Top 9 Funny Ha-Ha 2009 Notables (In No Order)
The things that kept us laughing through the Great Recession of Aught Nine
By Steve Birmingham, Fri., Jan. 1, 2010
1) CAP CITY COMEDY CLUB IS VOTED 'BEST CLUB TO PLAY' at the 2009 Aspen Rooftop Comedy Festival Awards (clearly awarding the great Cap City staff and Austin audiences and not architectural design).
2) MATT BEARDEN AND MATT SADLER, TWO OF AUSTIN'S BEST COMICS, land KLBJ gigs.
3) COMEDY LEGENDS PAUL MOONEY AND DON RICKLES MAKE THEIR FIRST-EVER AUSTIN APPEARANCES (at Cap City and the Paramount, respectively).
4) THE AUSTIN INVASION Local comics Daniel Kilpatrick, Eric Krug, Andy Ritchie, and Chuck Watkins appear on Comedy Central's Live at Gotham; Mike MacRae, Krug, and Ritchie perform at Montreal's prestigious Just for Laughs Festival; and Doug Mellard is featured on Laugh Squad With Bob and Ross on The Jay Leno Show website.
5) STAND-UP GETS SOME SERIOUS FESTIVAL ATTENTION with supremely stellar bookings from South by Southwest and Fun Fun Fun Fest. Hey Austin City Limits, maybe Galifianakis over G. Love for once?
6) THE AD HOC WWW.LASTGASCOMEDY.COM CHAMPIONS AUSTIN'S COMEDY SCENE Hopefully, committing to a caliber of content in 2010 will temper occasional bouts of lazy writing and bitchy inside baseball.
7) NEKO CASE REVEALS HER TOUR BUS BACCHANALIA AND THE SECRET TO A WOMAN'S HEART It's chocolate milk and The Bob Newhart Show DVDs, the ridiculously charming singer told a crowd at Stubb's.
8) THE 24TH ANNUAL FUNNIEST PERSON IN AUSTIN CONTEST was Exhibit A for the size and strength of our stand-up scene. The finals made 2009 a bar-raising year with a bounty of deserving title contenders, so all the more congrats to winner Bryson Turner.
9) HATS OFF TO THE VELVEETA ROOM, THE (NEWLY OWNED) HIDEOUT, COLDTOWNE, ESTHER'S FOLLIES, CAP CITY, 'MISPRINT' MAGAZINE, and every other comedy venue/outlet that was able to stay afloat during the Great Recession of Aught Nine. Cheers.
