Emily and Mercedes are at the National Comedy Center and there is a exhibit getting ready to open. The ribbon cutting for the Carl Reiner exhibit will is this Thursday, July 28th. Carl Reiner’s children, Lucas, Annie and Rob Reiner will be there. Journey Gunderson, executive director says “Carl Reiner’s comedy is untouched in terms of the ripple effect. So, what people will learn in this exhibit is about his impact starting with Cid Ceasar and Your Show of Shows to the Dick Van Dyke Show to film collaborations with greats like Steve Martin to 2000 Year Old Man collaborating with Mel Brooks over the years. It’s really one of the greatest comedy archives that a museum could use to tell the story of the craft.” The museum received 75 boxes of material and Journey says it has a lot of the earliest jokes Carl wrote for television through the final jokes he wrote going back to 2020.
Another exhibit you are sure to enjoy is the Betty White exhibit. Journey says “I’ve never encountered anybody who doesn’t love Betty White. She is one of those unique figures in Hollywood and comedy history that was so beloved in any role she played and made everyone around her better but also stole every scene she was in. She was the only woman to win Emmy’s in all of the comedy categories.”
She was natural at the craft and not many people know that she contributed behind the scenes. Journey says she made an impact on comedy that wasn’t jus on camera and she also made an effort to elevate women and minorities in roles that were producing and directing and on camera at a time when no one was really doing that.
This summer the National Comedy Center is launching two new exhibits, The Carl Reiner exhibit and 30 Years of Late Night, 30 Years Later, an immersive theater style experience celebrating Johnny Carson and The Tonight Show.
Another room for the adults is the blue room. Journey says, “When we built the museum, we didn’t want to censor the very art form we are celebrating, but we also wanted it to be something families can enjoy, so WNY Family Magazine called us ‘a must-see destination for families with school-aged children.’ However, the lower level of the museum is called the Blue Room and this is an entirely uncensored experience in comedy where you see some of the most controversial or boundary-pushing comedy of all time but we also facilitate in that space conversations about censorship and what is going too far, if there is such a thing and there is no better place to take that exploration and learn about what words were dangerous in different time periods or what clips had the censors going nuts at different times in our history from Lucille Ball depicting a pregnancy on public television, which believe it or not was controversial to Ali Young performing in her latest specials pregnant so there is a lot to see in the Blue Room and it is pretty exciting.”
The Lucille Ball Comedy Festival is back. It is taking place August 3rd through August 7th . Journey says during the comedy festival, where you can see some of the best comedy from coast to coast, they also close down the streets, have bands and block parties out there so when you are coming and going out of the shows or the museum, you’re actually entering a party. Some of the people coming to the festival include Jeff Foxworthy, Margaret Cho and the legends of SNL, Kevin Nealon, David Spade and Rob Schneider and they also have the stand-up showcase with some of the best club talent from coast to coast. There is also a free kids comedy show on Saturday, August 6th.
For more information visit comedycenter.org or give them a call at 716-484-2222
