What’s that? You’ve been missing your favorite mock reality show about the daily trials of a ski-masked man who moves his family New York City in search of the limelight?

You’re in luck. Veteran writer/performer Jon Glaser returns to Adult Swim this month with the second season of his series, Delocated. Based on the first two episodes, Season two delivers more of the goofy-ass hilarity we saw in Season one, which was Glaser’s specialty in his days as a writer/performer on Late Night With Conan O’Brien.

It opens with a shakeup in the Russian crime syndicate out to kill Jon (it’s his character’s name too). Comedian Eugene Mirman reprises his role as Yvgeny Mirminsky, the hapless Russian hit-man/stand-up comedian that was once in charge of taking Jon out. Now he’s being demoted and replaced by his much scarier brother, Sergei.

Things get interesting when the use of decoy Jons are introduced to the mix to throw the killers off the scent; and things get more interesting when the decoys decide to unionize and fight for better job conditions. This is the kind of humor you can expect from Delocated: silly, deadpan fun.

On top of watching over his shoulder for crazed Russians, Jon has to deal with the loss of a friend, his ex wife dating an FBI agent, and his girlfriend Kim’s frustrations with their lifestyle, not to mention her wandering eye. The show’s premise is so nuts that anything that happens within it seems to somehow make perfect sense. Even Jon institutionalizing himself for depression is a laugh-packed plotline. There’s a piss-your-pants-funny Weekend At Bernie’s send-up scene that could work as a stand-alone sketch.

The show is like no other comedy on TV right now, and you should watch it. Oh, and comedian Todd Barry has a medium-sized role as himself. Season two premieres Sunday, Aug. 22 at 11 EST. You can also get more info about the show on the Adult Swim’s site, and behind-the-scenes stuff on the Delocated blog.

Check out this season two trailer:

Bonus clip after the jump!

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DUBLIN — The final two days of Dublin’s Comedy Carnival offer a chance to catch seven gigs and over 20 comedians. Myself, I also got the opportunity to speak to sometime Demetri Martin collaborator and support act David O’Doherty (if you ever get the chance to catch Martin reciting his gags while the Irishman lays down a melody on his child’s electronic keyboard, do so) about New York’s antifolk movement and how the likes of Jeffrey Lewis, the Moldy Peaches and his jazz pianist father have influenced the rhythms of his comedy.

And Bo Burnham, on the eve of his month-long run at the Edinburgh Fringe, convinced he’s going to emerge from the experience “a better comic … even if my spirit is left a little bit down”. Refuting the comedy orthodoxy that you need to put in decades on the road to be good, the idea that you have to become an “old philosopher” comic in the George Carlin or Bill Hicks mould, Burnham nevertheless does cite the cabaret aspects of musical comics like Brit Bill Bailey, Aussie Tim Minchin and crazed Dutchman Hans Teeuwen as inspirations.
The 19-year-old has some interesting, high concept ideas for Edinburgh that I’m not at liberty to reveal here, but suffice it to say there will be an audience interaction element and the show will be slightly different each day.

Following his shows at this festival last year, Burnham’s teenage female following was out in force for his afternoon gig with Reggie Watts, a feature that MC Maeve Higgins took great delight in. Notwithstanding a bit of mic trouble, Burnham absolutely delivered with a varied set of songs, sharp one liners and Shakespearean porn. Watts, too, though you scarcely needed to see this accomplished human beatbox. The Iveagh Gardens is a tiny, intimate setting for four comedy venues. No matter where you were, through the flimsy canvas of the tents, you could regularly hear Watts’ signature tune of “a fuckshitstack” booming out at sporadic moments over the weekend.

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DUBLIN — With circus tent venues and stiltwalkers milling around the beautiful Iveagh Gardens, Dublin’s Carlsberg Comedy Carnival, four days of stand-up in the heart of the Irish capital, attracts a host of top American comics alongside their Irish and British counterparts.

