I’ve only just starting warming up to Raaaaaaandy, Aziz Ansari’s ‘bad comedian’ character, but if you believe Judd Apatow, they’re already talking giving Raaaaaaandy his own movie. And if anyone has the clout to actually make that happen, it’s Judd Apatow. Said the man in an interview with JoBlo:
“Randy isn’t in [Funny People] anywhere near as much we wish he was. Something hilariously magical happened when Aziz showed up. So we all said, ‘What else can we do?’ Let’s just make a documentary! We just couldn’t stop writing for him. And now we’re talking about making the RANDY movie. We can’t get enough of Randy…”
Though he was laughing, he definitely wasn’t joking about a RANDY movie later adding, “we’re outlining it right now.”
I didn’t like this character at all at first but he’s grown on me a lot since then, so maybe by the time this comes out it’ll actually sound like a good idea (it already sounds better than MacGruber). But if it’s “hilariously magical” you’re after, you should’ve seen time my friend pantsed Criss Angel and then I socked him in the belly. Tada! His mascara runs when he cries.
Part two of the Raaaaaaaandy documentary (viral video of Aziz Ansari’s character in Funny People) just came online, and I almost didn’t watch it because part one seemed like a less funny version of Dave Chapelle’s bad comedian character from 10 years ago. But then I watched it anyway, and I admit, this one’s a lot funnier. Turns out a mockumentary cutting together out-of-context punchlines like “I got some Oreos on my diiick!” and “You gotta take a shiiiiiit!” is way better than seeint the whole act in character. So, uh, keep that in mind. And as for Aziz, head bowed and hat in hand, I must utter a humble “Ansari.”
Shut up, I was already leaving.
The first part of a viral marketing/mockumentary short about Raaaandy, Aziz Ansari’s character who will play some part in Judd Apatow’s Funny People, has hit the web. I got through about a minute of it. Everyone thinks this Randy character is hilarious, and nothing against Aziz Ansari (who was in a really good Flight of the Conchords episode), but I don’t quite get it. I guess it’s supposed to be a parody of a bad comedian. So it’s like, unfunny on purpose? And if that’s the case, isn’t the Raaaaaaaandy character a lot like Dave Chappelle’s Reggie Warrington character in the Nutty Professor? (See clip below)
Or maybe I’m just racist for thinking all deliberately bad, fictional black comedian parodies look the same.
Judd Apatow’s next movie, Funny People, is kind of about comedians, and while he was filming it, he held a concert called A Night of Funny People, featuring people like Patton Oswalt and Sarah Silverman (probably my two favorite comics, along with Zach Galif.), and reportedly used some film from the concert in the movie. Today’s news is that some clips of Aziz Ansari’s performance, where he did a character named Randy, have hit the web. And they’ve even started a Randy website (laughyourdickoff.com) as part of their viral marketing.
[Update: the clip I was originally talking about was this one, but the video kept autoplaying so I took it down]
I know I’m a grouch and a hater about a lot of things, but I’d like to think I’m pretty open when it comes to comedy. But a lot of people whose opinion I usually respect find this Randy character utterly hilarious, and I… I just don’t see it. It’s not unfunny, it just doesn’t do anything for me, kind of like the comedic equivalent of the Foo Fighters (go ahead and yell at me for that one too). Plus he keeps breaking character. Is that what’s funny about Randy? That he’s a character who constantly breaks character? Nonetheless, I’m posting some clips in case you guys enjoy it. In the meantime I’ll just continue to stand here, frowning at my lawn and wondering why you never call.
[via CHUD]
IMAX co-CEO Richard Gelfond has issued a response to Aziz Ansari’s campaign against bullsh*t IMAX, once again using flawed logic to avoid admitting that wanting two different products to be differentiated in name is a pretty reasonable request. (Some background here: his original defense compared the IMAX brand to BMW - specifically their 7 series vs. their 3 series - saying “People don’t say ‘The 3 isn’t a real BMW because it’s smaller.’” Yeah, they also don’t cost the same, and people don’t pay for a 7-series only to get a 3, dumbass. You look like a Mormon, your argument is invalid.):
“IMAX did 15% of Star Trek’s total domestic box office in the whole country on only 138 screens… This is compared to the earlier releases of Watchmen, where we did 12% of the box office and Monsters and Aliens, where we did around 10%. Clearly a lot of people are going back to IMAX theaters… The overwhelming majority of comments on [Aziz Ansari]’s blog this morning, more than 90% of them, are vehemently disagreeing with him. And consumers are confirming this with their continued purchases of tickets.” [TheStreet via Vulture]
So… if a product is making money, that’s proof you don’t have to tell people what it is before they buy it? That’d be like if I paid your mom for sex and half the time got a handjob. And then you used a statistic about increased handjobs to prove that sex is the same thing as handjob. Guess what, my friend, it’s not. It’s not even good foreplay. Naturally, Aziz has already issued a response to Gelfond’s response:
