This week, Ed’s guests are Karen Kilgariff, writer for “The Ellen Show” and “Last Comic Standing,” and Rob Delaney of the web series “Coma, Period.”

Karen Kilgariff and Ellen Degeneres

Rob Delaney: Warner Brothers Responds to Christian Bale’s Tirade

Introduction

Ed started the show by displaying his nametag from his recent parenting class.

Ed also talked about his attempts to get into branded entertainment, or if that doesn’t branded, en-Jew-tainment. (Which should work, cause he’s a brand AND a Jew!)

He then reminisced about his bar mitzvah, back when he had the same haircut as Dear Abby. He also told some of his family’s favorite nursery rhymes, like the story about when Grandma heard all those voices.

Ed then did a spot for his new sponsor, Mood-a-Mint, the anti-depressant mouthwash.

Comedy News with Julie Mitchell

Julie’s stand-up special at Ye Olde King’s Head in Santa Monica was canceled due to plumbing issues. So she’s given up on being funny and is just going to become a writer.

Chris Hardwicke is coming to the Capital City Comedy Club in Austin.

Marc Maron, Gary Gulman and Josh Gondelman are at the Laughing Skull Lounge in Atlanta.

Spike TV is developing a show called “Alternative History”, and Julie shared some of her own pitches for the show.

Andy Kindler on “Last Comic Standing”

We saw an Andy Kindler stand-up set from this season’s “Last Comic Standing” on NBC. He talked a bit about a History Channel special about Hitler’s drug abuse problems and his problems with “On Demand” movies on TV. He also riffed on being invited to appear on “Celebrity Fit Club,” which implies both that he’s overweight and that he’s a celebrity.

Marvin Hamlisch Contest

Ed will give a Mystery Science Theater 3000 box set to one person who tweets out his or her favorite Marvin Hamlisch score to #TWiCom on Twitter. To win, just tweet your favorite Marvin Hamlisch score to #TWiCom! We’ll pick our favorite and then inform the winner!

Interview with Rob Delaney and Karen Kilgariff

- Is working on “Last Comic Standing” a fun experience?

KAREN: It was no pressure because she came in at the last five weeks, so it was fun and easy.

- Did you feel a lot of pressure being Ellen DeGeneres’ head writer?

KAREN: There was lots of self-inflicted drama. It’s less emotional to be a hired gun for a show than have a steady job.

- What do you think of comedy competitions?

Rob asked if this season of “Last Comic Standing” was tainted this season because he was kicked off so early. Karen replied that, any time anyone screwed up during the rest of the season, they would say he “Delaneyed.”

- For Rob, what was it like transitioning from musical theater?

He started doing TV on shows like “All My Children.” He played a security guard. In one scene, he wrestled with the now-famous Josh Duhamel (of “Transformers” fame).

- Karen, do you write songs all the time?

KAREN: The idea was that it’s a self-help show. She has a lot of books and has spent a lot of time in the Barnes And Noble Self-Help session, so she laid down a few tracks. The exercise she did was to try to be as truthful as possible in the song.

Karen Kilgariff performing at The Fake Gallery

Karen says she relies on rage when she’s on stage to motivate her to be more funny. She can’t stand when people make the “pssshhh” noise to indicate that they think something is funny. It reminds her of the bus door opening.

ROB: He tries to remind himself that the audience is giving him a gift by listening to him. There has to be a joy in performing so that the audience can relax and enjoy themselves. If someone talks during his set, he wants them to die, but he tries to kill them with kindness. He acts really hurt when someone in the audience is heckling, because it turns the audience against them.

- Ever been an a no-win situation?

Ed called the Charlie Horse in Kingston, MA, the “worst club in America.” He said the owner would call you and say “I’m really sorry but we have an opening…” He compared going into the club to entering the film “Chained Heat.”

Karen talked about touring with Patton Oswalt and a nightmare experience in a bar. They demanded that she do a shot, and when she refused, she just kind of canceled her set part of the way through. Audience members followed her back to her hotel and booed her there.

