As is typically the case, this time of the year typically sees a surge of news from the stand up comedy world due to the Just For Laughs Festival in Montreal, arguably the highest-profile comedy festival in the world. It's a time when comedy's biggest names converge, but it's also a stage for the most promising undiscovered comedic talent to show their stuff to the industry. Those named to the New Faces of Comedy list are likely to be people whose work you'll become fairly familiar with on the stage and screen in years to come.
Speaking of the Just For Laughs Festival, this year's keynote speaker, Jim Norton, released the first episode of his new talk show on Vice.com. His first guests are Mike Tyson and UFC President Dana White.
Weird Al Yankovic shocked both the comedy and music worlds by hitting number one on the Billboard charts, his first number one album in his thirty-plus year career. Don't think his success will necessarily lead to any more albums, though. Yankovic feels his parody work is best served in a timely fashion, and albums get in the way of that.
Louis C.K.'s Louie has been renewed by FX for an abbreviated, seven-episode fifth season after successfully returning from an extended hiatus before his fourth season.
Speaking of Louie, Season 3 co-star Parker Posey joined Emma Stone and Joaquin Phoenix in the cast for Woody Allen's next movie. Allen's Magic in the Moonlight, starring Stone and Colin Firth, is in select theaters this weekend.
The first look of the Adam Sandler, Peter Dinklage, and Josh Gad-lead Pixels was released. The film is set in the 80's, and is about three video game players enlisted to save the planet from an alien invasion. It's due out next spring.
In casting news, Andy Samberg and Kit Harington are set to play tennis players in 7 Days in Hell, a sports mockumentary movie for HBO.
Steve Carell is set to star in Brooklyn Family Robinson, Disney's new take on Swiss Family Robinson, according to Hollywood Reporter.
Following suit with several other projects he's produced, Judd Apatow's daughter, Maude, will appear in the next season of Girls.
Dan Harmon, accompanied by a few of his Community stars, gave fanssome details on season 6 of the show, which is coming to Yahoo. It will be released once-a-week, It's possible John Oliver may return, and Chevy Chase and Donald Glover's characters will not be back, though he teased a return for Glover's character in a potential movie.
FXX announced that after their 12-day marathon of every The Simpsons episode ever aired, all 552 episodes will be made available free and streaming on-demand on a new online venture called Simpsons World.
And finally, in sadder news, Broadway star Elaine Stritch passed away at 89. You may remember her most recently as Alec Baldwin's mother on NBC's 30 Rock.
image courtesy of: Jennifer Graylock/INFevents.com