Comedy

Carlin's "Seven Dirty Words" act ignited an obscenity case in the '70s. We listen back to two archival interviews with the late comedian, and David Bianculli reviews a new HBO documentary about him.

How Jimmy Fallon's Tonight Show music videos, James Corden's Carpool Karaoke, and Jerry Seinfeld's Comediens in Cars are changing how comedy is being viewed online.

Louis C.K.'s comedy and the new mockumentary The Comedians start Thursday on the FX cable network. Both are unusual and ambitious, says critic David Bianculli, but only one hits the ground running.

The new drama, which launches Friday on Amazon Prime, stars Jeffrey Tambor as a transgender woman coming out to her three grown kids. Tabor acts the role without any hint of cheap humor.

After a lengthy hiatus, Conan O'Brien made his return to TV last night as the host of Conan, his new talk show on TBS. David Bianculli says that a guy who had months to prepare should have had a better and funnier opening night.

Lehrer, whose topical songs include "Pollution" and "The Vatican Rag," is the subject of a new multimedia release called The Tom Lehrer Collection. David Bianculli reviews the two-disc set, which includes Lehrer's greatest hits and never-before-seen concert footage.

A new six-hour documentary about Monty Python's Flying Circus commemorates the show's 40th anniversary. Reviewer David Bianculli calls it entertaining and "completely different."

Critic John Powers reviews the Starz comedy series Party Down, which follows a group of oddball dreamsers who work for a Hollywood catering company.

Film critic David Edelstein reviews “The Simpsons Movie.”

Misunderstood giants? None have ever been as popular as Shrek, star of two huge summer hits since 2001. Paramount's grumpy-green-ogre franchise is the epitome of the hand-hold movie: family flicks that serve up action, tomfoolery and life-lessons for the kids, nonstop pop-culture in-jokes for the adults, and fart jokes for the whole family.