Comedian

Baltimore comedian Mike E. Winfield just scored a gig hosting a new weekly show on Fuse. Winfield, an actor with a most-voluptuous Afro who last year had a recurring role on "The Office," will be the face of "Off Beat," a show that will highlight the week's funniest music-related videos. It premiers at 10 p.m. Sept. 14. There are 12 episodes of the show planned, which should take Winfield's primetime run through November. Winfield, who now lives in Sacramento, made his television debut on "Late Show with David Letterman" in 2010.

The turning point for the Wham City Comedy Tour came at a gig in Buffalo, N.Y. And, in typical Wham City fashion, it took some unexpected chaos and quick improvisation to reach it. On Monday, the tour - which consists of six comedians from the city's experimental arts collective Wham City and a director, all traveling the Northeast and Midwest in a white van for about three weeks this month - played an arts gallery/performance space called the...

Comedian Pat Paulsen, who made a career out of his tongue-in-cheek presidential races, tickling audiences with his slogan "We Cannot Stand Pat," has died. He was 69 and had been battling cancer.Mr. Paulsen died of complications from pneumonia and kidney failure Thursday in Mexico, where he was undergoing treatment for colon and brain cancer, Beverly Hills publicist Glenn Schwartz said yesterday in Los Angeles. Doctors had said the cancer was inoperable, but Mr. Paulsen had been undergoing alternative treatment.

The show opens with Tom and Brooke alone on the stage, acknowledging the tragic events Boston today. I understand the need to address it, and I'm also glad to have my silly dancing show to distract me from the awfulness. The show opens with the pros in an enclosed corridor offstage and then they all come out for a group dance, joined by the former pros that will presumably dancing with the couples tonight. That's tonight's gimmick: this season's couples will be doing their routines alongside a pro couple.

THE STATE OF COMEDY today is not such a laughing matter to comedian Mario Joyner.Oh sure, with the explosion of comedy clubs and stand-up showcases on cable television, there are lots of opportunities for comedians to work, and that's always good.But Joyner, who is a comedy scientist of sorts, taken as much with the process and structure of joke-telling as with the actual performance, thinks there are too many comedians who aren't devoted to the field of comedy for the long haul.Rather, they use stand-up as a springboard to launch themselves into television and the movies.

I probably won't make the four-hour drive to see comedian Billy Crystal make his exhibition debut for the New York Yankees tomorrow in Tampa, but I'll definitely check the box score to see whether he goes deep against the Pittsburgh Pirates. Crystal isn't the first celebrity to suit up with a major league team in the spring, but he might be the oldest. Thursday is the day before his 60th birthday. I'd be in favor of something similar taking place at Fort Lauderdale Stadium, but I'm afraid if a big star showed up at Orioles camp, Andy MacPhail would try to trade him for five prospects.

One might say stand-up comedian Jeff Charlebois is a contradiction in terms. The reason? He delivers his jokes sitting down -- from a wheelchair.Mr. Charlebois, who was paralyzed in a car accident when he was 16, said he aims to make his audiences more at ease with the disabled and to help them realize that "people in wheelchairs do have a sense of humor and are just like everybody else."He entertained a lunchtime gathering of students and faculty members at Carroll Community College this week.

HUMOR: 1. the quality that makes something seem funny, amusing or ludicrous; comicality. 2. the ability to perceive, appreciate, or express what is funny, amusing or ludicrous. 3. the expression of this in speech, writing or action."That definition is from Webster's New World Dictionary. A reiteration of the definition of humor is necessary for those folks who need to get reacquainted with it. Take, for example, those humorless souls whose sphincters were tightened when black comedian Chris Rock appeared in whiteface on the cover of the August issue of Vanity Fair magazine.

PEOPLE around President Clinton are saying he is surprised by the intensity of feeling these past weeks over his proposal to allow gays and lesbians in the military.This can mean only one thing: Bill Clinton has been isolated. He has never visited a comedy club.have earned my living in these laugh dens over the past decade. As one of those few Americans whose paying job is getting people to laugh, I've been surprised -- and disappointed -- by how easily we laugh at stereotypical gay-bashing.

Edward "Bowlegs" Bova, who tap danced and did stand-up comedy in Block nightclubs for 20 years, then became a truck driver so he could raise his grandson, died of a heart attack Tuesday at Lemko House, a senior citizens residence in Fells Point. He was 77.Show business came naturally to Mr. Bova, who was the grandson of a baggy-pants, burlesque comedian.His father, Gus Bova, the first "Bowlegs," was not in show business but was a member of a quartet that sang nightly under a hissing gas lamp at Baltimore and Holliday streets.

