The 2nd ever BROOKLYN BRAIN JAM - Sunday 3/15

KEVIN GEEKS OUT is teaming up with THE BIG QUIZ THING and NERD NITE for a spectacular 6-hour show. 

The Brooklyn Brain Jam

Sunday March 15th 

at Littlefield 622 DeGraw Street

Just $12 (get ticket HERE) 

and another link for directions

It's a buffet of nerdy, geeky entertainment, with

This Friday: Kevin Geeks Out ALL-STARS SHOW!

KEVIN GEEKS OUT: APRIL ALL-STARS SHOW

a comedy variety show featuring an all-star line-up, including:  

ELLIOTT KALAN (THE DAILY SHOW) talks about The Stout Men of Holllywood.

PROFESSOR GEOFF KLOCK (author of HOW TO READ SUPERHERO COMICS AND WHY) presents the ultimate Hamlet supercut with clips from over 70 films, cartoons and TV shows. 

R. SIKORYAK (MASTERPIECE COMICS) dramatizes comic strips on the big screen. 

DAN McCOY (THE DAILY SHOW) tells the true story that brings together twitter and USA UP ALL NIGHT.

KEVIN MAHER (that's me) recounts his year at Best Week Ever and explores how talking clip-shows could be the most Orwellian of any media. 

Plus an all-new "Kindest cut" movie by M. SWEENEY LAWLESS and a presentation by TOM BLUNT.

The show is likely to sell-out, so buy your tickets now: 

BUY TICKETS HERE

KEVIN GEEKS OUT: APRIL ALL-STARS 
92YTribeca, 200 Hudson Street
New York, NY
just ten bucks

Kevin Geeks Out is the comedy-variety show hosted by writer-comedian Kevin Maher—a confabulation of vintage film clips and videos, new finds, guest experts, games and curiosities. To geek out with Kevin you don’t need to be a geek, you just need to love cool stuff. PLEASE NOTE: The 92YTribeca will be closing in June.  There are only a few shows left.  Use these links to get your tickets to KEVIN GEEKS OUT ABOUT RIP-OFF CINEMA (Friday May 10th @8pm)KEVIN GEEKS OUT ABOUT MONKEYS  (Friday June 14th @8pm)

the return of KEVIN GEEKS OUT - HOLIDAY GRAB BAG SHOW!

I'm delighted to announce that KEVIN GEEKS OUT will be bringing back the HOLIDAY GRAB BAG SHOW.  Instead of the traditional "obsessive theme nights" we welcome some of our favorite returning guests (and new friends) to share their favorite geek-obsessions.

Topics include:

How He-Man spends the Holidays

A close look at the most depressing Christmas song

Confessions of a 12-time Macy's Santa

Tour Diary by Britney Spears' punk clown

Doom Cakes: the cinematic tradition in which any beautifully decorated cake serves as a harbinger of imminent catasropher (often include the destruction of said cake)


All this, plus weird and wonderful segments like geek bingo, trivia prizes, rare videos, stump the guest panelist and free snacks!

BUY TICKETS HERE  (no service charge)


Multi-media variety shows don't get better than this, so come on out and geek out with these special guests:

Tom Blunt (host of (2Y Tribeca's MEET THE LADY)

Glen Heroy (actor and clown)

M. Sweeney Lawless (writer for THE LOWBROW READER)

Nick Nadel (editor of TheFW.com)

Professor Geoff Klock (author of HOW TO READ SUPERHERO COMICS AND WHY)

Sara Reiss (baker, blogger, self-described "hater")

Matt Wilson (TV's Cyberspace)



KEVIN GEEKS OUT - HOLIDAY GRAB BAG


Friday December 9th at 8pm


92Y Tribeca, 200 Hudson Street


BUY TICKETS HERE  (no service charge)

SEXY NERDS & DIRTY WORDS - show recap with photos

Thanks to everybody who attended the first ever show of SEXY NERDS &D IRTY WORDS -- we had a killer line-up of guests (pictured below) and a sold-out audience filled with cool people.  (They kept an open mind and stayed "with us" as performers like to say.)

