Wrestling Team

Where do creative people come from? On Beginnings, two fledgling comedians talk origins with professional creators and others just starting out, and hopefully answer their parents’ question, “What are you doing?”

On today’s show we talk to Daniel Zott and Joshua Epstein of the electro-pop band Dale Earnhardt Jr. Jr. Based in Detroit, Michigan, Dan and Josh met while performing in other bands, and in 2009 began to write music together. This would end up as their acclaimed debut album It’s a Corporate World, which was released in 2011. Since then, the band has extensively toured the US and Europe, performed on Conan, and released a number of EPs, most recently one named Patterns.

A few weeks ago, while stopping in New York for a few shows, Dan and Josh came up to Andy’s old Harlem apartment to chat about our darkest childhood moments, cheating at business school and almost dying, and whether anti-semitism is passe or not.

See the next live episode at UCB East on the June 4th at UCB East at 8pm (guests TBA)! In the meantime, subscribe on iTunes and leave a review. And why not follow Andy and Mark on Twitter?

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Where do creative people come from? On Beginnings, two fledgling comedians talk origins with professional creators and others just starting out, and hopefully answer their parents’ question, “What are you doing?”

On today’s show, we talk to writer and director Mitch Magee. With a background in visual art, Mitch makes comedic videos and short films with a very unique aesthetic. His works have been part of the New York Television Festival, Channel 101, and HBO’s Funny or Die Presents, and he’s directed videos for websites like College Humor and Funny or Die. His short film “Thank You, Cabbage” is now in pre-production.

A few weeks ago, Mitch came over to Andy’s old Harlem apartment to talk about a wide range of things including: Roco and rococo, hot air balloons, New Hollywood, WTF, control issues and emotional repression, creating with constraints, privilege, as well as parents and creating your life in reaction to them.

Subscribe on iTunes and leave a review. And why not follow Andy and Mark on Twitter?

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Where do creative people come from? On Beginnings, two fledgling comedians talk origins with professional creators and others just starting out, and hopefully answer their parents’ question, “What are you doing?”

On this episode of Beginnings: Field Guide, we talk about casting with Katja Blichfeld. For beginning – and even seasoned – actors, the world of casting can seem incredibly random and opaque. To walk us through the ways in which casting contributes to the creative process of a project, we talked with Katja, who has cast a number of features and shows, including The Carrie Diaries, as well as the entire run of 30 Rock.

As well as the ins and outs of casting, Katja shares with us some stories from the early days of 30 Rock, we chat about the possibility of non-cynical networking, plus there’s movie talk with the gang as we hit up Rocky, The Shining and Whore’s Glory; and Mark and Andy discuss their humiliating commercial auditions in the wrap-up!

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Where do creative people come from? On Beginnings, two fledgling comedians talk origins with professional creators and others just starting out, and hopefully answer their parents’ question, “What are you doing?”

On today’s show, we talk to cartoonist Bill Griffith. Bill began his comics career in the late 1960s in New York before eventually heading out west to San Francisco to be part of the burgeoning underground comics scene in the 1970s, where he co-founded the comics anthology Arcade with Art Spiegelman. Around this time, Griffith also created his brilliant daily strip Zippy the Pinhead, which runs today in over 100 newspapers and has been compiled in numerous collections.

Earlier this month while in town for the MoCCA indie comics festival, Bill stopped by Andy’s apartment in Harlem to discuss America as a nation of losers, the guilt and paranoia of influence, the Beat poets and Greenwich Village in the ’50s and ’60s, growing up in Levittown, having parents that lived through the depression and WWII, and the failed Zippy film.

Also, check out our 100th episode live in May at UCB East on the 7th with Sam Seder (Majority Report, Bob’s Burgers), J.J. Sedelmaier (TV Funhouse), indie rock band Parquet Courts and musical guest Dan Friel (Thrill Jockey) + more! In the meantime, subscribe on iTunes and leave a review. And why not follow Andy and Mark on Twitter?

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Where do creative people come from? On Beginnings, two fledgling comedians talk origins with professional creators and others just starting out, and hopefully answer their parents’ question, “What are you doing?”

Welcome to MoCCA Week on Beginnings! At the start of April, the Society of Illustrators helped us put together a live episode of the show at the annual Museum of Comic and Cartoon Art (MoCCA) Festival, a convention in New York dedicated to indie comics, illustration and animation. We invited some of our favorite comics people on the show (Gabrielle Bell, Lisa Hanawalt), and even had some surprise drop ins (Kate Beaton, another favorite!), and generally had a blast. Plus, at the end of the episode, we sit down with animator Bill Plympton for a short discussion about his origins. Big thanks to the Society for welcoming us into the festival and a big thanks to all our guests! Stay tuned for Thursday’s episode with Zippy the Pinhead creator Bill Griffith.

Also, check out our 100th episode live in May at UCB East on the 7th with Sam Seder (Majority Report, Bob’s Burgers), J.J. Sedelmaier (TV Funhouse), indie rock band Parquet Courts and musical guest Dan Friel (Thrill Jockey) + more! In the meantime, subscribe on iTunes and leave a review. And why not follow Andy and Mark on Twitter?

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