Chaz Miller, Cameron Miller, and Amanuel Richards are one half of the sketch comedy group Dormtainment, who formed in Atlanta in 2009. They went straight from college to YouTube, and over the next eight years, amassed one million YouTube subscribers, a Comedy Central web series called Six Guys One Car, two albums on the Billboard comedy charts, and a live show that’s a hit on college campuses. They’ve now joined Kevin Hart for his new online venture, the Laugh Out Loud Network, where they produce and star in the satire of National Geographic called Black Geo. They invited me into their Comedy Trap House in the San Fernando Valley to tell me how they did it. So let’s get to it!
Jimmy Shubert was just a kid from Philly who wanted to be a magician. That’s how he started in show business, before moving to Los Angeles in the 1980s and taking a job at The Comedy Store, where he became the kid in Sam Kinison’s outlaws of comedy crew. That led to development deals and pilots early on in his career. Over the years, you’ve seen him in recurring roles on King of Queens and Entourage, more recently as a finalist on Last Comic Standing and a headliner on Dave Attell’s Comedy Underground. I caught up with Shubert at Montreal’s Just For Laughs comedy festival, where he was performing as part of the Masters showcase. So let’s get to it!
Dave Smith is a native New Yorker and key member of the emerging new platform, GaS Digital Network. You’ve likely heard Dave as one-third of the Legion of Skanks alongside Big Jay Oakerson and Luis J Gomez, or as host of the podcast Part of the Problem, which combined receive hundreds of thousands of downloads each week. You also can see Dave featured regularly as a comedic political analyst on FOX News. He was a New Face at Montreal’s Just For Laughs fest in 2013, and in 2017, he has released his first stand-up comedy special, Libertas, the first such special for GaS Digital. It’s out Sept. 11. So let’s get to it!
Scot Armstrong grew up outside of Chicago and first studied comedy under the legendary Del Close, before moving to New York City and joining the Upright Citizens Brigade improv troupe Mother, whose members included Jason Mantzoukas, Jon Daly and Jessica St. Clair. He has since worked with St. Clair as an executive producer on both of her TV series, Best Friends Forever and Playing House. But you’ve come to know Armstrong’s work more through his screenplays, which have included Road Trip, Old School, Starsky & Hutch, School for Scoundrels, Semi-Pro, and The Hangover Part II. He’s also the creator of the Showtime series DICE, which follows Andrew Dice Clay now past his prime in Las Vegas. DICE’s second season debuted in August 2017. Armstrong sat down with me to talk about the Mother of all comedy stories, so let’s get to it!