for a documentary only poses as a very thin veil for Kennedy to lash out at people that didn’t enjoy his movies. It is not a spoiler to say that Kennedy ends the film by burning a trash can full of scathing reviews of his movies. Surprisingly there is only one trash can. – B Yang

For a lot of our THC filled friends, that assessment couldn’t be further from a lie. But in the case of our latest cover boy Doug Benson, weed hasn’t slowed him a bit. In fact, his “interest” in cannabis has proved to be quite the business opportunity. (No, he’s not a drug dealer.)

Alongside being voted High Times’ “Stoner of the Year,” in 2006, Benson also created and produced a documentary called, “Super High Me,” which won the award for best documentary at the Stoney Awards in 2008.

Benson is also the co-creator of The Marijuana-Logues and appears regularly on VH1’s Best Week Ever, all while staying atop the stand up comedy circuit. He also had a Comedy Central Special come out last month and released his “Professional Humoredian” CD in 2007. His work ethic seems more like that of a methhead then a pothead to us here at SacramentoComedy, so here’s our attempt to straighten things out.

BTW, yes, you read it correctly. Benson’s film “Super High Me” won the award for best documentary at a festival called, “The Stoneys.” With a film called “Super High Me,” you might think that it would have been a sure-shot, but interestingly enough, it wasn’t.

“There were some serious documentaries it was up against, so they definitely had to make a decision if they wanted to go with a comedic one,” said Benson. “But in terms of getting the pro pot message out to the people, a lot of folks had seen Super High Me, so I guess it was hard for them to ignore it.” “It was good to win ‘Thee’ award,” Benson jokes. “Thee” only award I’d want to win.” The Academy can F-off,” he laughingly continued.

The film is based on a single joke by Benson, which entertained the notion of spoofing Morgan Spurlock’s 30-day McDonalds binge documentary, Super Size Me. Just as Spurlock dedicated his cause to fast food, Benson went on a “30-day off pot, 30 day on pot” experiment, to see what the affects would be on his body and mind.

“I’ve had some people suggest that I try smoking crack for a month or doing meth or something, but to that I say, ummm…‘I’m good.’” “Even, with alcohol that would be tough. I’m a vodka man, and I know that even after a day or two day of that, I’d be a mess,” added Benson.

“The irony of my career is, that comedy clubs really push alcohol.” “Being that I’m a ‘Stoner’ comic, I have had to throw people out of the show for being too drunk,” continued Benson. “I’ve never had to throw anyone out for being too stoned.”

“That’s the amazing thing about pot. I don’t think there’s any drug out there, that if you took it constantly for 30 days, that there wouldn’t be some serious consequences.” “Even that much coffee, or even in Spurlock’s movie with the fast food, it’s just clear that there so many other things out there that are so much worse than pot.” “I say half-seriously, that the only side affects to smoking pot constantly for 30-days, are weight gain and fun having.”

Although the agenda of the mainstream media may not see pot the same as Benson sees it, Benson tends to try and stay away from portraying himself as some Marijuana martyr.

“I’m not super political about it; I think it should be legalized.” “I have my medical marijuana license, so theoretically I do smoke legally,” Benson explains. “The movie is more about, the general acceptance of the notion that people can smoke pot and live normally.” “I wouldn’t say that it makes me super productive, because I do sit around a lot and watch movies and play video games.” “But things are going pretty well, and I smoke pot fairly consistently.” “Really the bottom line is, that it’s just a funny movie.”

All weed aside; Benson’s comedy routine is inspired from a lot of character-based acts from the past, while holding true to a somewhat amplified version of himself.

“One famous comedian goes around telling new comics to ‘just be yourself,’ but I think that advise is kind of misguided,” said Benson. “I don’t really have a specific comedy philosophy, except to just create a version of you, that you invented.” “There’s been plenty of successful comics that play a part,” he adds.

“Look at Don Rickles for instance, he doesn’t go around insulting people all the time, he’s a really nice guy.” “A lot of people think I’m the same off the stage as I am on, but that’s just because either I really am high, or I wrote the material while I was high,” Benson half-jokes. “I guess I lucked out, that I get to perform as who I am.”