Performing her first gigs in this part of the world, Illinois’ Natasha Leggero has impressed with her brash assurance. But she was unsettled by a British bachelor party, one of their number loudly belowing that she looked like a hooker.

Dressed as superheroes and Thriller-era Michael Jackson, security might have thrown these braying, drunken berks out in the US. But here, Leggero was left to hammer them down from the stage, something she accomplished with ease. Deriding her Rockford hometown, musing on the ‘toilet babies’ of accidental pregnancies and mocking the stilted, overly passionate delivery of American Idol contestants, the accomplished singer earned a rapturous reception from the crowd, not least for warbling through a histrionic rendition of Jackson’s ‘Billie Jean’ in the Idol style.

As a law student, MC Keith Farnan worked on death row for a while and you hope the garrulous Irishman brought some comfort to inmates before they passed over. Certainly, his Tiger Woods computer game gag is to die for.

Reginald D Hunter from Atlanta, Georgia, might not be a household name back home. But in the UK and Ireland he’s rightly revered as one of the most thoughtful, provocative comics on the circuit. It takes a certain size of cojones to argue that 92-year-old humanitarian icon Nelson Mandela is a conman. But Hunter can usually back up his philosophical leaps of faith with reasoned logic, his calm, rational take on words like “nigger”, “cunt” and “spastic” as impactful as his playful reaction to the phrase “bear with me”. Howled back on stage for an encore, he noted of the lively Irish crowd that “you motherfuckers drink the way Americans eat”.

Before this, I’d caught up with New York-raised Irish comic Des Bishop to talk about Reggie Watts busking, his forthcoming gig in Boston and performing House of Pain’s ‘Jump Around’ in the original Irish language of Gaeilge:

Here’s a clip of that ‘Jump Around’ performance on Australian television:

I also got the opportunity to see Emo Phillips live for the first time, his impression of a French existentialist seagull even more outlandish in a marquee tent setting, the roof illuminated with tiny lightbulbs like the night sky. I’m told that a lot of his set was older, tried and tested material. Coming to most of it fresh, his gloriously off-kilter world view and perfectly pitched one-liners flavoured with just a dash of misogyny, were enough to reaffirm for me that I was in the presence of a legend.

After Phillips came Ardal O’Hanlon, still best known here for playing a priest with juvenile dementia in the much-loved sitcom Father Ted, and he had to work hard to justify his headliner status. Although he’s toured the [US] East Coast with Tommy Tiernan and Dylan Moran in The Three Fellas, he’s far less savage than his compatriots. And while he rails grumpily against the world and his wife, he’s invariably the butt of his own jokes, a misguided fool whose kinky role-playing leads to the loveable dolt being cuckolded.

MONTREAL – When his show, My Girlfriend’s Boyfriend ended last night at the Gesu – Centre de Creativite, Mike Birbiglia received a standing ovation—because that’s what happens when a theater audience appreciates an amazing performance.

I point this out only to highlight the difference between loosely labeled “one-man shows” you might see in festival settings like Just For Laughs and what Birbiglia does, which is write and perform a theatrical piece, complete with through line and proper story structure.

If you’ve been following Birbiglia the last few years, you’ll know that the stand-up comedian has become well known as a storyteller; and with the great success of his off-Broadway show Sleepwalk with Me he’s become a respected theater performer. When Sleepwalk was in previews in New York two years ago, I reviewed the show, saying that it was about “a young man’s recursive, anxiety-soaked journey to proper adulthood.”

If I applied that description to My Girlfriend’s Boyfriend, it wouldn’t not make sense— in part because, looking back, my summation was pretty darn general and in part, because this new show is also about the comedian’s evolution. The difference is in the former show, Birbiglia’s nearly debilitating sleepwalking disorder and near death experiences combine to create the vehicle that drives him to evolve; in the current show, it’s love behind the wheel— although, there are a pair of near-death scenes in this one, too.

