From wrestling to stand-up

WTF: Weekly Trivia File

Britain's Got Talent judge Amanda Holden says she felt 'intimidated' when she met Jimmy Carr. 'He's got eyes like a shark,' she said. 'They never blink.'

American wrestler Mick Foley is becoming a stand-up. He has performed a set in the Improv is Los Angeles, and now has a brief tour of the North-Eastern states planned. He said of his first appearance: ‘Only dropped a few F-bombs, but man, that first one felt good, and really worked, specifically because I don’t drop them all that often. I’m really thankful to the Improv for taking a chance on something that was an unknown.’

Among the questions at a 40-year reunion of Monty Python in New York ‘Why isn't John funny anymore?’ Michael Palin confessed he’d written it.

Leicester Council backed a Comedy in the Dark show last week, as part of their campaign, enourgaing people to switch off their lights. With perfect irony, the event, coincided with Diwali, the Hindu festival of light. Leicester hosts the largest Diwali celebrations outside of India – with a street display using 6,500 bulbs... all provided by the council.

An American farmer has made a maze featuring Family Guy’s Brian and Stewie. Wanna see? Here it is. Better yet, what about the image of Tommy Cooper found in a pie? That’s here.

Alan Davies is finding that book readings don’t pay as much as stand-up. ‘I'm new to this book festival carry-on,’ he Twittered. ‘I'm going to Cheltenham tomoro, they've sold 1000 tix at £12 each & I get 150 quid. Er...mugged off?’

Opening for US comedian Gallagher can be a fraught business, as this hapless young act discovered:

Jack Dee and his wife Jane briefly ran the Ealing Comedy club in London, but on the first week only nine punters – and none of the acts – showed up., so they decided to give everyone their money back. As Dee cleared away, Jane counted the cash float. 'That's weird,' she said. 'I'm down by £4.50 from what I started with.' Eventually it dawned on them: everyone had got in for the concessionary price for being unemployed – but on the way out they all asked for a full refund.

Jamie Foxx says the internet is harming his stand-up career – as every mean comment he says on stage is likely to be tweeted or blogged. ‘If I'm in this club doing jokes designed for the club and somebody tweets it and it says, “He says that so and so is an asshole” the people that are reading that aren't in the club, so it's a tough thing to protect your art and still be out there. It gets to the point where you just want to kick everybody in the balls with some steel-toed boots and say, 'It's comedy!' Is it getting to the point where I have to apologise for jokes’ Foxx recently had to apologise after suggesting suggesting 16-year-old Miley Cyrus should ‘make a sex tape... do some heroin... and become a lesbian’

SOURCES: News Of The World, HittheRopes.com, New York Daily News, Chortle, Daily Telegraph, Twitter, YouTube, Mail on Sunday, Grazia, imdb.com

Published: 16 Oct 2009