Comedians

Comic great Jonathan Winters was struggling to make a name for himself in the early 1950s when a man at the nightclub where he was performing offered some life-changing advice. Winters had a talent for channeling the voices of celebrities like Gary Cooper and Boris Karloff but, the man observed, "All you're doing is shining their shoes. You'd best think up your own characters. " That, Winters told TV Guide many years later, was "the best hunk of criticism I ever got. " With his rubbery, moon-shaped face and pitch-perfect ear for speech patterns, Winters began to unleash a cavalcade of charmingly twisted characters, including a redneck ballplayer, a lisping child and a prissy schoolmarm.

Comic great Jonathan Winters was struggling to make a name for himself in the early 1950s when a man at the nightclub where he was performing offered some life-changing advice. Winters had a talent for channeling the voices of celebrities like Gary Cooper and Boris Karloff but, the man observed, "All you're doing is shining their shoes. You'd best think up your own characters. " That, Winters told TV Guide many years later, was "the best hunk of criticism I ever got. " With his rubbery, moon-shaped face and pitch-perfect ear for speech patterns, Winters began to unleash a cavalcade of charmingly twisted characters, including a redneck ballplayer, a lisping child and a prissy schoolmarm.

Olate Dogs has been crowned the Season 7 winner of "America's Got Talent," proving that America really likes its backflipping dogs (as well as those who conga and wheelbarrow their way across the stage), more than its brilliantly funny comedians or visionary music-makers or performing painters, sand storytellers or precocious dancers. I won't pretend not to be disappointed that Tom Cotter, the comedian who claimed second place, didn't take the win. In the finale, riffing alongside Joan Rivers, he proved himself far funnier than the veteran comedienne as he roasted the judges.

The next two Saturdays will determine who will become the newest headliner at the Riviera Comedy Club . In recent weeks, the hotel has been auditioning comics from around the country in a contest with a prize worthy of a TV talent show: a gig on the Las Vegas Strip. A total of 226 people from across the country submitted videos of their funniest material, from which 16 people were chosen to compete live on stage. The last of four finalists will be selected during a show that begins at  10 p.m. Saturday.

Until recently, Fahim Anwar had a pretty big secret. He carried it around for three years, from his colorless Long Beach office cubicle to the crowded Sunset Strip. He was, in fact, leading a double-life: Aerospace engineer by day. Comedian by night. "Having a dream like this is very fragile," Anwar reasoned. "It's very easy for people to write it off. It's better to keep that to yourself." Yet there was no sign of this mysterious duplicity Feb. 24 as the wiry 25-year-old bounded onstage for his first televised stand-up set on Comedy Central's "Russell Simmons Presents Standup Comedy at the El Rey Theatre."

Anna Nikita Doroshina, described as a Russian Martha Stewart, was the inspiration for Moozfly, an online comedy channel that features Spanish-speaking comedians from around the world. That might seem odd - because it is. But almost everything about Moozfly is unorthodox. Its studios are located in a 3,300-square-foot Rancho Palos Verdes home overlooking the Pacific Ocean. The executive director, a linguist from Colombia, joined the company after answering a Craigslist ad. And the brains behind the venture is Doroshina's 56-year-old husband, a discouraged land developer who was looking for something new. PHOTOS: Celebrities by the Times Serge Doroshin came up with the concept for a Spanish-language video site because of a boom in Latino media and decided to pursue comedy because, he said, "comedy is always relevant.

He's been called "the Charles Bukowski of comedy," as well as a pot-bellied "bitter Buddha" at the epicenter of the alternative comedy world. Cult comic Eddie Pepitone has been performing his spontaneous, rant-heavy brand of humor onstage for more than 30 years, including regular appearances on "Conan" and "The Sarah Silverman Program. " Over the decades, the "comic's comic," as he's often called, has inspired the likes of Zach Galifianakis, Patton Oswalt, Marc Maron and Silverman — as well as a generation of newcomers through his Twitter feed ( @eddiepepitone )

You may have seen the two-minute PSA parody on YouTube. In the somber, black-and-white mash-up, dozens of well known Los Angeles comedians - Patton Oswalt, Marc Maron and Jimmy Pardo among them - stare the camera down, addressing the urgent question of why Los Angeles needs (needs!) an alternative comedy festival. "No one is laughing at all," says Rory Scovel. "The problem is ginormous," warns Kyle Kinane. "Every day Americans are fake laughing," grimaces Maron. The suggested directive?

Fifty of L.A.'s comedians will band together this week to kick off the new year the best way they know how: with a new politically biting, socially acerbic or self-eviscerating joke. "50 First Jokes," a popular New York show that's making its second annual appearance in Los Angeles, is Friday at the Downtown Independent theater. The show's concept is simple: Each comedian has 2 minutes to unleash his or her first joke of the new year. Only qualification: It must have been written after the ball dropped, in 2012 proper.

Al Franken announced that he will run for the Senate in 2008, making it clear that the comedian and author of "Rush Limbaugh Is a Big Fat Idiot" wants to be taken seriously as a political figure. Franken, 55, said he would seek the Democratic nomination to challenge Republican incumbent Norm Coleman. Franken, who grew up in the Minneapolis suburb of St. Louis Park, first gained national exposure as a writer and performer on "Saturday Night Live."