Ed said he worked in that same bar with a prop comedian and there were members of the KKK in the audience.

- Have you ever been fired from a stand-up job?

ROB: He was contacted by a good-sized club and asked for clips. He sent the clips and the club passed, but the club’s Twitter account was retweeting him. Obviously, some of the people who work there liked him but the owner didn’t.

- Talk about performing at clubs and moving to LA.

KAREN: In San Francisco, you used to have to go line up outside a comedy club and they’d walk up and down the line and pick random people to go up on stage. So you’d wait around to see if you’d be going on.

Ed pointed out that the comics, not the club, are the show, and they need to move to where they can get attention.

- Rob is doing a solo show?

ROB: Yes, on Tuesday.

KAREN: Rob opened for her solo show at the Largo. She wrote a line-up of sarcastic musical theater songs, as if she was doing a one-woman musical. She did the songs first before writing the show, so it was very loose. Then, in the middle, she showed a clip of herself on “America’s Funniest People.” Singing for her is really hard and intimidating, because she wants to be perfect.

ROB: The music was beautiful and heart-warming. So he remembers it.

- The name of Rob’s solo show is “Naked and Bloody.” Why?

Rob’s show is about an incident 8 1/2 years ago when he was doing drugs and drinking and drove a car into the LA Department of Water and Power. He got very badly hurt, breaking both his arms and hurting his legs, putting him in jail in a wheelchair. Occasionally, his hospital gown would come off while he was being wheeled around, but with no working arms, he couldn’t stop it. Hence “Naked and Bloody.”

He has not drank or done drugs since then. The show is about the accident and then the difficulties of the following months. It’s funny, but really only because he’s happy and healthy now, so it’s okay.

People do occasionally learn things from his shows, but he tries to prevent it whenever possible. In particular, they learn to put on a diaper if they’re in jail and have 2 broken arms.

He thinks the best stand-up is honest stand-up.

- If someone’s drunk and heckling, how do you handle that?

ROB: If someone’s drunk and he’s being heckled, he has sympathy for them. But he puts that aside and eviscerates them. (He’s kidding…) He doesn’t care if other people drink around them. A drunk heckler is easier to deal with because they’re not thinking clearly and they aren’t sharp.

KAREN: A really drunk woman heckled her at the San Francisco Punchline. She told her after the show that “you made me so sad.”

“Last Comic Standing” Clips

We watched a clip of comedian Myq Kaplan performing on “Last Comic Standing.”

Karen Kilgariff Song

Karen played a song called “Jesus Will Smash You.” She said the guitar was out of tune, but because it’s really more of a prop, it doesn’t really impact the comedy.

- Was was the back story on that song? Were you church-going?

KAREN: Yes, she went to Catholic School. She grew up believing there was nothing wrong with drinking 32 beers a day.

ROB: As a kid, he really believed that, if he prayed hard enough, he could make a statue cry blood and make his grandmother proud of him.

Then Ed and Karen traded stories about Little Richard, who apparently says “woooooo!” to various sweet foods when he sees them around town.

- Has Karen’s nun aunt seen her perform?

KAREN: Any time she performs, the Kilgariffs come out. Her aunt came out when she was performing with Margaret Cho. Karen apologized in advance for the things Margaret Cho was going to say, and her Aunt Mary said it was no problem. But during the set, her family was still shocked and dismayed by Margaret’s “fisting”-themed material.

Margaret Cho is inappropriate

Then Rob talked about getting to sing the National Anthem in front of baseball games at Fenway Park and elsewhere. He was so nervous at first he had to dissociate himself from the experience in order to get through it.

- Are you two devoted to any TV shows every week?

KAREN: Watches “Law & Order” in a way that is now problematic in her life. She prefers to do it to other things, like comedy shows.

- Favorite films?

ROB: He loves the film “Umbrellas of Cherbourg,” which is a celebration of life but also traumatic and sad. The movie makes him feel good.

KAREN: “Michael Clayton” is the first one that comes to her mind. She thinks it’s a perfect film.