Grown Up Humor

(Newser) - CNN may not be asking Kathy Griffin to host another New Year's Eve special after her ribald reply to a heckler made its way onto live TV, the New York Post reports. "Screw you!" the comedian, who says she thought she was off-air at the time, yelled at the razzer. "Why don't you get a job buddy? You know what, I don't go to your job and knock the d--- out of your mouth." The network has apologized. More »

(Newser) - In 1972, The Joy of Sex became a fixture of bedside tables across America and spent 343 weeks on the New York Times best-seller list. Now comes a revised version of the book that includes all we’ve learned about sex since the 1970s, reports the Times —including entries on AIDS and Viagra, and adding a female viewpoint its male British author missed. More »

(Newser) - President Bush never quite got the book thrown at him for invading Iraq, but the next closest thing happened today, CBS News reports. A correspondent for a Cairo-based Iraqi TV station hurled a pair of shoes at the outgoing president during a press conference in Baghdad, shouting, “This is a farewell kiss, dog,” Bloomberg reports. More »

(Newser) - Hollywood found a new way to protest California’s passage of anti-gay-marriage Proposition 8: song and dance, the AP reports. Prop 8: The Musical, posted on FunnyOrDie, features Jack Black as Jesus reminding the religious right that shrimp cocktail is also a Biblical “abomination.” The hero of the day is gay-in-real-life Neil Patrick Harris, convincing everyone that “gay marriages will save the economy.” More »

(Newser) - Politics and comedy are trading places, Lee Siegel writes in the Wall Street Journal , as the antics of politicians get more outlandish and comics are increasingly the people speaking truth to power. Fake newsmen like Jon Stewart and Steven Colbert, with their stern commentary, lean more towards the "dark, piercing and wise" humor of Mark Twain than simple belly laughs, Seigel writes. More »

(Newser) - Ten authors have joined the distinguished ranks of such literary luminaries as Norman Mailer and Tom Wolfe—as nominees for the annual Literary Review Bad Sex in Fiction award. The dubious honor singles out “otherwise sound literary” fiction that includes “unconvincing, perfunctory, embarrassing or redundant passages of a sexual nature,” reports the Guardian . Among the candidates: John Updike, Russell Banks, and former Tony Blair Communications Director Alastair Campbell. More »

(Newser) - Mad TV will bid adieu after 14 seasons of Saturday night sketches, the final nail in its coffin coming from a failure to boost ratings during the presidential campaign, reports Defamer. Fox's Saturday Night Live competitor, which has been on the chopping block for years, will finish up the season before being relegated to DVD collections. More »

(Newser) - A cancer diagnosis with a 95% chance of survival, while it might not let one “stare death in the face,” at least gives PJ O’Rourke a chance to muse on the end of the road. At first, he “cursed God, as we all do when we get bad news and pain,” he writes in Search magazine. But then he reconsidered: perhaps death really helps us “learn right from wrong” in a chaotic world. More »

(Newser) - If you've missed Margaret Cho's raunchy brand of comedy, her new "scripted reality sitcom," The Cho Show , debuts this month on VH1 and follows the comedienne and hangers-on through outrageous adventures in Hollywood. Cho sat down with Radar to talk about anal bleaching, defending Britney Spears, and winning the Korean of the Year Award. More »

(Newser) - Bernie Mac landed in hot water for making off-color jokes about women while introducing Barack Obama at a Chicago fundraiser yesterday, reports the Chicago Sun-Times . His last quip—which had the word "ho's" in it—drew complaints from a heckler. When Obama came on, he chided the comedian playfully. “Bernie, you got to clean up your act. This is a family affair," the candidate said, adding, "I'm just messing with you, man.” More »

(Newser) - Irascible Larry David will be bringing Curb Your Enthusiasm back for a seventh series, reports Reuters. New episodes of the edgy comedy are expected to air early next year, more than a year after last year's series ended in November 2007. HBO bosses says the Seinfeld creator is—you guessed it— enthusiastic about the return to the small screen. More »

(Newser) - Voters always say they’d rather support “real people” than “professional politicians.” But Al Franken is having trouble in Minnesota precisely because he hasn’t spent his life reading a political script, Michael Kinsley writes in the Washington Post . Instead, he told jokes for a living—jokes his opponents are now trying to transform into political gaffes, and it seems to be working. More »

(Newser) - Nine days ago death was just another thing to joke about for George Carlin, writes Jerry Seinfeld in the New York Times. The comics were talking about the deaths of Tim Russert and Bo Diddley, and Carlin said, “I feel safe for a while. There will probably be a break before they come after the next one.” More »