Speaking Topics
Now appearing through Zoom
Contact Dan Hudak for booking (free for good causes).
Talks are 1-2 hours and include hundreds of video clips, from Chaplin to
Chappelle, Keaton to Key & Peele, the Marx Brothers to Monty Python.
(Topics include adult language, images and ideas, and are generally not
appropriate for children. But hey, not all children are the same, right?
Like, yours are brilliant and preternaturally mature, so no problem.)
For General Audiences
(For more info, click images or blue text.
For a printable 1-page list of topics, click here.)
Comedy vs. The Apocalypse
How laughter helps us cope with calamity,
manage misery and deal with doom. (60/90m; video)
Yucks from Ancient Greece to yesterday afternoon.
(60/90m; video: “The Anthropology of Ha!” #1,2;
“Comedy vs. the Apocalypse” #1, at 2:35)
Oliver, Maher, Meyers, Colbert, Kimmel; it’s the
Golden Age of political satire. But does it matter?
(90/120m; video) Contains mature content.
From Henny Youngman’s silly one-liners to
the epically filthy “The Aristocrats,” every
joke ever told shows how comedy works.
(60/75/90m; video: “How Comedy Works” #5,6)
Gilbert & Sullivan to Bo Burnham (60/90/120m; video)
“A true satire scholar” – Houston Chronicle
“Fantastic, fun, entertaining” – Grammy Museum
Also “Jewish Musical Satire,” “Political Musical Satire”.
Is there a connection between comedy and
Jews? What are you, meshuga? (60/75m)
Could there be congruences between funny and
fear, gore and gags, slapstick and slaughter? Yes.
(60/90/120m; video) Also see David’s
essay in “Horrific Humor” (excerpt).
Physical humor seems cruel… but is it?
How comedy uses and abuses the body.
(60m; video: “How Comedy Works” #4,5)
He got laughs and gasps. He was no philosopher
but that doesn’t mean he had no philosophy; a
deep dive into The Great Stone Face. (60/90/120m)
The relationship between comedy and the divine.
(Yes, there is one.) (60/90m; video)
See David’s essay “The F-Word” in “Faith: Essays
from Believers, Agnostics and Atheists” (excerpt).
The origins, purpose and meaning
of laughter. (60m; video: “The
Anthropology of Ha!” #3,4,5)
Artificial Intelligence and perception shift, dopamine and
deception; how your brain fathoms the funny. (60/90m; video)
(I don’t like to brag – he said braggily – but here’s a surpris-
ingly lengthy and detailed evaluation response to this talk.)
COURSES
(primarily for general audiences)
There are survey courses in Art, History, Art
History and (this is true) History of Art History.
(Really.) Isn’t it time for one of the most popular
of the popular arts to be taken seriously?
(Six 2-hour classes; video – bits of everything)
From “Yankee Doodle” to Crazy Ex-Girlfriend,
with stops at Randy Newman, Gilbert & Sullivan,
the Beatles, Monty Python, Weird Al, Spinal Tap,
South Park and SNL. (Five 2-hour classes; video)
SEMINAR
(primarily for professional/academic audiences)
The rules, philosophy, psychology and biology of comedy.
Including comedy vs. logic, comedy vs. drama,
and the secret life of jokes. (3 hours; video)
(Also available: “The Art & Craft of Comedy” –
one 7-hour or two 3½-hour presentations.)