We ran into Maria Bamford recently and asked her a few random questions!

SacComedy: I understand you have two pugs. Bert and Blossom. Is that true? If so, what are their names attributed to?
Maria: Yes.  It is true.  Blossom was named for the Power Puff (?) girls by my nephew, George.  Bert was named in order to save him from being called “Colby”- which is not his name at all.

SacComedy: Your old stomping grounds of Duluth Minnesota have been referred to as “The Air Conditioned City.” Besides that nickname, what are some other names that might represent Duluth better? And why?
Maria: Duluth- We can hear you. There’s no reason to yell. Duluth- It’s an International Port because of the St. Lawerence Seaway and all of that. Duluth- maybe you should think about going to AA. Duluth- Yes- you drove through there some time in the 80’s. There’s a lake. Right. You remember. That one restaurant by a bridge. Duluth- it’s getting real sophisticated nowadays.

SacComedy: I have a friend that has lived in Duluth for many years. His name is Lee Johnson. Do you know him?
Maria: I do not.  My Mom does.  She is connected to us all.

SacComedy: Your new album, “Unwanted Thought Syndrome,” is due out soon? Or is out already? Please tell me about it.
Maria: It is out now – it’s good and it’s named after the type of OCD I have called, “Unwanted Thoughts Syndrome”.

SacComedy: From the Comedians of Comedy Tour, if you were to pick between PattonOswalt, Zach Galifianakis and Brian Posehn and they were the last men on earth, which fellow would you choose to be your step-father and why?
Maria: Zach. He has a farm.

SacComedy: What other projects are in the works for you?
Maria: I’m writing a book on depression/mental illness and in the new Fox Animated Series “Sit Down Shut Up” as various side voices! Yay!

SacComedy: Who are some of you favorite comics…past and present?
Maria: Steve Martin, Eddie Murphy- currently- Patton Oswalt, Jesse Klein, Jimmy Dore, Jen Kirkman, Jackie Kashian, the list goes on!

SacComedy: Where is your favorite place in Northern California to perform?
Maria: San Francisco Sketchfest!

SacComedy: Besides cash, what do you get out of performing? And how has it changed since you started?
Maria: I get lots of approval and prestige and the feeling that I’m acceptable in some way- and checks, some small, some large. I also get some encouragement to be more self-absorbed than I already am. I may go the Cat Stevens route and go AWOL from showbiz. What has changed, is that I am less and less able to stay in certain Best Westerns, which seem to vary vastly in quality and upkeep. What has not changed, is my sense that the best is yet to come!

SacComedy: Maria, Wikipedia states that you attended Bates College in Lewiston, Maine. Now as most Americans know, Bates was founded in 1855 by abolitionists. Do you believe that the reason those “alleged” abolitionists decided to establish their institution in such a harsh climate, was because they knew that most African Americans are not well suited for the cold? Or do you think they truly were sincere in their abolitionist convictions?
Maria: Excellent point.  When I attended Bates, there were approximately 1 1/2 African Americans- all within the confines of a very tall man named Ollie. I think Bates does it’s best to convince most people not to come there by being enormously expensive and then once you get there, by putting you in a squashed 4-bunk dorm room with rich kids from The City.

SacComedy: If you weren’t a comic, what would you do for a living?
Maria: Type.  Listen.  Go on breaks.  Try.

SacComedy: What accomplishment are you most proud of in your life?
Maria: Keeping going and some participation in 12-step addiction groups for 18 years that shall remain nameless.  (so you can have fun guessing!)

SacComedy: What incident are you most ashamed of in your life?
Maria: Most recently, trying to control my mother’s need to ask questions about my roommate over the phone.  Who cares? Answer her questions, ding dong!  And then, over a lifetime, being late and/or cancelling things at the last minute with friends and professional bookings. This is an ongoing problem that I understand results from a Fear of Intimacy.

SacComedy: How attached to your pugs are you?
Maria: If they needed my kidney, I would definitely donate.
SacComedy: If one were to pass away in a horrible ice cream truck incident, what type arrangements would you make for it?
Maria: Well, that’s horrible to imagine, but I’d like to have a unplgged guitar burial featuring the chords of my dad and boyfriend- as we buried their shells and celebrated their spirits.