Here are some photos from the event (courtesy of ace photographer Matthew Glasson)

I opened the show with some of my filthiest material: nasty jokes, stuff I refused to tweet, and a collection of my "dirty alliteration" (which was co-written by my wife.)  These jokes were a perfect way to open the show, and the audience dug it, but I really can't share it on the web, as a potential employer might object to jokes like: "I just ate a bowl of diarrhea.  And the worst part is, I wasn't even hungry."

Then Matt Wilson joined me for a staged reading of a classic sex-talk titled "The Roommates Hatch a Plan."

Spoken Nerd poet Jared Singer read his first piece of the night, a very funny and moving autobiographical poem that touched on action figures and Saturday morning cartoons.  I love being at a show where one of the acts makes a passing reference to Yusagi Yojimbo.  Click here to see Jared performing at the Bowery Poetry Poetry Club.

Next, the noted nerd, wit and long-time friend M. Sweeney Lawless revealed the conspiracy theory about putting gorillas on comic book covers.  In the 1950's, DC Comics editor Julius Schwartz observed that the best selling comic books were ones that featured primates on the cover.  Meg examined several examples, many of which you can see here with commentary by Meg and me. 

Then the audience was treated to a video-game inspired routine by burlesque performer Iris Explosion.  You can watch Iris work the room as Ms. Pac-Man.  (note: I first saw this act at Tom Blunt's amazing show MEET THE LADY.  If you like my shows, you should see what Tom does.) 

Come to think of it, Ms. Pac-Man was always pretty racy for a kids' arcade game. 

Next up was a high-concept act: Mark Douglas performed as ANDREW 12-SIDED DICE CLAY.  He's the bad-boy of the comic shop, telling jokes that are obscene, obscure and observational.  

We videotaped his set and a few days later it screened at New York Comic Con during a panel on "Geek Humor."  The live-act was a hit and the video killed at Comic Con.  Watch the video HERE and please donate money to our kickstarter campaign so we can make more videos about the 12-Sided Diceman. 

 Also that night we played GEEK BINGO (photos not available.)

The always-entertaining Mike Edison read from his new book, DIRTY! DIRTY! DIRTY!: Of Playboys, Pigs and Penthouse Paupers - An American Tale of Sex and Wonder.   You may recognize Mike from  Kevin Geeks Out About Genre Busters where he performed with his beatnik band, talking about sex, drugs and professional wrestling. 

Related: here's the 3-D trailer for Mike's new book....

*            *            * 

Then we got a return visit from ANDREW 12-SIDED DICE CLAY, who did some of the same jokes -- but from a different camera angle.  We got great coverage (you can see the 3-minute trailer here), the video was shot by Jeremy Carr and edited by Eric Hendricks, the same team who joined me on most of my videos, from AMC's Sci Fi Department to Comedy Central's Puppet Rodeo.  But unlike those web-series, Dice won't get financed by a corporate entity. The material is too dirty and too nerdy.  So we need the support of people like you (specifically, YOU!)  You can pledge here and learn more about our Kickstarter campaign. 

Also, in the video I play a hack comic who is too cool for school.  Here I am wearing a hoodie, with my hands in my pockets, not trying very hard -- because cool people don't try very hard. 

Lastly, closing out the show, Matt Wilson did some racy balloon art and he closed with a "sword swallowing" routine, set to AC/DC's "Back in Black."   We taped his set, I hope he puts it online.  In the meatime, you can see the photos here.... 

Goodnight everybody.  And again, please donate to our kickstarter page! 

Kevin Geeks Out About Rip-Off Cinema

 

Kevin Geeks Out is the comedy-variety show hosted by writer-comedian Kevin Maher – a confabulation of vintage film clips and videos, new finds, guest experts, games and curiosities. To geek out with Kevin you don’t need to be a geek, you just need to love cool stuff. 

