EPIX Launches Monthly Comedy Showcase
Premium TV network/on-demand service EPIX, which has been running comedy specials since its 2009 launch, is now setting up a new monthly comedy showcase. Titled EPIX Comedy Unbound, the franchise will kick off with Jim Norton: Please Be Offended on June 30 and will air the last weekend of every month. It will feature comedians who has done specials for EPIX before, like Lewis Black and Kevin Smith, as well as Jim Jefferies, Sherri Shepherd, and Eddie Griffin, among others. The showcase also will carry the annual All-Star Comedy Roundtable presented by Ben Stiller featuring Chris Rock and Jim Carrey and moderated by Bill Hader, taped live at the 2012 Nantucket Film Festival. “We are deepening our commitment to comedy by featuring the best of today’s stand-up comedians in our showcase and giving them free reign to push the envelope and bring our viewers uncensored comedy the way it was meant to be seen,” said Mark Greenberg, CEO and President of EPIX. Here are the first specials to run as part of EPIX Comedy Unbound:
Jim Norton: Please Be Offended – Premieres 6/30 at 10PM ET
In his first EPIX comedy special, comedian and bestselling author Jim Norton, a regular on Sirius/XM’s “The Opie and Anthony Show” and “The Tonight Show with Jay Leno,” performs unfiltered and uncensored in front an audience of rabid fans in Cleveland, Ohio. Addressing such things as the increasing amount of privacy invasion, the hypocrisy of people who are appalled by this, and the oversensitivity of everyone about almost everything, Norton, in his self-deprecating style, proves that being offended can often be hilarious.
All-Star Comedy Roundtable presented by Ben Stiller with Jim Carrey and Chris Rock, moderated by Bill Hader
Ben Stiller brings together some of his favorite comedians and performers for a unique, spontaneous and very funny conversation in the 4th Annual All-Star Comedy Roundtable – with guests this year including Jim Carrey, Chris Rock and host Bill Hader. The event was shot live June 22 at the Nantucket Film Festival by Red Hour Films in association with Spotted Dog Entertainment for broadcast on the network.
Best of Amnesty International’s Secret Policeman’s Ball
The best comedy segments from the Amnesty International Secret Policeman’s Ball held at New York City’s Radio City Music Hall in March including Fred Armisen, Russell Brand, Hannibal Buress, David Cross, Bill Hader, Rashida Jones, Seth Meyers, Bob Odenkirk, John Oliver, Sarah Silverman, Jason Sudeikis, Kristen Wiig and more.
Jim Jefferies Fully Functional
Caustic, charming, controversial, Jim Jefferies is a globally renowned Australian stand-up, acknowledged as the fastest rising and most hilarious comic to claw his way to the top of the comedy world – hailed by critics and loved by legions of fans. In his latest show, Fully Functional, Jim tells about living on the edge, through his true-life stories in which he has good intentions wrapped up in deviant behavior… from a threesome in Montreal to God at a party, to meeting a rock icon at a Q Magazine Awards – as only Jim can do, Fully Functional shocks and surprises.
Sherri Shepherd It’s My Time To Talk
Emmy award winning talk show host Sherri Shepherd of ABC’s The View returns to her roots of stand-up comedy and tells everything she’s been thinking, but unable to say without being interrupted, in her new stand-up comedy special entitled “It’s My Time To Talk.” Sherri tells all the thoughts going on in her head when she was the “shocker elimination” on Dancing With The Stars as well as the numerous brain farts while doing Hot Topics on The View. With comical precision, Sherri tries to convince herself that she’s still a mini-skirt wearing, low cleavage, thigh high boot mama meanwhile her body is screaming reading glasses, Lipitor & orthotic shoes. Sherri has an edge that lets everyone know that she is a grown woman, while being so likeable that every member of the church wants to follow her on Twitter. Learning that being a newlywed presents its own shocking experiences, Sherri is going to tell how to do it all scared!
Jay and Silent Bob Go Down Under
EPIX films the adventures of Kevin Smith and Jason Mewes (a.k.a. Jay) in their travels to Australia for a new special.
Lewis Black
The articulate, angry voice in America is coming back to EPIX with some of his friends: Kathleen Madigan, John Bowman, Jeff Stilson and other special guests. Since he will be filming and performing at the City Winery in Chicago, a city and winery he loves, just before the political conventions, he will focus not only on the Democrats and the Republicans but also on the city of Chicago itself. Knowing Lewis, he will express the opinions and emotions all three evoke in him and in us. Will those emotions and opinions be nice? Sometimes. Will they be angry? Probably. Will they be funny? Definitely!
Plus new a special from Eddie Griffin
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