Rita Rudner is applying her comedic talent to the sale of her Dana Point beach house, and the result is a spot-on parody of a home marketing video. Her husband, director-writer Martin Bergman , featured the Monarch Bay home in the 2011 film "Thanks," in which Rudner acted. Now Rudner may have her own hit on her hands with the YouTube parody . In the farcical four-plus minutes, she promises to include one free facial tissue with the purchase of the five-bedroom, five-bathroom house, which is priced at $8.975 million.

This post has been corrected; please see note below Should you happen to glance upward at the puffy, SoCal clouds Saturday afternoon, only to spot a seemingly wayward skywriting plane spelling out the message “How Do I Land?” do not panic. It's the latest public prank from comedian Kurt Braunohler. Braunohler raised $4,000 on Kickstarter to carry out what he's calling the “Cloud Project.” He's hired a professional pilot to write his joke in the sky above downtown L.A. It's an attempt to insert a bit of absurd humor into people's everyday lives, he says.  FULL COVERAGE: 2013 Spring arts preview Donors to the Kickstarter campaign got to vote on the final punch line that the plane will spell out. Other 10-15 character candidates included “OMG I'm flying!

The crowd at New York's legendary Comedy Cellar is always primed for high-profile drop-ins like Louis C.K. and Jerry Seinfeld. But this was different. Dave Chappelle was in New York - and on stage. Chappelle, one of the country's most sought-after yet reclusive comedians after walking away in 2005 from his still-influential Comedy Central show, spent three recent nights onstage at the Cellar, sometimes joined by friends, including Chris Rock, Kevin Hart, Marlon Wayans and Paul Mooney.

Seth MacFarlane may have sung about Oscar's losers, but he wasn't among them. Sunday's movie awards ceremony produced its best ratings in years, even as critics rapped the "Family Guy" producer for some off-color humor. An average of 40.3 million viewers tuned in to the live Oscar telecast on ABC, according to Nielsen. The ceremony - hosted by MacFarlane, the creator of TV's "Family Guy" and director of the movie comedy "Ted" - drew its best numbers since 2010 and were up a modest 2% over last year's show hosted by Billy Crystal.

ROME - After more than a year of stable but unelected government, Italy appeared headed for a period of uncertainty Monday as results from a closely watched election showed a major backlash against the political establishment and signs of gridlock in Parliament. An inconclusive outcome threatens to unnerve investors and spark a flare-up of Europe's debt crisis. Investors are worried that prolonged instability in Italy could compromise efforts to improve competitiveness and to turn around a lingering recession in the Eurozone's third-largest economy.

Eddie Pepitone, perhaps the funniest stand-up comedian you've never heard of, gets a deserving close-up in the amusing, freewheeling documentary "The Bitter Buddha. " Although the dyspeptic Pepitone, an unmade bed of a guy in his early 50s, has reportedly been at his craft for 30 years, he's yet to turn into the household name that such not-dissimilar comics as George Carlin, Rodney Dangerfield and Sam Kinison became. Still, the native New Yorker, now living a busy if largely unglamorous life in L.A., consistently plies his trade in comedy clubs.

Even in death, Monty Python's Graham Chapman was in "for something completely different." The actor-comedian, who died in October of cancer, was the recipient of a belated memorial service/media event/cocktail party at the St. James' Club Tuesday night that was, in the words of one British guest, "neither here nor there--I can't quite say what it was."

Earlier this political season, many comedians lamented the absence of former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin in the 2012 presidential race, fearing they would never be able to tap an equally rich source of humor in the stable of button-down Republican candidates. Oh, ye of little faith. Perhaps, after Rick Perry's already infamous debate gaffe of absent-mindedness, "The Daily Show's" Jon Stewart put it best this week: "Many Republican faithful thought Perry would be the answer to their prayers.

Veteran comedian David Steinberg, who has directed such hit TV comedies as "Curb Your Enthusiasm," "Mad About You" and "Seinfeld," returns to Showtime on Monday evening for the second season of his interview series, "Inside Comedy. " This season he turns his lens on Louis C.K., Tina Fey, Bob Newhart, Jim Carrey and more. Do you think comedy can be dissected? I don't really dissect comedy. Nothing kills off humor more than overanalyzing it. On our show, it's just a conversation that I don't prepare for at all. Usually I know everyone because I've been around a lot, but the idea is to get their feeling about what it is that they're doing, the start, the middle and where they are now. What you get is very, very funny people who aren't switched on as they usually are on a talk show in front of an audience, so you can see how naturally funny they are. PHOTOS: Celebrity portraits by The Times I thought it was interesting when Jim Carrey told you he thought that comics come from mothers with some form of mental illness.

Detroit Lions defensive tackle Ndamukong Suh may be the dirtiest player in the NFL to some, but don't tell that to comedian Louie Anderson. Why? Because Suh saved Anderson's life during the taping of the new ABC celebrity diving show "Splash. " TMZ.com was the first to report the story. Apparently, Anderson was practicing his dives when he was overcome with exhaustion and sank to the bottom of the pool. Suh noticed and immediately jumped in and pulled Anderson to the surface. Former Olympic diver Greg Louganis (who you have to hope isn't one of the competitors -- talk about an unfair advantage)