Bill Maher: Een geweldige vent

Deze man verdient zijn eigen topic.

Bill Maher

quote:

Bill Maher, in 1993, created the perfect forum for his quick-witted comedic talents - "Politically Incorrect." On Comedy Central, Maher had brought together some of the most interesting politicans, entertainers, and journalists to participate in some of the most controversial, topical and comical discussions. Winners of four CableACE Awards combined, Maher and his program have grown in popularity year to year, eventually catching the attention in 1997 of ABC and capturing the post-"Nightline" time slot. "Politically Incorrect" celebrated it's fifth anniversary on ABC in January 2002 and was nominated for an Emmy Award in 2001 for "Outstanding Variety, Music or Comedy Series."

Maher, inspired by the show's success, assembled some of "PI's" most memorable highlights in his book, Does Anybody Have a Problem With That? Politically Incorrect's Greatest Hits. In it, Maher brings us his tongue-in-cheek commentaries on such modest proposals as putting warning labels on the Bible, why we should have drunk driving lanes, and his regular "Get Over Yourself Award," given to such notables as Newt Gingrich, Santa Claus, and the O.J. Simpson defense team. He also offers a collection of some of the funniest and most insightful thoughts of "PI's" panelists, including Ben Affleck, Marilyn Manson, Ann Richards, Pamela Anderson, Oliver Stone, Ron Howard, Arianna Huffington, and Janeane Garofalo.

Maher's credits include five HBO specials, including the critically acclaimed "Bill Maher: Be More Cynical." He has made many appearances on "Late Night with David Letterman" and "The Tonight Show with Jay Leno," where he also served as guest correspondent. Maher has participated in the tours of a number of comics throughout the United States.

An English major graduate from Cornell University, Maher began his career honing his act during the '80s on the New York club scene. He reflects upon this time in True Story, a novelization of his club life and perhaps the funniest and most revealing depiction of the comic's life to date.

Maher was born in New York and raised in River Vale, New Jersey. He now resides in Los Angeles.

Voor de Nederlanders, waar is hij te zien? Niet op de Nederlandse T.V. in ieder geval. Wel zo nu en dan op CNN waar hij weleens te gast is bij Larry King ("Bill Maher for the hour"). Dat zijn gelijk de beste Larry King shows (naar mijn mening). Verder ben je aangewezen op de P2P netwerken. Alhoewel, op mijn iMesh is ie niet te vinden. Iemand een P2P netwerk waar hij wel te vinden is?

Op zijn officiele site ( http://www.billmaher.tv/ ) kun je wel de transcripts van zijn "Real Time" show lezen, altijd leuk.

Hier nog een artikel over Bill Maher:

In comedy-talk format, Maher's got the edge over comic & a chimp


CNBC's 'Dennis Miller' added an audience and a steadier flow of jokes, and has sent its chimp to the control room, but is still not as funny as HBO's 'Real Time With Bill Maher'.

In the very small world of comedy public-affairs talk shows, Dennis Miller is still in search of his magic formula.

Bill Maher, meanwhile, has found his - big time.

When CNBC's "Dennis Miller" (weeknights at 9) premiered in January, it was an incoherent mess, without a studio audience or clear tone, and with a chimpanzee front and center. Miller and company regrouped, took some time off, and returned with a markedly better show.

There's an audience now, and the chimp usually is confined to cavorting silently in the control room, rather than interrupting Miller's flow, and jokes, by sitting at his side. Miller still has a long way to go when it comes to interviewing guests. Too much of the time, he states his own opinion in the form of a question that ends with something like, "Don't you agree?

It's far too easy for guests to say no, and leave it at that.

There are signs, though, that Miller is loosening up. One of last week's shows featured, via satellite, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, and Miller's demeanor with the Nobel Peace Prize winner was so casual that Tutu clearly was delighted.

"God bless you," he told Miller at the end.

"God bless you, baby!" Miller shot back in his best hipster tones, prompting Tutu to laugh so loud, and so long, it could fairly be described as an actual TV talk-show guffaw.

The studio audience helps as much here as does Miller's opening monologue, but there's a lot more shaping and probing to do before the talks quit generating into boring shoutfests.

