Comedy Club

She was a self-described "cartoon," a zany housewife-turned-comedian with an electrified hairdo who broke into the male-dominated world of stand-up comedy in the 1950s with an outlandish wardrobe and a barrage of self-deprecating jokes punctuated by her trademark guffaw. "I spent seven hours today at the beauty parlor; hell, that was just for the estimate," Phyllis Diller would say on stage, firing off one joke after another. "I'm in the 14th year of a 10-day beauty plan. " Diller, whose stand-up career spanned nearly 50 years, died in her sleep Monday at her longtime home in Brentwood, said her agent, Fred Wostbrock.

She was a self-described "cartoon," a zany housewife-turned-comedian with an electrified hairdo who broke into the male-dominated world of stand-up comedy in the 1950s with an outlandish wardrobe and a barrage of self-deprecating jokes punctuated by her trademark guffaw. "I spent seven hours today at the beauty parlor; hell, that was just for the estimate," Phyllis Diller would say on stage, firing off one joke after another. "I'm in the 14th year of a 10-day beauty plan. " Diller, whose stand-up career spanned nearly 50 years, died in her sleep Monday at her longtime home in Brentwood, said her agent, Fred Wostbrock.

Re " 'Seinfeld' costar apologizes for racial slurs at comedy club," Nov. 21 Michael "Kramer" Richards went on a racist tirade when confronted by hecklers in a local nightclub. Too bad he didn't have Jerry Seinfeld heckling him, as he positively heckled Jerry in an episode of the classic series. Bottom line? I believe that racists make racist remarks under pressure, just like anti-Semites make anti-Semitic remarks under pressure. I won't forgive Mel Gibson and, unfortunately, I won't forgive "Kramer."

Phyllis Diller, who died in her sleep Monday at age 95, was being remembered by friends and fans as a woman who blazed a path and made masses laugh. Penn Jillette summed it up well: "A hero, a pioneer, a good friend, an Aristocrat and one tough ... chick, who made my mom and me laugh a lot is dead. I will miss her. " OK, with one minor flaw, but hey, that's comedy: "I was so upset that I didn't even write her name. My hero and friend who is now dead is Phyllis Diller. Man, I loved her. " Ellen DeGeneres remembered her similarly: "We lost a comedy legend today.

The owner of a longtime Hermosa Beach comedy club isn't laughing. His bookkeeper has been arrested on charges of embezzling money from the club. Margaret Michelle Wood, 28, of Torrance was arrested by Hermosa Beach police March 24 on charges of taking $175,000 over a two-year period from the Hermosa Beach Comedy and Magic Club, said Sgt. Thomas Eckert. The bookkeeper is free after posting $15,000 bail, police said.

A judge on Tuesday halted topless dancing at a longtime comedy club, at least until the end of September, when the club's owners and the county will tangle in court. After a brief hearing, Superior Court Judge Robert A. Knox issued a preliminary injunction against the "Newport Fantasy" show at the Laff Stop in Santa Ana Heights. Laff Stop owner Jorn S.

Spending Thanksgiving broke or alone is no joke. Jamie Masada, a comedian turned nightclub impresario, remembers how it was. "I was worse than hungry," Masada said. "I had no family, nowhere to go. And I swore that if I made it, I would give some back."

The Improvisation, the Los Angeles nightclub considered one of the top showcases for star comedians, may open a sister establishment in Irvine by late fall if plans are approved during an upcoming city hearing. If approved, the Irvine nightclub would become the third "Improv" in California, joining the 11-year-old Los Angeles establishment and a San Diego club which opened in 1984.

The escalating war of words and armies in the Persian Gulf again will be the prime target of television this weekend. After that, cable is the only refuge from yet another weekend of network reruns. Showtime presents two fresh programs. The first, "Laugh!s," debuting tonight at 10, is a comedy series set inside a comedy club that features both a typical sitcom story line intermixed with some actual stand-up routines. Todd Susman stars.

The former bookkeeper of the Comedy & Magic Club in Hermosa Beach, who pleaded guilty to one count of felony grand theft, was sentenced to four years in state prison and ordered to repay $176,600 in embezzled funds. Margaret Michelle Wood, 29, was sentenced on Friday in Torrance Superior Court and would be eligible for parole in two years, said Deputy Dist. Atty. Todd Rubenstein. Wood, a mother of three, worked for comedy club owner Mike Lacey for several years.

Comedian Rita Rudner has always known how to tickle an audience -- and the same is mostly true of her slight but sugar-sweet new play, "Tickled Pink. " It won't make gigglers out of the congenitally not-ticklish, but everyone with a decently sensitive funny bone should spark to its cute, diverting antics. Adapted from her bestselling book of the same name, the play, which had its world premiere Saturday night at the Laguna Playhouse, “is not Rita's biography,” director Martin Bergman, also Rudner's co-adapter and husband, writes - somewhat unconvincingly -  in his program notes.

