#34: Comedy shows at Upright Citizens Brigade and the Groundlings

I've never been a big fan of comedy clubs. I've been to a total of two comedy shows in my life, both coincidentally at Cobbs Comedy Club in San Francisco. The first show was an absolutely crude, vile woman talking about how she "pleases her man" to put it lightly (ew) and the second show was Tracy Morgan doing stand-up. Though I'm a huge fan of his work on TV (Brian Fellows skits on SNL, Tracy Jordan on 30 Rock) his stand-up was crude and vile as well. I found myself laughing more out of shock than actual humor. So when my friends suggested going to some of LA's famous comedy clubs as part of my 2011 list, I did my very best to think of something else to do instead.

But then, around Christmas time last year, I found myself reading Kathy Griffin's memoir. Besides being an absolutely hilarious book, she talked about her years as a student and member of the Groundlings theater. Immediately, I knew the improv theaters of LA would be very different from the comedy clubs of SF.

The Groundlings and the Upright Citizens Brigade are both improv schools, where part of the curriculum is to perform nightly in front of a live audience. There are different themes to the shows, and a few are actually scripted. Even though sometimes they may have famous guests, for the most part it's unknown young actors in the shows. Both theaters boast impressive alumni lists (Groundlings: Kathy Griffin, Phil Hartman, Lisa Kudrow, John Lovitz, Ray Romano, etc; UCB: Will Ferrell, Tina Fey, Amy Pohler, Aziz Ansari, Sarah Silverman, etc) and both offer cheap, sometimes even free, shows for the public.

Part One: Upright Citizens Brigade

UCB has several shows every night of the week. As I was looking at the calendar trying to decide which show to see, one popped out at me that I absolutely HAD HAD HAD to see. I would have gone alone if no one wanted to go with me. It was called "The Realest Real Housewives" and featured 7 women re-enacting unedited, unabridged scenes from different episodes from the Real Housewives franchise. I am ob-sessed with the Real Housewives (Beverly Hills, Atlanta, NY and NJ) and I know first-hand how ridiculous and hilarious these shows are, so the comedy re-telling would be pure gold. I got together my other Housewives fans, Jannine, Tracy, Joey and Josh, and brought Ronny along as well.

We got to the theater about 30 minutes before showtime, and waited in line on the sidewalk outside. When they started letting people in, we filed down a narrow hallway and into the theater. It is very, very small, only about 80 seats, so even though we sat in technically the back row, we were about 20 feet from the stage.

The show started with the ladies all singing their own rendition of "Tardy for the Party." The narrator then introduced the seven ladies, one of whom I recognized as a feature player on SNL. There was also one man in the cast, who played all the husband/gay hairstylist parts in the show. They then went city by city, reenacting all the best scenes. There was Bethenny and Kelly's "I'm up here, you're down there" scene from NY, the famous wig-pull between Sheree, NeNe and Kim from Atlanta, the incredibly awkward dinner scene with Camille Grammar and her electonic-cigarette-smoking psychic friend from Beverly Hills, and OF COURSE the now infamous table flipping scene from New Jersey. Among many other scenes from those cities as well as Orange County, DC and Miami. It. Was. Hilarious.

And the best part... my boyfriend, who has never seen one episode of The Real Housewives and rolls his eyes whenever I mention a recent episode, was laughing the loudest and hardest of anyone.

The show was only 1 hour, and definitely left us wanting more! Afterwards we went right next door to a pizzeria for dinner, where we practically ran into Jack McBrayer (Kenneth from 30 Rock!) who is a UCB Alumni. I am looking forward to going back to UCB for sure. I can't think of many other things you can do in this city that are this fun, and that cheap!

Part Two: The Groundlings

My friend Kaio used to take classes at the Groundlings, and has been telling me about it for a while. So when he found a show he wanted to see, I was happy to accompany him and his girlfriend Regina. The show was called "Black Version," which is an improv show where an all-black cast takes classic films and makes "black versions" of the movie. In past shows, they have re-enacted Top Gun, Titanic, The Godfather, Gone with the Wind, etc. The most recent one they had done was Silence of the Lambs, renamed to "Bitch, Why You Eatin' People?!?" We were in for a good show.

The moderator started with asking the audience for ideas of which movie to parody. I wanted them to do Zoolander, but apparently that wasn't "classic" enough. Oh well. They ended up choosing Star Wars, which was promptly renamed to "Space Fight," complete with an improv theme song set to the tone of Boyz II Men's "End of the Road."

They began to tell the classic take of Pookie Lowrider's quest to leave his job as a VCR repairman ("This just isn't for me!! I don't even know when it's fixed or broke, cuz no one has no VHS tapes anymore!!!") to find his greater calling in life. He then meets Shaft, a wise man that knows secrets of Pookie's past, and who trains him in the ways of the force using xbox ("You'd THINK they'd have a Wii up in this shit!") Along the way they find Lashawn Double to pilot an airplane ("Yo yo yo, watch this! Imma bout to put the hydraulics AND anti-gravity on at the same time!!") so they can all go save Lil' Princess ("Shaft! We need yo help up in here!") from the evil clutches of Cocoa Butter.

All the classic scenes, spun into a ridiculous black comedy (complete with outtakes and DVD commentary!) I think it goes without saying that the show was HILARIOUS. They are doing another Black Version show in July, and I will most definitely be there.

This show was a little more expensive, $15 compared to UCB's $10. However, it was a 2 hour show (instead of 1) and it was equally as funny. I don't think one could say one comedy club was better than another, because they are both so different and successful. There is definitely room for both in Los Angeles! I am so happy that I went to both clubs, and already have plans to return!