"Real Time With Bill Maher," on HBO, has an old comic dealing with a new format as well. But Maher, having moved here after his "Politically Incorrect" was disavowed and dismissed by ABC, has shaped his HBO show into an impressively smart program - better, in fact, than the nightly "Incorrect" ever was.

Part of it, to be fair to "Incorrect" as well as to Miller, is that it's harder to be funnier on a nightly basis than once a week (although, at that same pace, "The Daily Show With Jon Stewart" manages just fine). But Maher, in his live interviews, is sharper now, and "Real Time" has two secret weapons that make the show laugh-out-loud funny each week.

One is "New Rules," the ending segment of his show, in which he fires away on several short ­topics, and one longer one, to vent his anger and deliver his one-liners. On the topic of same-sex marriages, Maher said, "For the ­record, all marriages are same-sex marriages. You get married, and every night it's the same sex."

The other secret weapon is that Maher delivers these "New Rules" as his three final guests of the night sit by and react. The reactions often are the most genuine and delightful part of the show. When Maher joked about "that town in Texas where President Bush was born - New Haven, Conn.," even panelist Christie Todd Whitman, the former EPA commissioner, couldn't disguise her glee at the punch line.

Last Friday's show, to be repeated tomorrow night at 11, features authors Daniel Frum and Gore Vidal showing increasing distaste for one another - but in a way that recalls the best Dick Cavett shows of yesterday more than the TV shoutfests of today.

With his guests (who range from George Carlin and Howard Dean to Russell Simmons and Ian McKellen) and his comedy, Maher is at the top of his game now. Yet like Miller, he, too, is taking time off to regroup.

The "Real Time With Bill Maher" repeated this week is the last original episode to be presented until Maher returns from hiatus July 30 - just after the conclusion of the Democratic National Convention.

That gives Miller four months to work on his game and his show.

New rule: From now on, Maher should stay on. HBO doesn't need another terrific show whose driving force takes off for long vacations whenever the urge strikes. We already put up with that on "The Sopranos."

Originally published on March 23, 2004

Vannacht om 3.00 op CNN is Bill Maher te gast bij Larry King. Herhaling is dacht ik ’s ochtends om 10.00.

Maher takes on the headlines

Wednesday, June 2
Bill Maher's shoot-from-the-lip observations have won the controversial comedian many fans and his share of critics. He joins Larry for the hour with his take on Iraq, the race for the White House and today's political scene.

One Maher 'Time'

Political comic's mix of standup & debate returns to HBO


Bill Maher returns with 'Real Time' after three months off.

Bill Maher returns to television Friday with the first of 13 new installments of his public-affairs talk and comedy show, "Real Time With Bill Maher.
His opening-night guest is Michael Moore — and Maher can't wait.

"I hope I have a little more centrist appeal," Maher said of his HBO show (airing at 11 p.m.), comparing himself to Moore. "I do lean left, but there are plenty of times I have backed the conservatives — on the death penalty, unions, personal responsibility, the military."

One thing on which the host and guest seem certain to agree: "I don't like Bush," Maher told the Daily News last week.

During his three months off, Maher missed the opportunity to discuss several key news events, including the prison scandal in Iraq. He's been honing material by continuing his standup act, but can't wait to start hosting a live talk show again.

"It's always hard to get the momentum back," Maher said, "and some of the audience is saying, 'Oh, you're coming back? I thought you were fired again.'"

He chuckled.

Almost three years after making the 9/11 remark on "Politically Incorrect With Bill Maher" that got him fired by Disney-owned ABC (Disney also being the corporation that refused to distribute Moore's "Fahrenheit 9/11"), Maher can afford to laugh. Midway through his third season of "Real Time," he's happier now.

His show, and its guests and their interaction, are very different now — entirely by design.

"When you do a one-hour show, especially on a pay-cable network with no commercials," Maher said, "you want to make that the best possible product you can.

"The criterion for guests for the last show," he continued, "was fame."

That mixture — a rock star here, a comic there, a congresswoman over there — "wore off over time," Maher admitted. "I look back and I think, if I hadn't gotten fired, I wouldn't be happy still doing that."