Since 2008, Kevin has geeked out with 23 different installments of his video variety night to fill those gaps in your education about Bigfoot! – Robots! – Video Games! – Werewolves! – KISS! – Batman! – and Sharks! His shows have been critics’ picks in the Village Voice, Time Out New York, Gothamist, The New York Times’ “Urban Eye”...and what other comedy show can you name that’s been featured in Scientific American Online?

This month, Kevin Geeks Out about RIP-OFF CINEMA, chronicling the “knockbusters” that attempt to capture the magic of E.T., KING KONG, WAR OF THE WORLDS and other big-budget blockbusters. The two-hour cultural cavalcade includes trivia, snacks, prizes, and guest speakers presenting rare film footage and TV clips you won’t find on YouTube or Netflix.  Kevin is joined by some very special guests:  

·      Emmy Award-winning Daily Show writer Elliott Kalan looks back at his favorite E.T. rip-off.  (It’s not Mac and Me!)

·      Writer M. Sweeney Lawless gives a brief history of films that aped KING KONG.

·      Comic Book Blogger Nick Nadel presents a montage of Super-hero knock-offs from around the world.

·      Professor Geoff Klock illustrates the difference between a rip-off and an homage.

·      Filmmaker Matthew Glasson shares scenes from his favorite JAWS copycat (that was actually banned from the U.S. for copyright infringement!)

·      Horror Blogger Brian Solomon presents a study of HALLOWEEN rip-offs.

·      And Artist-Baker Sara Reiss serves up “knock-off” themed treats.

·      Plus trivia games and prizes that will include knock-off products.


KEVIN GEEKS OUT ABOUT RIP-OFF CINEMA
Thursday September 15th @ 8pm
92Y Tribeca, 200 Hudson Street  NYC


buy tickets HERE

Kevin Maher hosts The Oscar Screening Part at the Paley Center

On Hollywood's most self-important night, I hosted New York's only official screening of the Academy Awards, at the Paley Center for Media.   It was a weird night with a most eclectic-audience (not my usual downtown/Brooklyn regulars.) But it made for a fun evening.  Audience members enjoyed plenty of food and booze, while watching the pre-show and the ceremony.

From 8 o'clock until the end of the live telecast, I did comedy bits, movie trivia, dramatic readings of #Oscar tweets. Plus interactive games like "The Google Algorithm Quiz: Oscar Edition" (where audiences had to guess which actor's name brought up certain keywords when being entered in the Google Search enging.  For example, "Which actor/actress brings up the word "terrorist"?  Answer: Mark Ruffalo.) 

On stage  was joined by my old Kevin Geeks Out producer M. Sweeney Lawless, plus old friends from Best Week Ever: Norman Baker and Caroline Waxler, and from Lucky Magazine fashion expert Christina Anderson.  The commented, tweeted and even joined two audience members for a live throwdown battle of "6 Degrees of Kevin Bacon." (In the end it was an audience member who linked Kevin Bacon and Colin Firth in only three degrees.)

During one of our audience polls the crowd was asked:

"Which topic will be the first to be used for a hacky joke?

• Charlie Sheen
• Justin Bieber
• Ricky Gervais
• 3-D

Oscar Party @ The Paley Center - hosted by ME

One of my favorite places in all of New York City is the Paley Center (formerly the Museum of TV and Radio.  I will always call it that, the same way I'll always call The PNC Bank Center "The Garden State Arts Center") because there's something amazing about communal TV viewing.

You can imagine how flattered I was when they invited me to host their screening of the Academy Awards.  It's going to be a party with food and drinks, oscar voting, trivia and comedy bits during commercial breaks (with me!)  Plus I'll be joined by old friends M. Sweeney Lawless, Norman Baker and Caroline Waxler. 

Rub elbows with film fanatics, TV geeks, drunk bloggers, and media-ecologists like myself as we watch Hollywood's most self-important night. 

2011 Academy Awards Viewing Party

Sunday February 27, 2011

(doors open at 7pm, with a red-carpet walk and historic footage of the Academy Awards)

screening begins at 8pm

The Paley Center for Media

25 West 52 Street

New York, NY 

Get tickets HERE and use discount code "KEVIN" and save five bucks. 

