December 2025
A festive digest of funny stuff from your jolly editor, Carly "Hoo Hoo Hoo"-gendyk. (Get it? Because it's pronounced all Dutch.)
Hi, everyone! Before we jump into this month’s digest (which is truly chock full of good and funny shit), a bit of exciting news:
I was a guest on Deadline’s Comedy Means Business podcast! I’m joined by my clients, sketch trio Business Casual Comedy, to discuss something near and dear to my heart: the current state of emerging comedy, including what it means to scout, discover, and develop talent via representation.
For those who have never talked to me, ever: I define “developmental representation” as working closely with new, unproven talent — before there’s money! while resources are still limited! — to hone a vision for their artistic career, establish and grow meaningful professional relationships (if they weren’t lucky enough to be born with any), and strategically build a winning portfolio of work that conveys their unique voice. All of those efforts (hopefully) combine to open doors towards building a lucrative creative business.
Now, your monthly comedy recs:
New York
You may have seen Brooklyn comedian (and State of Comedy guest columnist) Jonathan van Halem railing against nepotism on Instagram, but did you know he’s also a purveyor of straight culture? Join him (and a real good lineup) as they unveil the 25 Straightest Moments of All Time on Sunday, December 7th at Union Hall. What is straight culture, exactly? Well according to van Halem, it’s Lana Del Rey deciding to marry a cop. Or John Fetterman having a stroke. Or Shohei Ohtani having MLB’s first ever 50-50 season.
A killers row of my very favorite NY-based solo sketch performers (FKA “characters”) have joined together to create CABAL, a new show at UCB launching on January 2nd. It might be a new show, but the lineup is full of familiar faces. Many have been staples of Characters Welcome and Betty Night for years now.
Los Angeles
Edinburgh Fringe favorite Underground Monk Show returns to the Elysian on December 18th. (Folks curious about the process behind clown and devised work can check out their open rehearsal on December 20th…)
Hot off the announcement of his upcoming Dropout Presents special, The Best Man Show (streaming February 2026), Mark Vigeant is remounting his latest solo show Out There at the Elysian on December 17th. Earlier this year, Out There was nominated for Best of the Hollywood Fringe, and rightfully so. Building off the interactivity of The Best Man Show, Vigeant continues to hone his gift for inviting an audience to play along. And this time he levels up the production by adding some impressive onstage tech….
After a year of festivalling, writer and director Jose Acevedo has made the Vimeo link public for his short film Baquiné Friends Forever. While technically you would categorize this one as a drama, the short features sincere performances from comedic powerhouses Devon Walker, Marie Faustin and X Mayo.
Minnesota Nice (embedded below) is an animated short that, at first watch, made me laugh. Only after I decided to include it in the newsletter did I realize AI was instrumental in its production. (Instigating a brief moral crisis as to whether I should publicly appreciate it….) The creator, Josh Wallace Kerrigan AKA Neural Viz, was recently featured in Wired for being potentially “the first AI auteur.” All his work is written, directed, edited, and performed by him, but large thanks is owed to his strategic (but nevertheless controversial) use of AI tools. In his profile on Kerrigan, Christopher Beam makes this compelling point:
Just as Trey Parker and Matt Stone reinvented cartoons by reaching for the cheapest tools available, the man behind Neural Viz is taking a technology many people consider beneath them and using it to push the medium in a new direction.
The Business Center is a new digital series spoofing Shark Tank with actual products like “Long Furby” and “Taxidermy Business Rat” available for purchase on their website. Heads up, entrepreneurs: applications for Season 2 are now open.
Nick Mestad and Eli Coyote Mandel have been posting some A+ digital sketches for the past couple years (here’s my favorite). They only recently launched an Instagram for their combined comedy efforts — @nickandelicomedy — so give that a follow if you agree their stuff rips.
Neill Lynskey (JFL New Face - 2023) is an ideal guest for any format shows that require a little bit of homework. He understood the assignment on the Thanksgiving Finale episode of JoeTV (Joe Gleason’s YouTube show). Tasked with inventing a condiment that makes everything taste better, he went above and beyond with a backstory that had me cackling at my phone… just watch:
Writer and standup Sila Puhl’s (The Daily Show) takes are often one liners, short and unexpected (like a Gen Z Jack Handy). Her delivery is understated and her face is perfectly symmetrical (like a dang Pixar character, or the type of person a baby would love). It’s like the medium of direct-to-camera joke telling was made for her.
One reason to be thankful every November is Jamie Linn Watson committing to her yearly bit: a scarily accurate impression of the Thanksgiving Day Parade. And this year was no exception. (And you can watch the evolution of the bit! Here’s 2024 and here’s 2023 and 2022 and 2021….)
Dropout released the trailer for Season 3 of its character interview series Very Important People and the epic lineup reveal merits every ounce of pageantry — the roster of upcoming guests is stunning, that is to say: packed with comedians you really should know. Episodes drop starting December 4th.
Shout out to Sachi Ezura and Justine Giannino — development execs, producers, and moms whose work supports the fostering of underrepresented voices and new creative talent — who have started accepting submissions The Cribsheet, a curated list of the best unproduced pilots written by parents of children under 12. Submissions can be sent to cribsheetlist@gmail.com with logline, writer contact info, and any other pertinent info. They’ll be accepting submissions through the end of 2025 and will announce this year’s list in March 2026.
LASTLY: if you didn’t catch it, Newcomers: Cycle 11 (filmed at the Bell House during New York Comedy Festival) is available to watch on YouTube, Punchup.Live and VEEPS. Follow @newcomerscomedy for weekly clips!
Happy Holidays, everyone! Thanks for reading.