CringeHumor

To celebrate the Cringe Humor Show’s glorious return to New York City, I feel it is appropriate and self serving to put together a hacky internet top 10 list in order to hopefully lure you into attending our August 25th event. More details on that down below. For now, enjoy reliving some classic moments in the CH Show history with pictures, video, and some never before heard audio clips from the mentioned events.

10) 4.22.04 - The First Ever Cringe Humor Show

We were so young and innocent back then It all started after the Jim Norton Roast in March 2003. This little website helped to promote the roast at Carolines, and quickly sold out once it hit the Opie & Anthony fan sites. Right after the roast I sat down with Masavia Greer (former Boston Comedy Club & Standup NY Manager) and threw out the pipedream of doing Cringe Humor Shows that catered to the O&A crowd. The Laugh Lounge was the perfect venue at the time, as it was freshly opened and looking for independently produced shows.

With Masavia running the show based on my wish-list of performers, the first Cringe Humor Show took place on April 24th, 2004. Attendance was light to say the least, as most of the crowd was comprised of a few forum members and people from Slim Shady’s posse who were there to hang with Jim Florentine. It was so bad that the great Patrice O’Neal (who was scheduled to perform) showed up, saw how empty the room was, and decided to leave without notice.

However the show itself was a great success featuring established performers like Rich Vos, Jim Florentine, Keith Robinson, Ben Bailey, and was hosted by Ardie Fuqua before he sold out to the Comedy Cellar. We then decided to do shows every 2 weeks and featured many diverse performers that were friends of Masavia’s.

- Click here for pictures from the event

- Click here for audio of Ben Bailey doing an extended version of his great “An Email From Sable” routine. One of my all-time favorites. Please pardon my laughter as it was bootlegged by me.

9) 02.09.06 - Jim Norton, Joe Matarese, & Bill Burr Pack The Laugh Factory

The February 2006 show at the old Laugh Factory (now the Times Square Arts Center) will always go down as our highest attended show due to the Club Soda Kenny controversy hitting the media outlets the same day. More on that below.

We managed to bring in over 200 + people, nearly filling the massive main show room of the club. The lineup was tremendous as it featured spots by Jim Norton, Bill Burr, and Joe Matarese headlining. It also featured guest spots by Chris McDevitt, Mike Cotayo, & Jon Owens having the worst spot of all time - following Jim Norton during a check drop.

- Click here for pictures from the event

- Click here for audio of Jim Norton singling out a reviewer in the crowd

- Click here for audio of Bill Burr talking about shamed sports reporters

- Click here for audio of Joe Matarese taking requests and sharing stories about Norton

8) 3.21.07 - Colin Quinn Headlines The CH Show

The legend at work Any long time visitor of this website knows of our love affair with the legendary Colin Quinn, as his Tough Crowd show inspired Cringe Humor once O&A were booted off of terrestrial radio. Having Colin headline one of our shows is without questions one of my all-time greatest and personal favorite accomplishments.

Colin was originally slated to do a 15 minute spot, but show host Mark Anthony Ramirez was MIA when Colin wrapped up. This was a blessing in disguise as Colin gave us another 15 minutes of his brilliance.

- Click here for pictures from the event

- Click here for audio of Colin’s entire 30 minute set

7) 7.19.06 - Louis CK Does A Guest Spot

It was our first ever show at the top headline club in NYC, Carolines On Broadway. The room was jam packed with 150 people coming out on a hot Wednesday night. The lineup was stacked, as it featured paid spots by Russ Meneve, Ted Alexandro, Sherrod Small, Bonnie McFarlane, and headlined by Rich Vos. CH writer Josh Goguen came all the way up from North Carolina to do a guest spot, while Colin Kane and Laura Levites rounded out the rest of the scheduled performances.

However, I will never forget one of the waiters getting my attention and telling me that Louis CK is on the phone at the bar. I picked up and Louis graciously asked me if he could stop by and do a quick 10 minute spot of material he was working on. Of course I said “YES!”

