WTF: Weekly Trivia File

• ‘UK audiences seem to enjoy being called "cunts," which is so different than in the US, where a mob of passive-aggressive PC hipsters would record it and put it on YouTube to try and ruin the comic by labeling them as a violent misogynist,’ Set List creator Troy Conrad.

• In their rush to announce the Edinburgh Comedy Award nominees on Wednesday, Foster’s inadvertently titled Tony Law’s show Maximium Nonsense as Maximum Noise (an error we have to admit Chortle duplicated briefly). Better yet, they corrected it in a follow-up press entitled: ‘Correstion’

• Blast from the past: Here’s a nice old picture of Edinburgh line-up show The Comedy Zone in 1991, when the bill was Harry Hill, Al Murray, Andre Vincent and Brenda Gilhooly.

• Greg Proops recalls that 1993, the first year he performed at the Edinburgh Fringe, a man had a heart attack at his show and had to be carried out by paramedics. ‘He was huge and just keeled over with a loud thump,’ he told LA Weekly's Fringe blogger Julie Seabaugh. ‘Because he was British he wrote me an apology.’

• Meanwhile, more meanness from the Edinburgh Dungeon, who have shortlisted Rick Shapiro for their 'crimes against comedy award' for the worst comedy act on the Fringe – even though the American is recovering from a serious heart problems and whose performance has been sadly affected by medication. Bafflingly their list also includes Hannibal Buress – a largely acclaimed US act. We'd suggest if he's the worst comedian you've seen, you've had an excellent Fringe. We asked the Edinburgh Dungeon to explain their choices, but they've gone strangely silent...

• False fire alarms are a curse of Edinburgh. The So You Think You’re Funny party was hit by an evacuation last night – for the second time in recent years. And on Wednesday The Horne Section had to move out of the Pleasance Grand, taking all 742 audience members – including Celebrity Juice star Leigh Francis – outside. But the show must go on, and the performance continued, unplugged and al fresco:
  

• Female comics are often described in ways their male counterparts aren’t. Consider this lot of reviews from this year: Croft & Pearce: ‘Very beautiful young women’; Kerry Gilbert: ‘A pretty girl’; The Silky Pair: ‘Two lovely ladies’; Sara Pascoe: ‘The female tag does not apply here’(?) and Tiffany Stevenson: ‘Stevenson explores typically female themes such as weight issues.’ Oh, and they all came from the website of, erm, Funny Women, which is supposed to be driving sexism out of comedy…

• Los Angeles comedian Josh Androski took mushrooms, got drunk, then went on The Price Is Right, claiming to be a ‘skateboard rabbi’. Here’s how he got on…
  

• Tweets Of The Week:
  1755 Dictionary (@1755Dictionary): Eskimos stick their houses together with igloo
  Jacques Aih (@@jacques_aih): Madonna's Cherish was about someone who was a bit like Cher.
  Pundamenalism (@Pundamenalism ): Due to a typo by the Office of Biological and Environmental Research, I've spent the last 22 years working on the Human Gnome Project

Published: 24 Aug 2012