The hour-long performance opens in medias res; Birbiglia is having an argument with his now-wife, Jenny. Soon Birbiglia backs up to tell the audience about them first meeting in St. Louis and then their first date; from there, we travel back in time, to when our protagonist was a 12-year-old seventh grader. Desperate for his first kiss he convinces a neighborhood girl, Lisa to come with him to a carnival, snuggles up to her on the Scrambler ride and then proceeds to spew vomit. No first kiss.

Throughout the show, Birbiglia artfully bounces from these distant past love-inspired misadventures (a school dance with Sandra, his lying first girlfriend Amanda) to the near past (going to Bermuda with an ID-and-passport-less Jenny, learning that Jenny had been getting cozy with her former on/off again boyfriend, John) just years before he and Jenny – two people who at first agreed that marriage was silly – tied the knot.

Of course, the show ends happily and with a slightly more resolved and assured Birbiglia we saw at the end of Sleepwalk. But while Birbigs’ no doubt has found closure on a great many things surrounding love and relationships, there will always be room for growth, and therefore hopefully room for a third theatrical representation of this comedian’s progress.

My Girlfriend’s Boyfriend plays again tonight and tomorrow night. Get your tickets here.

MONTREAL – The comedians on the late New Faces show Wednesday, hosted by New York comedian Sean Patton, benefited from a slightly warmer crowd than their early show counterparts. But does that mean it was a better show? Let’s dig in.

Los Angeles via North Carolina comic Fortune Feimster, who’s scored herself some quality prime time exposure thanks to her advancing on this season of Last Comic Standing, kicked things off, and quickly became one of the crowd’s favorite of the night. Feimster excels at keeping possibly heavy topics on the light side. She was a late bloomer, coming out as a lesbian at 25, she told the crowd, and with genetics working against her, she figured she had three job choices: comedian, softball coach or UPS driver. “I chose comedian because I don’t look good in brown,” she rationalized.

New York City’s Joe Mande followed her strong performance with one of his own, highlighted by a hilarious extended bit that calls out self-proclaimed “foodies” for being the pretentious buttholes they are. When a friend explains to Mande that a “foodie” is someone who’s “really into” food, Mande points out: “You have to be a “foodie” to live—or else you’d die of not being a ‘foodie!’” To hammer the point – albeit a bit too hard – Mande explains that he’s also a big “sleepie,” “breathie” and other “ies.”

Oddball Mike Lawrence, also from New York, was next onstage, seemingly challenging the crowd at every turn not to laugh, not because he wasn’t funny – he turned out one of the stronger sets of the night – but because he has no problem describing his arty roommates like this: “Picture the musical Rent without anyone with enough charisma to get AIDS.” About his longtime alcoholic family he explains, “My family tree has a car wrapped around it.” And he even has a theory about why his life turned out the way it has. He says while working at a McDonald’s drive-thru, a gypsy lady put a curse on him: “You shall have the face of a rapist, and the self esteem of one of his victims.” Aaaaannnnd, scene!

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MONTREAL – About a quarter of the way through Jamie Kilstein’s one-man show last night at Theatre Ste Catherine, I began thinking: this dude has the rhythm of a slam poet— the way he motors through monologues with precision, playing with intonation, being mindful of the mix of mono and multi-syllabic words, plain and fancy words, the word “fuck” and its variations, the concept of crescendos, respites and sweet release.

And then I remembered reading a line in his bio a few years ago explaining that he was, indeed, an award winning slam poetry champ.

I’d admittedly forgotten that piece of Kilstein history and instead held on not to the way he delivers but what he delivers. I think the reason for that is this: his album Zombie Jesus, released by Stand Up! Records last year (released in limited copy version in 2008 as Please Buy My Jokes) – it’s an album that landed him the title of Punchline Magazine’s comic to watch in 2009 – proved as shining proof of how Kilstein is breathing new life into socio-political-minded comedy.

But the album, as great as it is, didn’t quite have the raging heartbeat of Kilstein’s show last night. Indeed, the hour long No War, No God, No Nickelback is not for those looking for a light-hearted, knee slapping good time. Instead, it’s the kind of show that illicits hearty clapping – like the kind you’d find at a demonstration – and the occasional manly “YEAH!” from the crowd upon the comic nailing one of many arguments in support of gay marriage or atheism or women’s rights.

