Video
(All talks include multiple video clips, which are
indicated but don’t appear in full in these excerpts.)
Contact Dan Hudak for booking (free for good causes).
Comedy vs. The Apocalypse (Virtual)
Bucknell University
The medical effects of laughter; the
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need for distance; “The Aristocrats.”
How Comedy Works
(Professional/Academic Audiences)
Sony Pictures / Austin Film Festival
- Introduction (3:53)
- Comedy vs. Drama (3:09)
- Rules / Persona (3:14)
- The Foreign Body 1 (5:34)
- The Foreign Body 2 (3:53)
- Logic / Jokes (6:00)
- The End / Q/A (4:48)
Ha! Aaah!!! Humor & Horror
VIEW Cinema Conference (Torino, Italy)
- Comedy & Horror 1 (4:15)
- Comedy & Horror 2 (3:26)
- Distance & Pain (4:35)
- Suffer/Possess/Naked (3:29)
- Click To PlaySuffering, Possessed & NakedPlay Video
Steve Carell’s babble, James
Joyce’s hand and a little girl’s head. - Death / Transcendence (4:26)
The Shame of Satire
U.C. San Diego / Marian Cook Athenaeum (Cal.)
- What Is Satire? (1:26)
- Mocking (2:02)
- Battle of the Sexes (2:35)
- Cruelty (2:41)
- “Some Like It Hot” (1:27)
- Censors/Responsible? (2:28)
- Q/A (3:29)
Deconstructing Billy Wilder (panel)
Austin Film Festival
The Greatest Satirical Songs
The Whizin Center (L.A.) / U.C. San Diego
- Recap / History (4:07)
- Brown-Eyed Handsome (4:02)
- Sail Away (2:30)
- Morph / Hallelujah (3:21)
- Mr. Ed (1:56)
- MTA (3:39)
- The End (1:20)
Interview (virtual)
Collab Writers (London)
The Science of Ha!*
Summerfest (Fort Collins, Colorado)
- The Ray Story / Intro. (3:54)
- Comedy vs. A.I. (2:38)
- Comedy's Chemistry (3:49)
- Click To PlayComedy’s ChemistryPlay Video
Pattern recognition is sexy; dopamine
does comedy; fiction is stranger than truth. - Con Game / Bliss (2:53)
- Click To PlayComedy As Con Game / BlissPlay Video
Why HAL 9000 isn’t funny; how
every laugh is a miniature orgasm.
The Anthropology of Ha!
Santa Monica Public Library
- Introduction (:57)
- Trickster / Purpose (3:54)
- Evil laughter (1:51)
- Inhuman laughter (1:39)
- Click To PlayInhuman laughterPlay Video
How to make a gorillas chortle. (As
with so much in life, it involves urine.) - Comedy as threat (2:54)
- Q/A (4:41)
The Theology of Ha!
Philosophical Research Society (L.A.)
- Laffs / Pain / Patterns (6:00)
- Click To PlayLaughs / Pain / PatternsPlay Video
A look at laughter; the relationship
between pain, patterns and comedy. - Ha! vs. Tragedy / Faith (4:40)
- Religion / Farts / Hope (4:47)
- Clown / Ha! v. Religion (3:38)
- Click To PlayClown / Ha! v. ReligionPlay Video
The clown myth; how comedy and religion are different, but not entirely.
- Why Comedy? (3:39)