Though he confidently calls his act "intelligently warped," Mike Storck wasn't always sure a comedian's life was for him. He bounced between several jobs before realizing stand-up was his "true calling. " "I've been able to turn my love of laughter into a full-time career," said the 36-year-old Parkville resident. He's been on the road for 10 years, touring across the United States and Canada, and his last gig is five shows Thursday through Saturday at Magooby's Joke House in Timonium.

Even if Caryn Elaine Johnson had never changed her name to Whoopi Goldberg, chances are she would have made a splash. Talent will out. The 56-year-old Goldberg, who will offer a sampling of that talent at the Modell Performing Arts Center at the Lyric on Saturday, has distinguished herself in a variety of endeavors. She's one of only about a dozen people who can adorn a mantelpiece with an Oscar, a Tony, a Grammy and an Emmy — make that two Emmys. She shared one of those Emmys with fellow co-hosts of "The View," the popular daytime TV show.

Baltimore comedian Mike E. Winfield just scored a gig hosting a new weekly show on Fuse. Winfield, an actor with a most-voluptuous Afro who last year had a recurring role on "The Office," will be the face of "Off Beat," a show that will highlight the week's funniest music-related videos. It premiers at 10 p.m. Sept. 14. There are 12 episodes of the show planned, which should take Winfield's primetime run through November. Winfield, who now lives in Sacramento, made his television debut on "Late Show with David Letterman" in 2010.

Joan Rivers is having a manicure and a pedicure in her hotel room while juggling a phone. "I'm in Indianapolis," she says. "I just learned how to spell it, and now I'm leaving. What a waste. " This week, between gigs in Florida and Ohio, she'll stop by the Hippodrome to dispense her trademark observations on her own world and anyone, anything that catches her attention. "When I go onstage, I just talk about what's happening," Rivers says. "My life is an open book.

The Oscars are serious — important people making important, relevant, thought-provoking movies about race, marital relations, horses and Owen Wilson seeing dead Parisians. The dresses and jewelry are beyond fancy. The tuxes are bespoke. Sidney Poitier and Steven Spielberg are usually there. Serious stuff. Except this year, Melissa McCarthy is nominated for s---ting in a sink. Nothing against McCarthy; she's hilarious. But in honor of her garnering the rare Oscar-considers-a-comedy-a-real-film nomination, we decided to do our annual Oscar predictions panel a bit differently.

"The Best of Leon," "My Favorite Leon Part," "Leon Awesomeness" — these are all YouTube titles. The clips are taken from Larry David's long-running HBO sitcom, "Curb Your Enthusiasm. " In the videos, David, the show's neurotic protagonist, is a mere foil. That's because the real star is 47-year-old comedian J.B. Smoove, aka Leon Black and the outspoken half of one of TV's funniest — and unlikeliest — odd couples. Smoove, a former "Saturday Night Live" writer, has been featured on TV (Fox's "'Til Death")

NEW YORK -- Alan King, the stand-up comedian who parlayed a Borscht Belt sense of humor, a tummler's cheek and a big appetite for the limelight into a thoroughgoing show business career that lasted more than half a century, died yesterday morning at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in Manhattan. He was 76, and lived in King's Point, N.Y. The cause was lung cancer, said his wife of 57 years, Jeanette. King was an unabashed exemplar of Jewish comedy whose sensibility, delivery -- and accent -- never migrated far from their Brooklyn roots.

WASHINGTON -- Joe Clair understands the importance of laughter.Before he became a professional comedian and the host of BET's "Rap City," he used his optimism and good humor to help kids succeed.After graduating with a bachelor of science degree in psychology from Morgan State University in 1992, Clair, who performs Saturday night as part of Def Comedy Jam at Pier Six, began working with homeless teen-agers in Landover. He instilled hope into kids who often lacked support and motivation."I had just gotten out of college, and I was real amped about being able to do things independently," said Clair, who was in Washington Monday night as host of a Def Comedy Jam talent search at Takoma Station Tavern.

Michael Ian Black facetiously named his stand-up special "Very Famous" — but it's true, depending on whom you ask. Black, the snarky comedian best known for his pop-culture takedowns on VH1, is a cult-hero for his work on MTV's '90s sketch-comedy show "The State," playing McKinley in "Wet Hot American Summer" and as a strange bowling alley manager on the NBC show "Ed. " He's currently headlining his "Black is White" comedy tour (which stops...

"Dancing with the Stars" is getting plenty of airtime this season, with an hourlong recap (replaying, essentially) of Monday night's show leading into a second hour of results. All this hype is designed to torture viewers and draw out the eventual elimination, which occurs in approximately the last 11 seconds of the show. And let's be honest -- that's what we really care about! Before we got to the meat of the episode, we were distracted by musical performances and flashy pro dances (with lots of feathers this week)