While No War is decidedly heavy on politics and religion, toward the end, before his final rant, in which he uses the rock band Nickelback as a symbol for all that is wrong with the arts, his pace slows and Kilstein gives us a clue as to where the 28-year-old is coming from. A story about how his younger brother Nick convinced the comic that their father, was, in fact, not the complete asshole Jamie thought he was is sobering, honest and shows Kilstein as a guy that, although has a lot of well-researched and expertly presented opinions, may not always be right or have the best judgment when it comes to emotional matters.

It makes the heady comic more human and likable, and gives you another reason to check out his show, which runs again tonight and Saturday. Info and tickets here.

MONTREAL – The early New Faces show last night at the Cabaret Lounge hosted by comedian Michael Kosta showcased, by and large, a group of skilled up-and-coming comics, highlighted by a trio of strong sets by Jesse Case, Adrienne Iapalucci and Mike Vecchione. So let’s get to it, shall we?

LA-by-way-of-Seattle Fahim Anwar kicked things off, breaking the ice by referencing his hair cut, explaining that he told the hairdresser to give him the “Afghan Jerry Seinfeld”; makes sense. Anwar does resemble the famous comic. From there, Anwar employed a series of bits based in physical humor – lots of character voices, pop-and-lock dance moves, rapping – which ended with a story about him auditioning for American Idol a few years ago. To warm his voice up during auditions, he explained, he sang the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles theme song, which, of course, he did for the audience last night. Far too often, it seemed like Anwar was in a rush to get to his next novelty move. The crowd was pleased, however, and Anwar exited the stage to hearty applause.

The aforementioned Case took the stage next, looking unkempt and topped with a trucker cap. The Nashville comic explained to the audience the he almost didn’t make it to the show, “because my mom was on the pill”—a hilariously dark way to open up an early show set. Case fast-paced his set for sure, but his jokes are well constructed and his theories, original. “Going crazy is just going public” with who you really are, he opined, explaining that we’ve all sat around the house and decided to smell our buttholes, right? It’s just that we have a home to hide in; we’re all crazy. We think hobos are the crazy ones simply because they don’t have a house to conceal their actions.

Toward the end of this set, Case took a well-tread stand-up topic – Don’t ask your girlfriend how many guys she’s slept with; it’ll only lead to disaster – and made it his own, illustrating to his historically busy girlfriend that 34 is quite a high number. In his story he splays out 34 hot dogs on a platter. Gross, funny, and dare I say, smart. (I’d drop a video of Case below here if I could find one online that wasn’t him doing one joke on a Last Comic Standing commercial).

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Last Friday and Saturday marked the first ever Friars Club Improv and Sketch Competition (FrISC). Held at Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre, FrISC showcased the best five improv and sketch groups from over a hundred submissions.

At the end of each night, a panel of judges voted and announced the winner. Each winning group would receive $10,000 toward making a short film to be debuted at the Friars Club Comedy Film Festival in September.

I was lucky enough to get seats to both nights’ competitions, so if you weren’t there, I’m going to tell you what happened. Spoiler alert!

Friday was the improv competition.

First up was the Jon & Eddie Show, a two-woman group from LA. Their performance was very group-work oriented, which translated into a lot of interpretive dance.

Stepfathers, a UCB team full of improv heavyweights including Zach Woods (Gabe on The Office) was up next. One of my favorite parts of their performances was a game about a character Phil, whose main characteristic was how unmemorable he was (”Happy birthday dear…umm…”).

Code Duello, a two-man team from Boston, dressed up as Alexander Hamilton and Aaron Burr. After soliciting a suggestion from the audience about an event you might see in a colonial newspaper (they used “Andy Rooney joining 60 Minutes“–whoever yelled this out, you are the worst team player ever), they improvised scenes that eventually led up to Hamilton and Burr’s duel.

