Mark your calendars everyone. The first episode of the hugely anticipated podcast from Paul F. Tompkins is complete. The Pod F. TomPkast was recorded this week at TV/Film Composer, Eban Schletter’s studio. Chances are, many of our readers are familiar with Schletter’s work on Mr. Show.

The triumphant completion of The Pod F. TomPkast was humbly announced via the dedicated twitter page with a simple, “I am born.” Tompkins’ own wife, actress and fellow comedy nerd, Janie Haddad has been working tirelessly on the behind the scenes, meta details of the podcast.

The Pod F. Tomkast will be available Sunday, August 1st at iTunes and on PaulFTompkins.com. Tompkins says that all other details and options surrounding the show will be figured out as he goes.

Update: It is available a day early. Download here.

The Colbert Report, 30 Rock, Saturday Night Live, The Daily Show, The Upright Citizens Brigade, Human Giant, The League, Parks and Recreation, Community.

Are you a fan of any one of these TV shows? Are you subscribed to Sirius XM radio? If you answered yes to both of these questions, then you are in for a massive treat. Sirius XM Radio will be airing all the events from The Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre’s 12th Annual Del Close Improv Marathon live in its entirety.

The three-day event begins Friday, July 30, and will feature performances by many comedians from the TV shows listed above, including Horatio Sanz, Scott Adsit, Rob Huebel, Ben Schwartz, Donald Glover, and three of the members of the original Upright Citizens Brigade members – Matt Besser, Ian Roberts, and Matt Walsh – among many other improv troupes from across the country.

To kick off the marathon The Upright Citizens Brigade theatre will throw an exclusive one-night-only performance, called Radio Underground, airing this Thursday, July 29th at 1 pm EST and 9:00 pm EST on the Raw Dog Comedy channel.

The show will be hosted by Besser, Roberts and Walsh with featured performers Stephanie Allynne, Chris Gethard, Michael Hartney, Jamie Kilstein, Nate Lang, Joe Mande, Amber Nelson, Shannon O’Neill and Joe Wenger.

You can tune into the marathon on SIRIUS XM Comedy Showcase, SIRIUS Internet Radio, SIR channel 814, and XM Radio Online, XMRO channel 93. Completely uncensored highlights and live cut-ins will air on Raw Dog Comedy, SIRIUS channel 104 and XM channel 150.

Rosie O’Donnell and Jim Breuer recently had an intense guessing game competition at the Sirius XM studios.

But they weren’t alone. Rosie and friend Jeanne-Weenie vs. Jim Breuer and fellow comedian Pete Correale duked it out, while satellite radio host and comedian Pete Dominick played moderator.

The competition? A high stakes game of strategy and wit. One partner had a secret word that they would give a one word clue for so the other partner could guess the original word. Sounds sort of confusing, but it’s really not.

The full show airs on Thursday at 1 pm and 5:00 pm EST on Raw Dog Comedy, SIRIUS channel 104 and XM channel 150, but you can watch a video excerpt below, because we love you. Get ready for banter!

I just listened to Marc Maron’s incredibly enlightening Dane Cook interview from this week’s episode of WTF with Marc Maron. It got me thinking about my own experiences getting into comedy under the shadow of Cook.

Shortly after I started doing stand-up, I was talking shit about Dane Cook. It seemed, at the time, a rite of passage for new comics. It seemed that people, who, when they were 14 or 15 had seen his 30-minute Comedy Central special and loved it, had to – with the coming of adulthood – distinguish themselves as having matured, having moved past the high-energy style-over-substance salesmanship epitomized by Dane Cook.

Basically I was taking potshots at a silver-back because a critical part of the development of new authority is the challenging of the old guard. I also talked shit about him because I didn’t know who I was on stage, and it helped me carve out a sense of who I wanted to be, by making clear about who I wasn’t.

Dane was at the forefront when or the early aughts comedy boom. Along with Carlos Mencia, Larry The Cable Guy, and Jeff Dunham, Dane was one of the four horsemen of “Big Comedy,” people who had corporate sponsorships and fanatical devotees, and could fill stadiums.

Mass appeal is a tricky thing. Of course there’s always The Beatles or Steve Martin (one of Cook’s comedy heroes), artists who simultaneously appeal to both committed enthusiasts and the casual consumer. But more often than not, mass appeal equates to Britney Spears or Two and a Half Men—artistic representations that are so broad it’s deemed offensive by so-called artist snobs.

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You may know comedian – and proud metalhead – Jim Norton from his daily gig on Sirius XM’s Opie and Anthony Show or from your finer comedy clubs and theaters across the country, where he headlines.

But Norton is beginning to become a bit of a radio brand; he recently began hosting The Jim Norton Show on Sirius XM. And today, he premiered a new music show on the satellite provider: Jim Norton–Obsessed on the Boneyard. The show will feature the hard classic rock characteristic of The Boneyard channel (Sirius channel 19; XM channel 53), which will focus on one theme each week.

Today’s theme was “first songs” from various hard rock albums. Upcoming shows will include “Songs I Play When I Want my Girlfriend to Leave the Room,” “Favorite Title Tracks from Albums,” and “Favorite Cover Songs.” All are promised to feature songs from rock giants Ozzy Osbourne, Van Halen, and Metallica.

You can hear Norton’s show every Wednesday at 11 am EST; rebroadcasts happen on Fridays at 9 pm and Sundays at 9 pm. Go here and here for more info.

In the last few months, Marc Maron’s podcast WTF has blown the hell up, thanks, in part to high profile — not to mention, expertly crafted — interviews with Robin Willians and Carlos Mencia, the latter of which got mentions on Entertainment Weekly and Huffington Post and started nothing short of an online debate on the ethics of comedy.