SacComedy: Are you the type of person that cares more for animals than people? If so, why? If not, then explain your version of why those sick individuals behave in such an unrefined, barbaric manner.
Maria: People are more important than animals.  That said, I’m a vegetarian, but if someone only has a ham for me to eat, I won’t turn it town or be weird about it.

SacComedy: Do you feel pretty in dresses or uncomfortable? Explain.
Maria: I love dresses.  I don’t wear them often- which must mean I feel uncomfortable, but I love dresses.

SacComedy: Advise for aspiring comedians?
Maria: Do it again and again and enjoy.

SacramentoComedy.Com’s John Ross spoke with Kate at her east coast office by phone. Her insights and musings are captured here.

Thirty years is a long time to work in any industry, especially the entertainment industry. You’ve got so many variables to sift through. Your own endurance, your world view, the world’s view of you, economic booms, recessions, MySpace, Facebook, Kanye West and the occasional  4 to 8 year change political power. Three decades worth of trends and regurgitated trends are enough to make you crazy or just plain forget that is was a trend in the first place.

Well, comedian Kate Clinton has not only weathered the above elements, but she’s packaged, produced and performed her way through them. She’s released eight comedy collections, four DVDs, three books and traveled ten national tours, all while finding time to make over 25 TV appearances, appear in eight films and stop off on Broadway for a bit to perform in The Vagina Monologues, Nothing Like A Dame and The Rocky Horror Picture Show. Oh and here’s the kicker, she’s not done yet.
Oh yeah, and the other kicker; she’s sustained her career all while being a lesbian activist.

The Crest Theater will be the next venue of her conquering later this week on Friday, September 25th, and it looks to be one of the final dates of her “Yes on K8″ tour that launched back in February.

Kate was kind enough to connect with us here at SacramentoComedy.Com this past week, revealing to us her past and present.

As far as the past goes, Kate’s struggles weren’t always as uphill as people would have expected for the times.
“Well, I think the great thing about being a lesbian comedian at the beginning was that no one ever stole my material,” Kate jokes. “I actually came up through a very vibrant, women’s music and cultural network in the 80′s, that allowed me to really work on my material.”

Kate added, “I think what I am now, is a representation of what the gay movement has done for the culture, which is that now more people know about gay people.” “Now I find that people get more nervous when I do political material than the gay stuff.” “I remember getting off stage after noticing that situation and thinking, ‘That was different.’” “People have become a lot less ‘homo-ignorant,’ which is great.”

When asked about if she or the gay comedy community was upset about Ellen DeGeneres initially taking the “lesbian reigns” and “stealing their thunder,” she responded with a laugh.

“I’m sure their were a lot of comics that thought they should have had that spot,  but as far as I was concerned, I was like, ‘The more the merrier.”

Kate shared a story of a newly “outed” gentleman she met in rural Ohio who was inspired to gradually come out as a result of Ellen’s revelation. “The great line that he used was, ‘It took an entire season,’” she laughed.

Being that Kate’s act is often politically based, her “soapbox” is never pushed as the selling point. Funny is always her priority. “I want people to laugh so hard that they need a medic.” She adds, “I remember going to a George Carlin show and I was way up in the back, but everyone in the place was laughing so hard that it felt like all of the oxygen had been sucked up from the room; that’s what I want to do as a performer.”

“I have a lot of people come up to me a ask me, ‘Now that George Bush is gone, what are you going to do?’” “I always answer with, ‘There’s always the Pope.’”

“Come see our show, “All About Walken” where 7 male and female Christopher Walken impersonators take you through the life and career of the man and his place in pop culture. One night only at The Guild Theater September 26th at 8:00 PM”. You’re kidding me, right? A female Chris Walken? That… sounds…. crazy!

OK.. in their defense, I wanted to check out this Los Angeles based touring group. I went to their website, watched the video and I have to say that I am joining the ranks of the L. A. Times, L.A. Weekly, SF Weekly and even the London Guardian in saying that this quirky combination between homage, comedy show and skit comedy looks like a total blast!

Check out the video, this might be just the perfect night of fun you have been looking for!

Bonus: If anyone out there reading this does a decent job of impersonating Christopher Walken, send me a video and I will make sure it gets online. Who knows, you may be asked to be a part of this wonderful troupe!

Headlines at The Crest Theater September 25th

Kate Clinton is a faith-based, tax-paying, America-loving political humorist and family entertainer. With a career spanning over 28 years, Kate Clinton has worked through economic booms and busts, Disneyfication and Walmartization, gay movements and gay markets, lesbian chic and queer eyes, and EIGHT presidential inaugurals. She still believes that humor gets us through peacetime, wartime, scoundrel time and economic down times.

This year YES on K8 will tour the US and Canada . Last presidential year, Kate’s show Hilarity Clinton ’08 toured nationwide. It followed her 2007 show, Climate Change, a CD of which was released in March, 2008. In 2006, Kate Clinton celebrated her 25th Anniversary of performing with a 50-city It’s Come To This! tour.

Kate has performed nationally since 1981 from Joe’s Pub in New York City to the Park West in Chicago to the Herbst Theater in San Francisco, and back to New York for several off-Broadway runs, with hundreds of comedy club dates in between. She opened for the Labelle Reunion Show at the Apollo. She appeared in the True Colors show at Radio City Music Hall. She has been featured at comedy festivals including CTBS Comedy Festival in Las Vegas, Just for Laughs in Montreal, the Toyota Comedy Festival in New York, and Marshall’s Women in Comedy Festival. She has come a long way from those first performances in Unitarian Church basements. She still prays to the Unit.

Her new collection I Told You So ( March ’09) is a hilarious, bittersweet, politically acute survival guide. Her first book, Don’t Get Me Started, was published by Ballantine in 1998. The audio companion was named one of 1998′s Best Audiobooks by Publishers Weekly.

Her second book, What The L? is a laugh-out-loud collection of dangerous humor from one of the all-time-favorite lesbian comics living under one of the all-time-worst presidents. In 2005 it was nominated in the humor category for the prestigious 2005 Lambda Literary Award, considered to be the highest accolade for a book from the LGBT community.

She blogs for Huffington Post, The Progressive, Bilerico, NYC Up and Out, Beacon Broadside and Olivia Connect. She has written for The New York Times, Women’s Review Of Books, The Advocate and The Progressive among others. Kate served as a writer on The Rosie O’Donnell Show during its rollout period in 1996.

A respected and sought-after member of the Commentariat, she has appeared on Good Morning America, Nightline, Entertainment Tonight, The Rosie O’Donnell Show, The L Word, numerous news and talk shows on Comedy Central, Lifetime, LOGO, Oxygen, MSNBC, CNN, and C-Span. She hosted In The Life, and The World According To Us. Her one woman show, Talking A Blue Streak, was broadcast on hereTV! and later released as a DVD.

In addition to live performance, Kate appeared in the film The Secret Lives of Dentists directed by Alan Rudolph and is one of four lesbian comics featured in Laughing Matters, an award-winning documentary produced by Andrea Meyerson. She is the narrator’s voice in Joan Biren’s documentary No Secrets Anymore – the Times of Del Martin and Phyllis Lyons and has a cameo appearance in Dee Mosbacher’s documentary Radical Harmonies. Also narrated by Kate Clinton, Mom’s Apple Pie: The Heart of the Lesbian Mothers’ Custody Movement (October 2006) revisits the early tumultuous years of the lesbian custody movement through the stories of five lesbian mothers and their four children.

Kate has taught humor writing at the prestigious Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, MA where poet laureate Robert Pinsky and Pulitzer Prize winning author Michael Cunningham have also taught. She lectures widely on humor and the uses of humor in cultural change.

As an actress, humorist, panelist and host, Kate has worked with some of the great writers and performers of our time. Kate participated in a staged reading of Tony Kushner’s play, SLAVS, with Olympia Dukakis, Tracey Ullman and Madeline Kahn at the Walter Kerr Theatre in New York. Kate was a panelist in a public discussion Satire in America and hosted an evening at The Kennedy Center when Richard Pryor received the first-ever Mark Twain Award. At New York’s 92nd St. Y she interviewed Calvin Trillin and Harry Shearer and took part in Leonard Lopate’s Politics is Funny Business.