Vanity Project, another group from Boston, went through a set that involved an overly sexual teenage student, what happens to the people inside a snowglobe, and a family with a mother indifferent toward the offers of help from her overeager son.

Last up was Badman, a UCB house team. Highlights of their performance included an effeminate boy who always wanted to be the wife when playing house, much to the disgust of his Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.

At the end of the night the judges declared Stepfathers the winner.

Saturday was the sketch portion of the competition.

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Chris Gethard plays the lead in Comedy Central's upcoming series 'Big Lake.'

On Monday, I went to Upright Citizens Brigade in New York to see a screening of Big Lake, an upcoming Comedy Central sitcom set to premiere later this summer. Produced by Gary Sanchez, a production company led by Will Ferrell, Adam McKay, and Chris Henchy, Big Lake boasts a lineup of Chris Gethard (Crossballs), Horatio Sanz (SNL), and Chris Parnell (30 Rock, SNL).

Gethard plays the character of Josh, a young man who ends up being forced to move back in with his parents due to trouble at work. He spends much of his time with his two friends Glenn (Sanz), who was recently released from prison, and Chris (Parnell), their inappropriate, burned out high school teacher.

Gethard and Sanz were there at the screening to introduce three episodes from the series, including one episode, “Lee Harvey Osworld,” that Gethard and Sanz joked was going to be their Emmy episode. In true sitcom fashion, the characters fixate over certain schemes in each episode, like Josh’s ideas to expand his dad’s restaurant or Glenn and Chris’s idea to make Glenn’s house a historic landmark.

Although the plot kept me interested, the characters were what made the episodes especially entertaining. Gethard is the perfect choice to play earnest, sometimes awkward Josh (not a huge departure from Gethard’s demeanor on stage), and Parnell’s familiar authoritative tone makes his character’s terrible teaching ethics even more hilarious. Another character to watch for is Josh’s mobster-like younger brother, Jeremy, played by Dylan Blue.

Gethard, Sanz, and Parnell all use their comedic timing and improv training to put their mark on many of the scenes, making the show more interesting to watch than a run of the mill sitcom. The cast is too funny to miss, so here’s my official recommendation: Watch this show! Check out the premiere of Big Lake on Tuesday, Aug. 17th at 10 pm on Comedy Central.

Sketchfest NYC 2010, a three day all-night sketch comedy festival celebrating acts from across the country went down June 10-12. The stage at Upright Citizens Brigade theatre saw over 20 acts, all sharing their own styles with the theater-goers (sometimes by using an audience member to replace part of the cast, and sometimes by passing a handle of Jack Daniels around to the audience). I was there Friday and Saturday to witness alternative sketch at its finest.

Some highlights from Friday included Last Call Cleveland, who proved to us that good things can come out of Cleveland despite what their hilarious tourism video said. They also sang the “One Semester of Spanish Love Song,” making this the first time we’ve been seduced by the phrase “Donde esta la biblioteca?” Another act, Fearsome presents: Grease 3: Threase, provided a musical-format show, taking time to point out that they were really in high school even though they looked 30.

On Saturday, Ethan and Dave started the show using a kiwi to explain how to kiss a girl and avoid eating her entire face (difficult to do in the heat of the moment); if there are any NYC sex laws related to fruit, they were probably broken during this bit. Another food-related bit involved Elephant Larry making homemade relish and mayonnaise on stage (think vinegar, raw eggs, oil, and two fully-grown men making out to combine the ingredients). Rue Brutalia’s “Divorced Dad Cooking Show” got big laughs from the audience, and Murderfist ended Sketchfest on a celebratory note with their high-energy show.

Sketchfest NYC was a great weekend of shows that highlighted the diversity of today’s sketch comedy. To see some pictures of the shows and find out the full lineup, check out Sketchfest NYC’s official site. And check back at Punchline Magazine for more sketch and improv coverage in two weeks at the Friar’s Club Sketch and Improv Competition!