Just For Laughs today announced that the keynote address at their annual conference, which runs during the July 15 – 17 part of its Just For Laughs festival activities (July 7 – 18), will be given by Lewis Black. And everyone’s favorite underdog comedian Andy Kindler, like he does every year, will give the State of the Industry Address.

In addition, festival organizers announced that JFL will expand this year, creating a Comedy Bootcamp for Film. Its for anyone interested in the 2010 Telefilm Canada Features Lab. You can check out cfccreates.com and hahaha.com/conference for details. Three teams will get the opportunity to pitch their script to a panel of comedy experts and receive feedback before the Telefilm festival.

Lewis Black, Dave Attell, Kevin Hart, Jeffrey Ross, Darrell Hammond, Rich Vos, Gilbert Gottfried, Paul Mooney, Mike Vecchione, Julian McCullough, Capone and Ruperto Vanderpool all performed last night at Carolines in New York to raise money for Haiti.

The club, along with radio station Power 105.1 FM — DJ Ed Lover hosted the show — produced the night of laughs; all the proceeds from the event will be delivered to Doctors Without Borders and the Clinton Foundation. Check out some photos below, shot by Michael Grinspan, of last night’s festivities.

Lewis Black

Doctors Without Borders representative Mary Vonckx addresses the capacity crowd at the "Stand-Up for Haiti" comedy benefit at Carolines on Broadway.

Darrell Hammond

A film documenting behind-the-scene and on-stage antics of the second annual Detroit International Comedy Festival, “Laugh Detroit,” will be released this Tuesday, Jan. 5.

The documentary is a product of filmmaker Jim Dudek, who is a resident of Berkley, MI. – a suburb of Detroit. He has captured six days of comedy featuring 44 comics, and intends to bring more attention to the budding festival, according to hometownlife.com.

Along with countless comedians from Detroit and beyond, the film features Mark Ridley, owner of Detroit’s Comedy Castle, who has been in the comedy business for 31 years. Ridley modestly boasts about the festival, and highlights how it draws comedy industry to see comics who wouldn’t normally be featured in high-profile festivals such as Montreal, New York, and Chicago. He expects that the DVD release, combined with the word-of-mouth popularity garnered by the fledgling festival, will attract attention to this year’s third annual Detroit International Comedy Festival, to be held March 21-27.

This year’s festival will feature quite the hilarious bill, including Lewis Black, Kathleen Madigan, a Clean Guys show with Dave Coulier, and Kivi Rogers. Ridley hopes that he can book 50 comics to 2010’s festival, and the bill will pull a higher attendance from industry and the general public alike.

If you’re in the Detroit area, check out the World Premiere and DVD release party at 8 p.m. on Jan. 5. It will be held at the Emagine Theater in Novi, and will feature comics Ryan Hamilton and Michael McDaniel. Tickets are going fast – general admission is already sold out, but you can purchase $15 tickets at arkdistribution.com. If you can’t make the premiere, never fear. The film will be shown at Emagine Theaters in Novi, Canton, Woodhaven, and at the Cinema Hollywood in Birch Run starting on Jan. 8. Tickets for this year’s Laugh Detroit festival can be bought at comedycastle.com.

Although Lewis Black’s newest stand-up comedy special Stark Raving Black enjoyed a theatrical release in select cities across the nation a few months back, chances are there are still many hardcore Black-ites who have not yet peeped this beautifully produced film.

But this weekend, that’s all going to change, when new cable programming service EPIX premieres Black’s latest comedy masterpiece on Saturday at 8 pm EST. For television purists, EPIX is available for Verizon FiOS subscribers; however their shows are also accessible on Video on Demand and online, which brings us to this exciting news:

The fine folks at EPIX have allowed us to offer Punchline Magazine readers free passes to the service throughout this weekend. Go here and get yours. You’ll be given a 72-hour login, good for Friday through Sunday night. In addition to Black’s special, you’ll have access to the 150+ movies – most in HD – that EPIX offers.

For now, we have a crapload of great preview clips from Black’s special: Two below and five more after the jump. Enjoy!

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We know hardcore comedy fans are not the History Channel’s target demographic, but tonight, the network often knocked by comedians as the “Hitler Channel” — because of its incessant Nazi-centric programming — just might get a bit of crossover as Lewis Black hosts the special Surviving the Holidays with Lewis Black. It happens at 8 pm EST and will be re-played through Nov. 29. Judging by the History Channel’s synopsis of the show, we have to admit, this looks quite entertaining. Here’s what they have to say.

Ho, ho, ho! ‘Tis the season of survival. Armed with history, humor and his trademark ranting, the “Curmudgeon of Comedy” returns to make sense of this 36-day, end-of-year insanity that consumes us all. The Grammy winner takes a comedic look at how to survive the “month-long festival of consumption” without losing your mind. He consults experts in holiday history, anxiety and gift giving–and other comedians. He explores the meaning of Kwanzaa, the history of Chanukah, and the real Saint Nicholas. He interviews turkeys on a turkey farm. Lewis discovers why we drink on New Year’s Eve and why the Detroit Lions always play on Thanksgiving Day. He does a stint as a department store Santa with kids and learns about the Major League Dreidel playoffs.

When Lewis was promoting his second book, Me of Little Faith, last year he shot this video, wherein he opines on the concept of Christmas. Check it out.

As we reported in August, master comedian Lewis Black’s new special Stark Raving Black, will have a unique introduction to the masses. Instead of premiering on one of the cable network giants, you’ll get to see Black’s glorious fury on the big screen, as it premieres today in 20 cities across the country. Find out where it’s playing here. And for now, check out the trailer.

If you can’t catch the big screen version of the concert film, you’ll have to wait until December to check it out, when it premieres on new cable channel Epix.

This year, Punchline Magazine is celebrating its four years online with an incredible show at Comix in New York City on Oct. 13. Lewis Black, Janeane Garofalo, Todd Barry, Christian Finnegan, Ted Alexandro, Pete Dominick and Robert Hawkins will all perform at the show, a one-night only event.

To help celebrate the anniversary, the first 75 people in the showroom will get Punchline Magazine sport bags filled with CDs from Co-sponsor Stand Up! Records, t-shirts from Rooftop Comedy and more. Tickets to this event are only $15 in advance and $20 the day of. Go here to get your tickets before they’re gone.

Lewis Black’s next hour-long special will not premiere on Comedy Central, HBO or Showtime. Rather, you’ll be able to watch it if by that time you’ve signed up and paid for Epix, a forthcoming cable channel– the birth child of Viacom, MGM and Lionsgate.

The special, currently titled Stark Raving Black, was filmed at Fillmore Theater in Detroit on Aug. 2 and will debut in December, according to Variety. And get this. The special will also be released in theaters Oct. 8 in 20 cities across America as then in 25 cities abroad.

Lewis Black, comedy’s most famous high-blood pressure funnyman, will guest star on CBS’s hit sitcom, The Big Bang Theory. In a new season that begins airing on Monday, Sept. 21, Black will play a troubled professor at the show’s Caltech University who has the misfortune of watching his life fall apart before his eyes. Episodes featuring Black will appear on Mondays at 9:30, EST, on CBS.