Kate has been a volunteer emcee for hundreds of fundraising dinners and events which have raised millions of dollars for The National Center for Lesbian Rights, the Ms. Foundation, the New York City LGBT Community Center, the Gill Foundation, the Gina Gibney Dance Company to name a few. In 1999 she received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force. Previous recipients included Coretta Scott King, Edward Kennedy and Jocelyn Elders. She was listed in the New York Magazine’s Year 2001 Gay Power 101. In May 2005, The Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund honored Kate Clinton with the highest of Lambda Legal awards.

“Kate Clinton has held the mirror that reflects every single issue that has faced us for the last 25 years. We’ve laughed with her, we’ve cried with her, and we’ve been changed by her,” said Kate Kendell, Executive Director of the National Center for Lesbian Rights.

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Well then, it is going to just have to be an unrequited love as I watch her and  my life unfold. But damn… she is so “my type of woman”!

It seems that the “Chelsea Lately” star and Comcast executive Harbert – who is Handler’s direct supervisor – have lived together in Los Angeles for nearly three years. But currently, Ted is living out of a Hollywood hotel according to the New York Daily News.

Oh Chelsea… come back to Sacramento… perform for me.. er, us. We love you!! (No, you don’t need a bodyguard.. honestly).

All kidding aside Chelsea… you are one of the funniest women on the planet.

Headlines at the Crest Theater October 3rd

Lisa Lampanelli is Comedy’s Lovable Queen of Mean. Heralded as “more than a standup — a standout,” by comedy legend Jim Carrey, Lampanelli is a cross between Don Rickles, Archie Bunker, and a vial of estrogen. She even won accolades from The King of All Media Howard Stern, who called her “a true original and a brilliant comedy mind who’ll steal the show every time.”

This equal opportunity offender is a regular on “The Tonight Show with Jay Leno” and Howard Stern’s Sirius satellite radio shows. She recently joined the ranks of comic greats and added her first ever one-hour HBO comedy special, “Long Live the Queen,” to her resume, with a CD and DVD of the special to follow. In addition, her first book, “Chocolate, Please: My Adventures in Food, Fat and Freaks,” will hit bookstore shelves on September 15, 2009.

Lisa’s rise to the top of the comedy food chain began in 2002 when she was the only female comedian invited to skewer Chevy Chase on the NY Friars Club Roast on Comedy Central. She soon became one of the few white comedians to perform on BET’s “Comic View,” cementing her huge crossover appeal. A year later, she rocked Comedy Central once again in her back-to-back appearances on “Premium Blend” and on the enormously rated “Roast of Jeff Foxworthy” — again, the only female invited to roast the man of honor.

Lisa appeared on Comedy Central’s “Last Laugh 2005″ and her headlining performances on the Comedy Central roasts of Pamela Anderson and William Shatner, among others, received national attention. Lisa’s 2005 one-hour special, “Take It Like a Man,” was a hit with the comedy network yet again, and the CD and the DVD of the same name hit #6 on the comedy charts. Then, in January 2007, Lisa’s second one-hour special, “Dirty Girl,” debuted on Comedy Central and Warner Bros. Records, and reached #4 on the charts. Soon thereafter, “Dirty Girl” was nominated for a Grammy Award for 2007′s Best Comedy Album of the Year.

Lisa has also taped several specials for VH1, MTV, and CMT, and was featured on the “Best of” episode of Comedy Central’s “Tough Crowd with Colin Quinn.” Known for saying things that most people are afraid to think, Lisa Lampanelli’s raunchy, gut-busting performances are wildly popular at theaters across the U.S. and Canada.

Lisa appeared in “Larry the Cable Guy: Health Inspector” and had a featured role in “Delta Farce,” opposite Bill Engvall, Larry the Cable Guy, and D.J. Quall. She also starred in the feature film, “The Aristocrats” and, most recently, played a more maternal version of herself in the Owen Wilson vehicle, “Drillbit Taylor.” She is currently developing a pilot for a weekly series on HBO with executive producers Jim Carrey and Kario Salem.

Click here for Reservations and to buy tickets!

Tell them you saw it on SacramentoComedy.Com!