Paula Pell Doesn’t Want Her Parents to Know this Story
Photo by Dan Dion, c/o Shark Party Media Comedy Lists sf sketchfest
Celebs: They’re just like us! (Not me, though.) Approximately one year ago, Paula Pell got pulled over by the NYPD after making an illegal left turn. The former Saturday Night Live and 30 Rock writer was en route to a dinner with her friend to celebrate the sale of a figure skating-related project to HBO. She had inhaled approximately one puff of her vaporizer while entering the city and, realizing the scent pervaded her car, promptly disclosed to the officer that she was in possession of illicit substances. She was arrested, booked and soon released. Now here’s the bad news: HBO has since dropped the project. But, as Pell told Eugene Mirman during a live recording of his podcast Hold On during SF Sketchfest, the show may yet find a home elsewhere. And yes, she said she had not yet told her parents of her arrest, though she expected they will soon receive a Google News alert containing the news. Hello, Paula’s parents! Here’s some more hot gossip about comedians you may be aware of:
-In the late 1980s Paget Brewster was living in New York City and playing in a band with her then-boyfriend. As she told Mirman in that same show, it one day came to her attention that a woman in a rival band was trying to poach him. It also came to her attention that this woman worked as a dominatrix who specialized in sewing men’s penises to their stomachs. In an attempt to find information that might discredit this woman in the eyes of her boyfriend and thus save the band, Brewster sought employment in the sex industry, eventually finding work as a phone operator in a sex workspace. Did she get the dirt she was looking for? Did she last more than three days in her new job? Find the answers to these questions and more at some point in the future, on Audible.
-Before Matt Ingebretson and Jake Weisman, co-creators and stars of the Comedy Central series Corporate, commenced shooting the series, Ingebretson became convinced they weren’t hot enough for TV, or so Weisman recounted at a post-screening panel. The two were roommates at the time, and Ingebretson dealt with his concern by insisting they both use teeth whitening strips. To become hotter. For the TV show. Corporate. Check out the fruits of their efforts on Wednesdays at 10 p.m. (9 p.m. Central). Also right here:
These boys got teeth! (Image via Getty.)
-Also, one time, at Just For Laughs, a Comedy Central executive told Ingebretson that he’s “the Ryan Gosling of comedy.” Score!
The Ryan Gosling of comedy. (Getty.)
-Mike Mitchell, of the podcast Doughboys, and also of the sketch group The Birthday Boys, recently spent some time with his mother in Massachusetts, where it was very snowy and he shoveled the drive. This isn’t gossip: I just think it’s nice.
-Also not gossip: ClickHole Live is a solid short enjoyable show you should see if it ever comes to your town. How I would describe it is this: A succession of ClickHole writers perform brief presentations and/or monologues on various subjects. If you enjoy reading ClickHole then you will also enjoy watching it. If you don’t enjoy reading ClickHole then I cannot help you.
-That’s about it. Most of the other shows I saw were just plain old stand-up with no gossip to speak of. There was a fun live recording of Jonathan Katz’s Dr: Katz: The Audio Files with delightful appearances by Kate Micucci, Baron Vaughn, Paul Feig and Scott Thompson—I can recommend the episode, but I can’t say they dished any hot juice. So let me just conclude with this picture again:
Seth Simons is Paste’s assistant comedy editor. Follow him on Twitter.