- Click here for pictures from the event

- Check out this video of Louis’ entire set here:

6) 6.2.05 - Russ Meneve Gets Offensive

Terri Schiavo would be proud It was another sparsely attended CH Show at the Laugh Lounge, but something magical happened that night. Russ Meneve was going through his set and managed to offend a female audience member with his famous “Wash Me” bit. Russ immediately began “mentally downloading” his filthiest jokes just to really piss her off.

The result is what the Cringe Humor Show is all about. The audio even made it onto Russ’ debut CD, Stray Doggie Style, as a bonus track. Check it out, and we also hope you enjoy hearing Pete Rosales’ and LaMott Jackson’s classic laughter in the background, too

- Click here for pictures from the event

- Click here for audio of Russ in action

5) 8.11.05 - Jim Norton Does A Set For His Fans

Attendance was once again an issue as things were no longer working out for us at the Laugh Lounge. As part of a last ditch effort, I called in a favor and asked the great Jim Norton to come down and do a spot. What happened that night was a magical experience for Jimmy’s long time fans.

The room was near capacity, as 90% of it was filled with hardcore O&A fans. Norton sat down and gave us a wonderful 30 minute set, chock full of show references and other inside jokes that every ate up.

Unfortunately his set was marred by the club manager dropping the checks on him, which is something he talked about on O&A the next morning. This prompted us to finally pack or bags and seek out another venue…

- Click here for pictures from the event

- Check out this video of Norton from the show:

4) 12.8.05 - The Club Soda Kenny Incident

Rare photo of CSK's performance This really was a huge fluke, and the ramifications of the events that took place that night weren’t felt until a few months after that faithful night.

We always knew Club Soda Kenny (CSK) as the head of Andrew Dice Clay’s personal security team. I first became a fan of his due to his performances in Jim Florentine’s great Meet The Creeps DVDs. I caught wind of CSK doing some standup at the Stress Factory when Jim Norton would headline there. All I heard was that is was awful and brutally offensive, so I just knew we had to put him on a Cringe Show.

The stage was set on a freezing winter night in December. Florentine, Don Jamieson, & Kenny filmed a skit next door for Meet The Creeps 2 in which they were handing out lotion and tissues to fellas who entering the Adult Film Store next door to the Laugh Factory. Kenny then agreed to do a quick guest spot of his awful act on our show after some encouragement from Florentine.

The show itself boasted an amazing lineup consisting of Julian Kross, Josh Goguen, Robert Kelly, Steve Byrne, Jim Florentine, Russ Meneve, & Judah Friendlander. All of them would be overshadowed, as the sweaty Kenny went up on stage and pulverized the crowd with a series of rape & pedophile jokes one after another. By the time his 10 minutes were up the crowd’s mouths were left agape in horror. Poor Russ Meneve had to follow that assault but pulled through like the professional that he is.

The fallout from those 10 minutes were tremendous. Someone (with an axe to grind) in the crowd recognized CSK as a detective for the West Orange PD and sent in audio from the performance that we posted on the site with Kenny’s personal blessings. The audio was even played & critiqued live on the Opie & Anthony Show a few weeks later. I got the heads up from Jim Florentine a few days before it hit the presses and quickly pulled the audio, pictures, videos, and anything else related to the incident JUST IN TIME. If I didn’t get the warning, every news outlet across the world would have been playing snippets of his set and would have buried him even more so.

I really felt terrible. Here was a man who was 19 years into his job and less than a year out from retirement, and they were threatening to take away his pension. However his brilliant lawyer played it up as a Freedom Of Speech issue, as Kenny wasn’t compensated at all for his performance. He was just goofing off.

Kenny won the case but is still dealing with legal issues from it to this day. That is why we won’t be posting the audio until we get his blessing. Since that December night, Kenny hasn’t graced the stage and that is an absolute shame.

- Click here for pictures from the event

- Check out this video from backstage, including some of Kenny’s material while Chuck Miganelli, Jim Florentine, and Josh Goguen react to it:

3) 11.3.05 - Cringe Humor Invades Times Square

After our successful yet frustrating August 2005 show with Jim Norton, we were looking for a new venue to host the Cringe Humor Shows. Former show host Mark Anthony Ramirez had a hookup with Jack Keller, who at the time was managing at the newly opened Laugh Factory. We invited Jack to come down to our last Laugh Lounge Show in hopes of moving the CH Shows into Times Square. Jack showed up, saw the potential, and 2 months later I was booking a show all by myself for the first time.

