As if the folks at Funny or Die needed to do anything more to ensure that their site was one of the most popular and most influential comedy sites in the history of everything, they’ve just announced a brand-spanking new contest, wherein you can win a chance to produce a video with the site’s team of pro funnies. It’s totally true.

To bring you this contest, Funny Or Die has teamed up with HBO’s ComedyFetish.com, the network’s subsite that houses an exhaustive library of clips from their original comedy series— and it’s all packaged in a porn site-esque layout and organized in comedy categories like “verbal penetration,” “throbbing wit” and “premature evaluations.” Fun, right?

All the information you’ll need to enter the contest is right here. And in the meantime, check out Seth Morris’ explanation of the contest below. Good luck. And tell Funny Or Die that Punchline Magazine sent you.

Comedian Daniel Kinno likes his Macbook, he just finds the Apple store a bit pretentious. Check it out.

Eugene Mirman and Kristen Schaal bowed for about a minute and a half in appropriate mock theatricality as they took the stage together for a rare co-headlining show at Boston’s Wilbur Theatre on June 27.

The Flight of the Conchords co-stars didn’t fill the 1,200 seat venue, but the crowd that was gathered there stayed energetically giddy for two hours in which Mirman and Schaal performed together and apart and then together again, like a Billy Joel/Elton John show with fewer ballads and far more irony.

Schaal was up first, with a forty minute set that showcased her ability to slip from surreal to sweet to sexy/creepy (at least when she was crawling along the edge of the stage) with hilarious results. I was curious to see what she’d do in a solo live show, especially after seeing her kill in the Comedy Tent at this year’s Bonnaroo Arts and Music Festival. But that short set was with her sometimes-partner Kurt Braunohler, in an act that played like a bizarre take on the classic comedy duo model. (At one point, Schaal galloped across the stage as Braunohler sung “Kristen Schaal is a horse” over and over again until his voice took on lunatic shrillness and she was near collapse.)

At the Wilbur, Schaal was sans Braunohler but had a great act to do solo. She paid tribute to Michael Jackson, Farah Fawcett, and Ed McMahon with a toast, drinking Pepsi, Slim Fast and mayonnaise in their honor. With Mirman’s help, she acted out a pilot she said she’d recently written called “My Wife, the Vacuum.” Then, there was a bit where she slow-danced with a man in a tuxedo wearing a horse’s head. It was confusing.

Mirman (who grew up outside of Boston) followed Schaal by showing a few videos that you’d have to live in New England to find funny, and, as the whole crowd was from New England, this was a good decision. A lot of what I enjoy in Mirman’s act, whenever I’ve seen him, is the way he turns the notion of “found” comedy completely on its head, manufacturing letters of complaint to airlines or (in the case of Saturday’s show) local police departments, and loading them with so many ridiculous non-sequiturs that the whole thing seems to revel in and mock its own silliness all at once.

When Schaal reemerged at the end of Mirman’s set, she shared what might have been the strangest moment of the night. Apparently, during the course of the show, the performers learned that the feed from their wireless mics was somehow being transmitted over the PA system of the show in the theater next door, a production of The Color Purple. It might have ruined the play, but it’s hard to think of The Color Purple ever being that funny again.

Check out a video of Mirman and Schaal backstage after the show.

Masha Tivyan can not only pull off a solid set at Comix in NY, but also an excellent looking green frilly shirt.

As you are probably well aware, the complete series of The State will be out on DVD July 14. For comedy nerds and casual comedy fans alike, this is huge news. So, to prep for the release, we’ll be posting some of our favorite State clips. Here’s clip #1. Enjoy!

Canadian musical comedian Jon Lajoie has struck again. Thankfully. In a brand spanking new song, “Michael Jackson is Dead,” Lajoie takes on the media, who suddenly have forgotten about all the hateful shit they’ve said about Jackson during the last few decades. Check it out below.

Check out Punchline Magazine’s recent interview with Lajoie.

Below, is a great example of why Ted Alexandro is one of the finest, and most underrated, comedians in the country. This is a well-written joke with perfect delivery; plus, Ted adds new twists on topics we may have heard before from stand-ups. Simply perfect.

Veteran comedian David Brenner is celebrating his 40th year in comedy with a national stand-up tour. “Leave ‘Em Laughing” features some of Brenner’s greatest jokes and routines from over the years.

“I’m including everything from birth up to five minutes ago,” he told the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.

The 72-year-old comic holds the record for number of appearances on Johnny Carson’s Tonight Show (158), and has regularly performed in Las Vegas. “Leave ‘Em Laughing” is Brenner’s first comedy tour since his 2001 “Laughter to the People” tour.

Louis C.K. filming his pilot for FX at the Comedy Cellar. Photo by Matt Ruby.

If you’ve been following Louis CK on Twitter, you know that he was just in New York City filming a pilot. You know that because he sent out a nebulous Tweet telling people to e-mail him for live audience taping info. Since then, very few details have been given out… until now. New York comedian Matt Ruby was at the taping at the Comedy Cellar in the West Village and was kind enough to post some stellar information over at his blog, sandpapersuit.com. So let’s just let Matt tell us about it:

Before filming, he explained the deal. The pilot is for FX. It will alternate between standup clips and actual scenes. Also in it: Todd Barry, Nick DiPaolo, and Rick Shapiro. He joked around that it most likely will never get picked up. He’s directing the show too and it was interesting to see him talking tech stuff with the crew and closely examining the steadycam shots (using some fancy new Red camera that weighed so much the cameraman had to take a break every 15 mins or so).

He did some Q&A with the crowd while cameras were setting up. I asked him what the narrative of the show was and he replied, “You want me to tell you the entire story now, you motherfucker?” Oddly, that word seems almost like a term of endearment coming from him. Heh. He didn’t answer and moved on to other questions, mostly about his previous work on movies.

Check out Matt’s entire account at his blog. And while you’re at it, why not check out Matt’s new webseries Think Tank?

Eugene Mirman

It’s no secret that Twitter really has been taken over by the country’s best comedians. So this new Twitter development doesn’t come as much of a surprise. I recently got my hands on an advanced copy of Twitter Wit: Brilliance in 140 Characters or Less, a book that features some of the funniest Tweets made public since the micro-blogging site launched in 2006. Edited by San Francisco-based tech writer and founding editor of Valleywag (a blog about Silicon Valley), Nick Douglas, the book is what you’d expect: a list of great Tweets.

But something tells me the publisher told Douglas, “Dude, we have to throw some other shit in there; this can’t just be a list of Tweets.” Hence, within the book there’s an occasional page that list, among other things, suggestions for funny Tweet fodder, lists of Twitter  tools and applications and “rules of Twitter wit.” The book is out Sept. 8. For now, check out some comedian selections from said tome. Also, be sure to follow Punchline Magazine at @punchlinemag.

@margaretcho I still have a hard time thinking of NWA as an airline. To me they’ll always be straight outta Compton.

@eugenemirman Heading on Amtrak from Seattle to Portland. I’m looking forward to revealing to everyone soon that they are on a sing-along train.

@mshowalter Waitress just said their creamed spinach was “banging.” Now sure how I feel about that.

@JudahWorldChamp Invented 2 new forms of karate today. One of them can only work between 1 a.m. & 2 a.m. It has to do with the Earth’s rotation.

More tweets after the jump!

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