Video
(All talks include multiple video clips, which are
indicated but don’t appear in full in these excerpts.)
Booking (virtual): Dan Hudak
In-person (L.A.): Jeannine Frank, 310-666-9066
Charities/Political FREE: contact David directly
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)