I managed to pull out a lineup consisting of Colin Quinn, Jim Norton, Bonnie McFarlane, & Rich Vos. I even had up & coming comedians Joe DeRosa and Jason Good come by and do guest spots. The show itself went amazingly well as we pulled in a decent sized crowd and the precedent was set. Cringe Humor was ready for the big time.

- Click here for pictures from the event

- Click here for audio of Colin Quinn talking about Jim Norton

- Click here for audio of Jim Norton responding to Colin

2) 11.12.06 - The Cringe Humor Awards Show @ The NY Comedy Festival

It was such a beautiful clusterfuck of a night. Each year we had the Cringe Humor Awards on the site in which we honored the best and worst of NYC comedy. We named best comedians, best CD/DVD, Hack Of The Year, Best & Worst Moments Of The Year, etc. It was fun and also started a lot of shit in the comedy world. We should bring it back in some capacity…

Carolines GM Lou Faranda had the idea of bringing it to the 2006 New York Comedy Festival which was HUGE for us. It was an enormous production that combined live performances awards being handed out in between sets. Rich Vos was such a fucking trooper, as he had the daunting task of hosting this “fiasco” as Patrice O’Neal coined it. Oh yeah, and Dane Cook was selling out Madison Square Garden across town the same night.

The entire flow of the show was fucked as both Otto Peterson and Rick Shapiro didn’t show up at all. We managed to pull through it though, as we had Jim Norton present Colin Quinn with the first ever Cringe Humor Legend Award. The night was capped off with Patrice O’Neal being named the CH Comedian Of The Year. He then made it a point to try to piss off the crowd and walk some of the audience’s members. What a fitting end for a stressful and abortion of a night.

Looking back, it is something I will always cherish and hold close to my heart - to be the first producer to have shows at both the New York Comedy Festival and the NYC Underground Comedy Festival. Too bad we burned bridges at both!

- Click here for pictures from this event

Check out these videos from the night:

1) 10.7.04 - Cringe Humor @ The NYC Underground Comedy Festival

Cringe Humor was given a chance to be a part of George Sarris’ version of the New York City Underground Comedy Festival and we delivered one of the greatest lineups of all time.

Everything aligned perfectly that night. All of the main cringe guys were in town. It was just announced that Tough Crowd was canceled, and this site put on a huge campaign that produced 10,000 emails to the president of Comedy Central to bring it back. Also, Opie & Anthony returned to radio and made their XM Radio debut less than a week before. The show was actually recorded to be played on XM but alas, they never came through. Anyways…

Mike Britt was the host and kicked off a 2 hour plus marathon of established and up & coming comedians in the NYC scene. The order went like this: Laurie Kilmartin, Jim Florentine, Rich Vos, Patrice O’Neal, Jim Norton, Colin Quinn, Robert Kelly, Russ Meneve, Ben Bailey, & Judah Friedlander. If I were to try to put that lineup together today it would take place in an arena and cost me a good $50,000 to book. What a difference 6 years makes.

- Click here for pictures from this event

- Click here for audio of Colin Quinn’s entire set

- Check out this video of Robert Kelly & Colin Quinn going at it:

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I ask you all to please do what you can and come out to our show on Wednesday, August 25th at Comix. It features established CH performers, and a whole crop of guys that are up & coming on the cringe scene. Just 6 years ago it was Judah Friedlander, Ben Bailey, Robert Kelly, Steve Byrne, Mike DeStefano, Big Jay Oakerson, and more that were gracing our stage, and they have all gone out and become headliners in the comedy world.

Come on down and witness the return of Cringe Humor to the New York Comedy scene. We promise you it will be a night to remember.

We are also hosting a party before the show at the Copper Room inside the club. $3 draught beers and $5 well drinks. Get drunk and laugh your ass off for cheap!

CLICK HERE FOR SHOW INFORMATION

Special thanks to LaMott Jackson, Pete Rosales, Kirill Bichutsky, and Heidi Kikel for all of the media posted above

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