Today, Maron posted his latest episode, this one with Ben Stiller– a guy who, since birth, was raised by and around professional comedians. Check it out now!

And check this out, podcast fans: Maron recently announced that in addition to his two weekly episodes, he’ll release at least one additional episode each month.

This month’s special episode will be a recording from the Live from WTF show at Comix last month. This show featured comedians John Mulaney, Janeane Garofalo, Morgan Murphy, Todd Barry, Greg Giraldo, and Tom Shillue. The special, available for just $2.99, is promised to be worth the time and money (complete with awkward moments from Maron and Morgan Murphy).

You can purchase these special episodes by going to wtfpodshop.com to create a free profile. You’ll be notified any time episodes becomes available, allowing you to keep up with all the newest material from WTF.

After his 2008 memoir Too Fat to Fish became a New York Times bestseller, the division of Random House who published Artie Lange’s book promptly gave him a deal to write another. Seemed like good business. But then Lange’s depression took a turn for the worse at the beginning of the year when he — luckily — unsuccessfully tried to kill himself. It goes without saying, Lange’s second writing effort will have to wait.

However, the folks at SaveBabyGorilla, a longtime Lange support blog, just brought it to our attention that Artie, though no doubt before January, had been putting pen to paper (hardcore fans know he doesn’t know how to work a computer). Turns out the comedian wrote the forward for radio personality Sid Rosenberg’s new book You’re Wrong and You’re Ugly: The Highs and Lows of a Radio Bad Boy.

Anyway, here’s what Artie had to say at the start of Rosenberg’s book, which is out in stores now.

I always thought Sid was hilarious. I lost contact with him over time, and then I was on The Howard Stern Show and I heard Sid Rosenberg was on Imus. I said, “That’s the Sid that I did that show with.” Of course Stern and the Imus show were at odds with one another – and I’m in Howard’s army forever. But even Howard’s producer Gary Dell’Abate says Sid’s a good guy, because they knew each other. I told him, “I love Sid. He’s funny as hell.”

He sort of did what I did but on Imus. He had his issues with drugs just like me. We just had a lot in common. So I contacted Sid again, we started talking, and we became good friends. He wanted to come on with Stern after he got fired from Imus, and Howard was a little reluctant. Gary and I both worked on Howard. I told him, “Howard, this guy is a funny guy, a huge fan of yours, I’ve known him for a long time, and he’s got amazing stories about Imus and drugs.” Howard loves honesty, Gary and I were both instrumental in getting Sid on, and when he came on he was fantastic. Howard loved him. He even used him for a few things on Howard TV.

Comedy nerd is a term that has been used to describe me. I don’t know if that’s a fair assessment but I do love comedy. Watching it, talking about it, writing it – I even love just listening to other people talk about it.

I feel like it’s safe to assume that most the readers here are in the same boat. This is why I am so excited to share episode eight of Chris Hardwick’s brand new Nerdist Podcast with guest Jim Gaffigan.

With such a large enough volume of comedy podcasts already on my radar (Comedy Death Ray, WTF, I Love Movies), I wasn’t sure if I could fit another one in and yet, I did. I trusted Hardwick not to let me down and surely he did not. In this particular episode of the Nerdist Podcast, Hardwick is joined with his regulars Jonah Ray and Matt Mira as they discuss all chasms of stand-up comedy with Jim Gaffigan.

The group discussed the idea that Late Night TV appearances do not weigh as heavily on the public or have the same effectiveness as they may have just ten years ago. With other popular late night options like The Daily Show and The Colbert Report among others, there doesn’t seem to be a singular must see program every night. Gaffigan shared that while performing on the Tonight Show used to change a comic’s life overnight, now it barely increases ticket sales for the gig you’re promoting.

Discussions about writing styles, points of view and dealing with difficult situations when being recognized by fans were all amongst the topics candidly covered. If you fancy yourself a comedy lover and tearing the topic up to find out what makes it tick – then I cannot recommend this particular episode enough.

While The Nerdist Podcast is still in its infancy, I’m sure subscribing to it now will pay off. That’s my excited comedy rant for the day. Check out The Nerdist Podcast here and let me know what you think!

It’s turning out to be a huge year for Steve Harvey. In January, we reported that the veteran comedian will become the new host of the long-running game show Family Feud when it starts its 12th season this Fall.

And now, we can report that there will be a televised version of his popular syndicated radio program, The Morning Show. It will happen this Fall as well on BET’s sister network Centric.

First off, before we tell you what you already know from reading the headline on this here post, let us say this: If you haven’t yet listened to last week’s WTF with Marc Maron, wherein Marc interviews Mr. Show legend Bob Odenkirk, do yourself a favor and check it out here.

It perfectly embodies what this podcast is all about– getting deep inside the minds of the people that truly shape the world of comedy, not just by talking about their art but also by drawing out the artists’ life-related fears and their emotional disconnects. As someone who’s respected by his peers and who has been around these comedians for his entire career (but who isn’t necessarily friends with those people), Maron is in the perfect position to do this; and he rarely disappoints. And this time, he’s topped himself.

And that’s why Punchline Magazine is a proud sponsor of WTF with Marc Maron.

Ok, so you’re going to want to check out the episodes that posted this week as well, featuring comedians Dave Hill and Myq Kaplan, who Punchline Magazine had named one of the comics to watch in 2010. Of course, the eps are on iTunes, but as always you can stream those puppies at the official podcast site at WTFpod.com, where you can also donate some bucks and pick up some sick merchandise. You should also sign up for Marc’s email list which will give you info not just on WTF but also on Marc’s stand-up dates throughout the country. Enjoy!