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mattbesser

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Posts posted by mattbesser

  3. Posted

    Bruce you should call Lindsay at our theater who can answer all your class questions. 323 908 8702

    Also, hopefully our improv book will be out in a couple of months which will be a great tool for someone who can't get to a bigger city to take a regular class.

     

    Next live ep is April 25, 6pm PST

     

    Bundi, yes I do think the flow is generally better by cutting post chatter. If I think it's really funny I sometimes let it stay.

    • Like 1

  8. Posted

    Matt, you couldn't be more off by supporting Bloomberg's 32 oz. or bigger soda ban. I too understand the spirit behind the law, but nobody should be allowed to tell any citizen in this country what to consume or not consume. As stupid as this sounds, killing yourself with surgary garbage is one's right as an American. You should turn your anger at the great fat people of Mississipi towards the Pepsi and Coca-Cola corporations that produce this shit and sell it

     

    Yeah, ultimately I am against the Bloomberg laws. But I do think there are a lot of dumbies out there who are fooled into buying something unhealthy because they convince themselves they are getting a deal. I guess you gotta let dumbies be dumbies, especially if they live in Mississippi.

    • Like 8

  9. Posted

    Here's my opinion on "anonymous sources" - Shouldn't the anonymous source have a good reason for being anonymous? If it is to protect their safety or their careers then I get it. But sometimes it seems like the anonymous sources could have their own agendas. It's easy to talk a lot of bullshit when you're anonymous. And sometimes the journalist uses the anonymity of the source as an excuse to paraphrase what they supposedly said. That's when facts get murky. If you have greater good truth to say then put your name behind it.

    • Like 2

  13. Posted

    Watching a Frasier re-run (yeah, I know how to party), and there's Matt Besser himself as a barista! Any stories about working with noted weirdo Kelsey Grammer?

     

    Loving the show (I4H, I mean) - keep up the good work.

    Yeah, Kelsey wouldn't look at me when the camera wasn't rolling. I tried to introduce myself before he scene started and he just blew me off. However, he was super nice to all the extras working that same scene. Maybe I should have offered him some blow.

    • Like 2

  16. Posted

     

    I'm not Matt but the way I took that point was that it was less about SNL having a wide audience and more about the difference between the mediums of television and podcasting. It's possible to just turn on your TV and have something that offends you being in front of you through no fault of your own. With podcasting there are so many steps you have to go through before you are listening.You are seeking out a podcast that you know is a comedy podcast, seeing the description, then proceeding to download and listen. It would be damn near impossible for someone to just happen upon it. It's just an inherently different medium than network television.

     

    Yes this was my point exactly. When you open it up to a national audience the more abstract the sketch the more likely you are too offend. As a head writer I would want to make it super clear that we were not somehow making fun of the victims.

    We had a sketch on UCB about a kid who tries to massacre his school cafeteria with throwing stars. I wrote this scene right after the shootings in Jonesboro, Ark. Never heard of it? It happened before Columbine at a school. 5 people died. I was struck how these killers seem to always think that they are really cool like cowboys or vigilantes or trench coat mafia or the Joker. So our sketch was an attempt to both make fun of the loser killers who think they are cool and the bullies who push them to the brink. Right after we filmed the sketch Columbine happened. Comedy Central made us radically edit the scene and we agreed because many of the lines of dialogue seemed like it was taking Columbine lightly.

    • Like 2

  17. Posted

    Early on we considered being an official non profit but even though our school is a separate business, we do use the theater for Harold nights and grad shows. Although that is only a small part of what is on the stage, it is still tied to our school. Therefore being a legal non profit is too complicated. It also might mean that we can actively find gigs for our actors like we do.

  18. Posted

     

    I think there is a difference between congratulating through a personal facebook account and twitter. Because its not that a compliment or offer of congratulations needs to be a secret, but the particular tebow tweet in question likely had no intention of ever reaching this particular coach Strong. And when that lack of intention comes through to your average reader; the way he frames the tweet as a message for the coach comes off as disingenuous.

     

    So I think it's a balance of what Matt says is a Hollywood thing, the shouting to the world nature of twitter, and the specific wording of the tweet.

     

    Well put.

  19. Posted

    I actually had to stop this one at around 9 minutes. I will listen to the rest later, but so far, I am quite dismayed.

     

    I've congratulated friends and strangers on the most trivial of things; non ironically. For instance, an acquaintance just had her neck brace removed. Trivial for sure, but heartening to see, nonetheless.

     

    Are people so jaded that a hastily communicated positive response to a positive occurrence makes a person an asshole? "Congrats on [this positive thing]." "Nope, I need more validation."

     

    I was once told that the highest form of selfishness is not accepting a compliment. Why in the world would you not believe in other's genuine good will for you? Why would you ever want to disdain it as false? No matter if it is friend or stranger.

     

    (I'm about to get killed for this.)

    It is more of a Hollywood thing I think. I think people can tell the difference between asskissing/brown-nosing and giving someone a true compliment.

    • Like 3

  25. Posted

    "Case Closed" could be more accurately renamed to "Yelling at chumps from my bully pulpit." Sure, after the long awkward dialogue we are rewarded with funny improv, but we first have to sit through the views of an uninformed party and a less informed party as they sloppily debate an issue that is far from their grasp.

     

    The formula Improv4Humans has built has worked well, but I've always found the call-in segments to be mean-spirited and unworthy of the show itself.

     

    i agree with you that I was a bully on Ep. 36. We really ganged up on that guy and that was no fun. I regretted that show and tried to change the way we do case closed after that. I think every other Case Closed has been either light hearted like Catchment, Capt. Pike, antique cars, or has been fair like Gun Control. As you heard on the show I asked my guests not to gang up on him. There were certainly moments when we were passionate but I don't recall being mean to him. When did that happen? FYI, Tyler also tweeted me after the show that he had a good time.

    I like case closed for several reason but maybe most of all it's a nice antidote to the one way negative commenting that rules the internet.

     

    Also you are right that I am uninformed on gun control. I guess I'm pretty much uninformed on every topic in the world besides sketch and improv. But I'm not presenting i4h as a political talk show, it's just our opinions,

    • Like 6
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