P.S. here's a video I did about OSCAR WINNERS STARRING IN TRASHY B-MOVIES

Kevin Geeks Out About Monkeys (a recap)

Kevin Geeks Out is a monthly video variety/comedy show I host at the 92Y Tribeca.  This is a recap of the February 2010 installment: Kevin Geeks Out About Monkeys.


We kicked off the show with a hot-mix of some favorite monkey movies and TV shows, including clips from The Mighty Gorga, Trog, Escape from the Planet of the Apes, Battle for the Planet of the Apes, and an actual film called FUNKY MONKEY which stars Matthew Modine as a guy who travels around the country with a super-talented chimp.  Apparently they're just about to leave town when they are roped into helping a kid win the big game.  (I'll admit, I didn't watch the entire movie, just the football stuff.)

Then I did a lengthy study about the legacy of King Kong, from the sequels to the Toho reboots, the remakes, the knock-offs, the universal studios ride, the video games, and so on.  [Fun-Fact: the 1933 original was followed by a quickie sequel called Son of Kong.  Now the first film came out in April of '33, the sequel premiered that December.  This is probably the quickest turn-around is sequel-making.  But 50 years later that record was beat when a 1984 blockbuster attempted to quickly cash in on a sequel before the fad ended.  Can you guess the movie?  It was Breakin' (released in May of '84) immediately followed by Breakin' 2 (which was released in December, presumably to be eligible for the '84 Academy Awards.)]  We also covered the Toho reboot, including King Kong Vs. Godzilla and the film where Kong fights his robot doppleganger, Mechani-Kong (below King Kong Escapes) All this, plus: King Kong Bundy, Donkey Kong, King Kong cocktails, and profiles of 1970's knock-offs including Queen Kong, A*P*E, and King Kung-Fu. We showed bits from Universal studios' "King Kong Experience" ride and commercials for Nebraska's King Kong fast-food restaurant. (don't worry, they don't eat gorilla meat.) For the sake of keeping this a family show, we did not screen anything from Kinky Kong or Babes of Kong Island.

Next up, a Kevin Geeks Out favorite -- Professor Geoff Klock did a close-reading on a single issue of the Justice League Comic Book that centered around Gorilla Grodd. Klock argued that the adventured celebrated the weirdness of his adventures -- the kind of stuff Christopher Nolan would never put in a movie -- like Batman taking his space-ship to a distant planet where he kicks a gorilla in the nut-sack.  Viva Comics!

This was followed by another video block, celebrating REAL monkeys in film, including Lancelot Link: Secret Chimp, old movies of a monkey wedding and this classic by Tom Stern (a film which is said to be a favorite of Ethan Coen.)

Carrie McLaren (producer of Brooklyn's Adult Ed Lecture Series) delivered an eye-opening lecture about the history of Bob and Mae Noell's "Gorilla's Ark", a mid-century traveling side-show where audience members were invited to win money by boxing chimpanzees. (Not surprisingly, a lot of the volunteers were drunk.  Some things never change.) We do not have footage of Carrie's lecture, but you can see some of her other primate lectures here, including "Why You Want a Monkey" and "How to Raise a Chimp in Your Home.")

After that, KGO super-producer Meg Sweeney Lawless introduced "The Kindest Cut" a recurring segment at Kevin Geeks Out, where Meg and her husband Jay cut-down a feature-film into an abridged version with the best (or the worst) parts of genre movie.  This month Meg shared KONGA -- a bizarre British Kong-like story that featured flesh-eating plants, dummy-deaths and the guy who played Alfred the Butler in Tim Burton's Batman.  (NOTE: Less than a month later, an audience member hosted her own KONGA screening party in Boston, where people dressed up for the film.)

Noah Tarnow was up next with a primate-themed edition of his Big Quiz Thing -- three audience members were brought up to compete (including one guy in a gorilla suit!)  Noah occasionally stumped his contestants with questions about monkey-music, movies and history.

The contestants won some deluxe prizes, including: passes to the Congo Gorilla Forest at the Bronx Zoo, passes to the upcoming Curious George art exhibit at the Jewish Museum, and a signed DVD of the movie KONGA.  (signed by me.)


