Of course Paula Poundstone doesn’t fit in on A Prairie Home Companion. She’s actually funny.
Could somebody recommend some of the funny Poundstone routines? All performers have lackluster moments and it’s possible I’ve only seen the bad ones; I’ve mainly seen her on game shows and during an awful show she hosted several years back.
I’m glad I’m not the only person who finds Garrison Keillor about as hysterical as an oncologist appointment. I think some of the people on his show are funny but he comes across as too… well, Steve Allen-Hosting-a-Best of Steve Allen-ish.
Ah! I had never been able to phrase it! Thanks!
Definitely try WWDTM. Her schtick is that she’s not very good at the show, is aware of it, and is belligerently insecure about not being good at it; her clumsy lashings out at the host (“Let me give you a hint,” he’ll say, and she’ll start saying, “A hint? A HINT? I don’t need a hint, don’t patronize me!” blah blah blah) can be absolutely hilarious.
Not at all. I can’t stand him, and I can’t stand how he whitefies all the music on his show, and this from a redhead who used to play old-timey fiddle. WHile he’s sometimes funny, usually he’s too pompous for words.
::sighs into mike::
I appreciate that his style of humor is going to appeal to a very limited audience. I’m one of them, I guess.
What a perfect way to put it.
MrWhatsit loves Prairie Home Companion. I, on the other hand, start reflexively stabbing at the radio with my finger when I hear it come on, until something else, anything else, comes on. PHC is so aggressively banal that it actually makes me angry.
She’s kind of a strange comedian, in that her scripted bits are often less funny then when she just starts ad-libbing with the audience. Presumably why people like her on Wait Wait, its mostly made up of the panel members ad-libbing (she’s also the only female panelist that isn’t aggressively unfunny, and as they seem to make sure each panel has a woman on it, the fact that Paula’s there means we’re spared a panel spot being wasted on Roxanne Roberts or one of the other woman).
I like PHC, but in part because its a good thing to listen to while your doing something else. If you don’t pay attention, your not going to miss anything crucial, its long, so it eats up time on long car trips and the like and GK’s humor is more pleasently amusing then really laugh out loud funny. Plus I like the folky kinda music. YMMV of course.
Can’t stand WWDTM, but that’s likely because the public radio station I listen to added WWDTM to their lineup and dropped Micheal Feldman’s show. I think Feldman is funnier than Garrison or WWDTM, but I do like Garrison’s musical guests and his Lake Woebegone story time.
Pouudstone? Meh. Doesn’t do it for me, and I’ve seen her live stage show. Funny moments, but mostly just meh.
Well, to each their own. The sound of Michael Feldman’s voice makes me want to reach through the radio and punch him in the face. His show is just not funny to me at all, ever. I love WWDTM, though.
You know, Paula was not that great when she first started WWDTM, and it was pretty painful in the beginning. She now has the luxury of admitting that she’s terrible at the quizzes, but at least she’s comfortable on that show now. Putting her into a PHC has been shown to be a big stretch for her, much to the audience’s chagrin.
I haven’t seen her in ages, but I still distinctly remember her televised stand-up in the 90s where she gets a college student’s phone and winds up calling the poor girl’s dormmate. It was absolutely hilarious and far more memorable than the rest of her act.
Wow, no accounting for tasts–I find Feldman unbearable, cobbling together maybe 5 minutes of funny biz in any one show (1 hr? 2? I can never make it to the end), while I find WWDTM a riot–though usually not because of PP but the host and other panelists.
Oh good lord. I’m sitting here trying to listen to the Christmas Tree skit and the whole thing is terrible. Paula is bad, but she’s bad in a bad skit.
She cracks me upon WWDTM.
I’ve seen Paula live, and listen to WWDTM every week, and she always gets a laugh out of me. I agree that the format of WWDTM plays more to her strengths (plus, she gets to riff off Peter Segal, who is the funniest man on radio, IMO).
Praire Home Companion, though, I swear I can feel my brains turn to oatmeal. It’s the radio equivalent of a vegetative coma - you’re just waiting for death’s sweet kiss.
Y’know, this gels it for me, the reason I hate PHC: it’s like Saturday Night Live for old people. And I hate SNL too.