What’s so “special” about Special Ed? For one thing, the man can eat an entire burrito in less than a minute. Sorry, ladies. He’s taken.

One-quarter of Boston’s beloved morning show sausage fest The Sandbox on 101.7 WFNX radio (92.1 in New Hampshire, for the yokels), Ed — also the show’s producer — is super picky about the funny. (He does like a good fart joke, but it has to be well-crafted. Finessed. Seamless. Did you know there’s a fart art?)  Ed has bantered on the mic with some of the country’s best comedians, so we trust his judgment.

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Posted: November 2nd, 2009 under Guest Editors.
Comments: 2

It’s here! The Rooftop staff’s favorite holiday. Nothing better than costumes and candy!

Behold! The ghosts (and vampires. And soccer trophies?!) of Rooftop’s Halloweens past:

Posted: October 30th, 2009 under Cool stuff from Rooftop Comedy.
Comments: 2

Myq Kaplan does not spell “Mike” that way to be a gimmicky wackadoo comedian; he changed his name to Myq as a pre-teen at summer camp, and never looked back.

Well, he may have looked back. But he never stopped spelling his name that way.

However you spell it, you should commit his name to memory; pretty soon, it’ll be all over the place. Featured as a “New Face” in the 2009 Montreal Just For Laughs festival, Myq is about to tape his first half-hour Comedy Central special, and can be seen stumping for Pizza Hut and Subway on a series of Comedy Central promos. (Even more impressive when you consider that he’s been a vegan since college.)

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Posted: October 25th, 2009 under Guest Editors.
Comments: 1

David Nadelberg is one of the bravest men in comedy.

As the creator of Mortified, a hysterical smorgasbord of teenage angst wherein real people share their real childhood artifacts (such as diaries, letters, poems, songs, etc), Nadelberg has hit the nail on the painfully nostalgic head. Audiences go nuts for the stage show, and the press has, too; the show has received countless accolades, including Day-Glo raves from Entertainment Weekly, Newsweek, and “This American Life” on NPR.

Can you imagine hopping up on a stage and reading, aloud, to a group of strangers, your most intimate and, yes, embarrassing, teenage thoughts?

We told you it was brave.

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Posted: October 19th, 2009 under Guest Editors.
Comments: 1

Giulia Rozzi isn’t afraid of anything. Stand-up comedian, writer, actress, and co-creator of the wildly raunchy and side-clutchingly side-splitting show Stripped Stories, Giulia and her comedy partner/college best friend Margot Leitman bare all onstage, telling their most intimate and hilarious stories of sexual escapades. (Upcoming dates in Seattle, San Francisco, and Los Angeles. Click here for more info.)

Giulia’s wink/nudge adorable antics are also the star of the show in two short films directed by Anya Garrett; “Pizza Day,” and “We.”

Wanna get inside Giulia’s…head? We do too, which is why we asked her to pick her fave Rooftop clips.

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Posted: October 13th, 2009 under Guest Editors.
Comments: none

Jenny Slate Fucks Her Way to Stardom

by guest editor Joshua Neuman

I’ve been a huge fan of Jenny Slate for about 5 years so I was overjoyed when she was recently cast on SNL. That she dropped the F-bomb on her SNL debut has probably brought a great deal of chaos to her life, but more than anything, it’s an indication of someone who has been honing her craft in spaces with limitless creative boundaries. And please mark my words: Slate will be to Nancy Grace what Tina Fey was to Sarah Palin. Long story short, four years ago a bunch of comics and I were on a van driving through the countryside in Georgia to perform at a national conference of Jewish student leaders (sort of like performing on SNL except with intense suicidal thoughts after), and she virtually channeled Grace for the 2-hour ride. Fucking brilliant.

Posted: October 8th, 2009 under Guest Editors.
Comments: none

by Guest Editor Joshua Neuman

Each year, we announce our list of 100 Jews you need to know about, 10 of which from the field of comedy. This year’s list, which we announced this week, featured writers, stand-ups, performers and a couple who I can only categorize as performance artists. Of particular note is Dave Nadelberg, founder of the Mortified stage show, in which performers revisit embarrassing childhood moments in front of sloshed audiences. If you haven’t seen the show, it is a must-see. The accompanying photograph of Nadelberg will appear in the forthcoming edition of our magazine and is part of a traveling portrait exhibit, which opens in NY at the 92Y Tribeca.

Posted: October 6th, 2009 under Guest Editors.
Comments: none

As the authority on all things Jewish, Heeb publisher Joshua Neuman is, therefore, the authority on all things comedy. (Come on. We’ve got Mel Brooks, Gilda Radner,  Jerry Seinfeld, and Sarah Silverman in our camp. We win. L’chaim!) Since the “new Jew review” just included Rooftop comedian Moshe Kasher in its annual “Heeb Hundred” roundup of all things hot (or is that chot ?), we’re doubly honored to have Joshua as this week’s Guest Editor.

Joshua has a cool life. A proud member of the ubiquitous Friar’s Club, he’s an author, a writer, a lover. And, of course, he’s hilarious. Otherwise…why bother? Here, just see for yourself.

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Posted: October 5th, 2009 under Guest Editors.
Comments: 1

by Lance Gould

As they usually do in the autumn, most of the heads of the world’s countries came to the United States last week to address the United Nations. There was the usual mix of terrifying white guys and terrifying people of color. Sadly, Gabonese dictator Omar Bongo — long the head of state with (to immature Westerners) the planet’s most ridiculously amusing name — was not among them, as a result of his having passed away three months earlier.

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Posted: September 29th, 2009 under Guest Editors, News'n'stuff.
Comments: none

Even though he’s a “serious journalist” with a “masters degree” from “Columbia,” Lance Gould knows “the funny.” As the editor of the award-winning alt-weekly, The Boston Phoenix, Lance could spend his days making simpering writers dance at the crack of his verbal whip, but, instead, he wiles away the hours perfecting vaudevillian puns and daydreaming about that stand-up career in the Catskills that could have been…

Lance jumped at the chance to guest edit for Rooftop [and i jumped at the chance to edit my former editor, and exact my revenge! - SFA] and we’re pleased as a donkey punch that, besides giving us his kick-ass stand-up picks, Lance will be doing some guest blogging this week, too. He writes good.

But first, the picks!

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Posted: September 28th, 2009 under Guest Editors.
Comments: 1