Then it was time for a snack break!  Our audience was treated to Envirokidz Organic cereal: GORILLA MUNCH.  The gluten-free treat was provided by Nature's Path Organic foods.


While the audience was crunching and munching, M. Sweeney Lawless returned to do a bit with me about the theory behind putting gorillas on comic-book covers.  You can see the cover art and read the bit HERE  (or just scroll down to the next blog entry.)  It's worth noting, I discovered that my favorite cover, was in fact a reprint. Check it out and compare the two covers side-by-side.

Keeping with our comic-book chimps, we brought up one of my all-time favorite cartoonists, Michael Kupperman (of Snake n' Bacon, Tales Designed to Thrizzle).  Kupperman shared a brand-new story about a jungle princess. It will be included in the upcoming issue of his Tales Designed to Thrizzle.

Following Kupperman's classy comic book art, we continued with the high-brow, showing one of the best TV comedy bits I've ever seen.  Ernie Kovacs' rendition of Swan Lake:

The evening was packed with videos of guys in gorilla suits, cartoon chimps and real-live monkeys.  Animal Lawyer (but not an actual animal who is a lawyer) Cori Herbig stepped up and told some true tales of monkeys in movies.  I'd noted after the Lancelot Link clips that the male chimps in that series had been castrated before production began, to keep them from humping people and females.  Well, that's just the tip (ahem) of the iceberg.  Cori talked about some actions being taken to protect performing animals -- or to keep them out of film and tv entirely.


I love to showcase "spoken nerd" poetry whenver possible -- and initially Ernie Cline was scheduled to be part of the show.  Being a hot-shot screenwriter, he was called to L.A. and could not attend, but he did share this video favorite:

Then it was time for the surprise gift of the evening.  Proceeds from Kevin Geeks Out About Monkeys were used to adopt this little darling -- Ubwuzu.  He's a two-and-a-half year old male, the only child of Mitimblili and one of the youngest in his group of mountain gorillas being studied and protected by the Dian Fosey Gorilla Fund's Kaisoke Research Center.  I have to admit, I'd wanted to change his name to baby Milo (like the infant chimpanzee in Escape From the Planet of the Apes -- but just look at him!  He's such a Ubwuzu.  Right?

Following the adoption announcement, we showed a video of Jane Goodall wishing happy 75th birthday to the chimp who played Cheeta in the Tarzan movies.  And then we handed out copies of the adoption notice to audience members -- because we are all Ubwuzu's parents now.


And no show would be complete without a teaser for the next month's show:  (note: this trailer was edited by Matthew Glasson, a longtime KGO favorite who is co-hosting this very show!)
 
KEVIN GEEKS OUT - BONUS MATERIAL: (stuff not actually seen in the show)


Gorilla at Large Trailer. Note: the actor in the monkey-suit also played the title role in ROBOT-MONSTER and the “MUGATO” (white horned ape) in Star Trek. 

I CREATED LANCELOT LINK  a short documentary from the maker of "Heavy Metal Parking Lot"

Infrequently Asked Questions about King Kong

Another one of Tom Stern's Mokeyed Movie: Planet of the Humans 

Here's a hilarious short by Steve Martin. (Sometimes I forget how funny he is. It's understandable.) 

From the TRAILERS FROM HELL website, here's John Landis on Mighty Joe Young and director Mick Garris on Son of Kong.

Enough talking – here’s Chimp Karate!

Two weeks after the show, I found this old bootleg DVD of mine with 1960's Superman cartoons. Here's the Man of Steel taking on the Ape Army of the Amazon

SITES DEVOTED TO GORILLA COMIC BOOK COVERS: Here's one

and another 

and yet another 

and still another  

News report about this Japanese monkey waiter. 

Footage of drunk monkeys in the Carribean.

A link to the trailer for LINK (a 1986 horror movie that pre-dates Monkey Shines) 

King Klunk Walter Lantz's 1933 cartoon that parodies of the Kong myth.