Knock, knock. Who’s there? The 2016 South by Southwest Comedy lineup, yo! Side-splittin’ through the door!
The roster for the March conference’s nine-day hamlet of hilarity saw first light this afternoon. Let’s take a look at who’s bringing the laughs.

SXSW’s primary cull includes heavy hitters Judd Apatow, Paul F. Tompkins, Morgan Murphy, Horatio Sanz, and local comic Chris Cubas, as well as more than 100 other standups. The lineup also includes a bounty of podcasts, from Dan Harmon’s comedy take on role-playing games, HarmonQuest, to Horation Sanz’s The Hooray Show to The Todd Barry Podcast to the world’s favorite surreal talk show, Comedy Bang! Bang!. And there’ll be movie appreciation galore: Maltin on Movies and Doug Loves Movies are both preparing events for the week.
Upright Citizens Brigade are SXSW mainstays. Theatre founders Matt Besser and Matt Walsh will be part of the cast for a performance of its flagship show, Asssscat, and UCB will present Anthony Atamanuik‘s new American daydream called Trump Dump. SXSW Comedy, which broke into the cable comedy biz last year with a pair of Showtime specials is back at it this year, with two new showcase tapings for Showtime hosted by Natasha Leggero at North Door. Across the highway at Esther’s Follies, there’ll be more streaming than you thought possible, with NBCUniversal comedy subsidiary Seeso streaming live shows of HarmonQuest, Bajillion Dollar Propertie$, and Take My Wife.
Badge holders and wristband wearers will kick off festivities Friday, March 11, at the Parish, where Nerdist founder Chris Hardwick will run a live rendition of his Comedy Central show @midnight. The next night, March 12, the actual Atlanta producer Lil Jon will be in the house to DJ the official opening party.
Full lineup for this year’s festival available on SXSW’s site. The conference is dedicating the entire Comedy vertical to Andy Ritchie, a revered young comic who passed away last year from a brain tumor. SXSW is also currently offering a free download of Ritchie’s debut comedy album, King Ding-a-Ling, on their site.
This article appears in February 19 • 2016.