The company behind the Improv comedy club chain has sued its Internet marketing promoter, accusing him of using the Improv brand's "good will" to promote his own company and a planned chain of competing clubs. Improv West Associates alleges in the lawsuit that Robert Hartmann used his job as Improv's marketing officer to promote "independent businesses he was building on the back of the Improv brand. " Those businesses include a planned chain of comedy clubs called Levity Live, the lawsuit alleged.

Vic Dunlop, a zany and irreverent standup comic with a natural flair for making people laugh, has died. He was 62. Dunlop died of complications of diabetes Saturday at Glendale Adventist Medical Center, said his wife, Linda. After launching his career in Los Angeles in the early 1970s with Natural Gas, a small comedy-improv group that appeared regularly on "Don Kirshner's Rock Concert," Dunlop gained national attention on his own later in the decade as one of the comedians on "Make Me Laugh.

Comedy has long been accepted as a medium in which performers can push the boundaries of taste. The same way visual artists can show us something that both shocks and expands our sensibilities, comic artists, at their best, can tell us things that jar, surprise and even offend us — and make us reconsider thorny issues. But that's not what Tracy Morgan, the comedian and star of the popular NBC TV comedy "30 Rock," did during a recent stand-up gig in Nashville, when he unleashed a rant against gays and said that if a son of his ever came home sounding effeminate, he would pull out a knife and stab him. That wasn't pushing any new boundaries; if anything, it was a reversion to old ones.

For Dodgers fans, the wait is on ? on two fronts. The season ended Sunday. The playoffs will go on this week, without the Dodgers. It is 22 years, and counting, since the World Series last visited Dodger Stadium. The divorce trial ended five days ago. Frank and Jamie McCourt threw their final pitches, and Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Scott Gordon has three months to decide whether Frank is the sole owner of the Dodgers or Jamie is a co-owner. In the absence of Dodgers postseason story lines, here are 10 outtakes from the McCourt divorce trial: Different styles The trial offered a contrast between the cerebral David Boies and the folksy but tough-talking Steve Susman.

"You in town for the Olympics?" the waitress asks. "There's an Olympics here?" I answer. And with that, an evening begins at Yuk-Yuk's, Vancouver's premier comedy club -- an outpost for sarcasm, anarchy and subversive Olympic humor. Personally, I've never had much patience with funny people. But let's give these kids a chance. Onstage is Simon King, whose rat-a-tat-tat delivery is like that of a younger Robin Williams. He growls into the microphone, then punishes it with bleating llama sounds, then launches into a manic rant about the Winter Games.

Comic Michael Richards apologized Monday for a Friday-night tirade during his stand-up show at the Laugh Factory in Hollywood during which he used profanities and racial slurs directed at blacks. The 57-year-old actor who gained fame as Kramer, the wacky neighbor on "Seinfeld," offered his apology during an appearance on CBS' "The Late Show With David Letterman." It was taped in the afternoon and wound up on the "CBS Evening News With Katie Couric."

It wasn't a laughing matter to Encino residents Monday when a comedy club asked Los Angeles city zoning officials for permission to expand. Nearby homeowners protested that the L.A. Cabaret already has made theirs the Rodney Dangerfield of neighborhoods: a place that gets no respect. Late-night crowds litter residential streets behind the club at 17271 Ventura Blvd. with trash and beer bottles, residents complained.

For nearly 40 years, the Comedy Store has been a training ground for countless Hollywood aspirants, providing a showcase for the likes of Richard Pryor, Jay Leno and David Letterman. But these days, nobody is joking about the future of the Sunset Strip landmark -- or the condition of Mitzi Shore, the Store's 79-year-old owner. Both are at the center of a lawsuit filed last week by Pauly Shore, the actor-comedian and her youngest son. In his complaint, Pauly, 41, alleges that his older brother Peter, a psychologist and former TV director who lives in Portland, Ore., has been exerting "undue influence" over their mother, who suffers from Parkinson's disease and other neurological problems.

Funnyman Jon Lovitz is adding one more credential to his comedy and acting resume: comedy club owner. His new venue, the Jon Lovitz Comedy Club, is scheduled to open in late May at the former B.B. King's on Universal CityWalk. But Lovitz doesn't want his to be just one more club in Los Angeles; he wants to stand out. The solution? A Hawaiian theme. "I love Hawaii!" he said. "This will be completely different from any other club -- you will hear the ocean." And the twists don't end there.