The "Real Time" format has evolved into a much more civilized and thoughtful program. It has similar elements each week: Maher begins with a brief monologue, interviews a guest via satellite, then welcomes three guests to the studio to debate whatever topics he throws their way. He ends each show with "New Rules," in which he elicits laughs even from such topics as the various regimes in Haiti ("Haiti is like that one store in the mall — whatever you put there, it doesn't work").

"I don't want people yelling," Maher said. "I did it 10 years ago. ... I tell my guests beforehand, 'We wouldn't be yelling if we weren't on TV, would we?'

"In 10 years, maybe those other shows will all be doing it this way — but I don't think so, because it's a lot harder to do. It's easier to have a cockfight. And look, I used to do it. I'm telling you, my hands are dirty. But we outgrew it. This is a different era, different channel."

In the immediate post-9/11 era, Maher's comment giving the terrorist pilots credit for some degree of bravery led to advertisers pulling out of the show, which led to his being fired.

"I was sitting under a sign that said 'Politically Incorrect,'" Maher recalled, emphasizing the irony. "But it was a traumatic time. I get that."

He said hard truth, like good wine, goes down more smoothly with age, though it's not the job of a political comic to wait.

"I apologized for the timing," he noted. "I never apologized for the content." What bothered him about ABC's decision, Maher said, was that the people who got "Politically Incorrect" taken off the air were the ones who never watched it. He doesn't consider it censorship, though, because he was able to land another show, getting a career boost in the process.

"All you have to do is fight back," Maher said. "This country does give you that opportunity."

And he's glad to have been provided that opportunity by HBO, which he describes as "one of the last bastions — knock wood — that's not within the reach of the long arm of the FCC."

July 25, 2004

Maher Sued in Real Time

by Charlie Amter
Nov 11, 2004, 3:15 PM PT

Bill Maher is being sued for some alleged politically incorrect behavior.

An ex-flame of the talk-show host filed a $9 million lawsuit Wednesday in Los Angeles Superior Court, alleging Maher promised her marriage and a house after she quit her job to be his fulltime gal. She also accuses Maher of threatening and abusive behavior as their relationship soured.

The woman at the center of Maher's new nightmare, Coco Johnsen, claimed in the filing that she and Maher began dating in January 2003. While Maher has never been married, and is on record as loving his playboy lifestyle, she says that Maher wanted to marry her and, in the parlance of her lawsuit, "produce" children.

Maher's attorney, Adam Streisand, refuted Johnsen's claims. "This is a completely frivolous lawsuit filled with false allegations that is part of a pattern by Ms. Johnson [sic] to seek retribution since the end of their short relationship," he said in a written statement to E! Online.

"Mr. Maher is looking forward to having this dismissed by the court."


Johnsen, a former flight attendant and model, says the host of HBO's Real Time and former purveyor of Politically Incorrect on ABC encouraged her for several months to quit her gig with Delta Airlines and devote her time to him. She eventually left Delta in October of 2003 to move in with Maher.

Per the suit, Johnsen claims she relented to the requests for her time and companionship, saying she "repeatedly sought assurances from Maher regarding the sincerity of his feelings for her, as well as the reliability of his promises to her," just to be sure.

However, according to the suit, the 48-year-old Maher failed to deliver on several promises after she left her job, including buying her a Beverly Hills home (specifically, the one formerly inhabited by relationship role models Jennifer Lopez and Ben Affleck, she says).

While the aforementioned house takes up most of the $9 million she's seeking, the North Carolina-born beauty is also tossing in "un-reimbursed costs of clothing and makeup" and "loss of income from her modeling career" on Maher's tab, per the suit.

Among the nastiest allegations in the spurned lover's claim is that Maher abused Johnsen. According to her claim, Maher made "insulting, humiliating and degrading racial comments" about her, as a black woman, and physically threatened and abused her. Citing one specific incident at a party, Johnsen says Maher once pulled her arm and shook her, causing "injuries to her back and neck." Further, she says later that same night Maher threatened to strike her head with a hammer if she was unfaithful.

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Geloof er als ik dit zo lees niets van. Bijv: "Maher once pulled her arm and shook her, causing "injuries to her back and neck." dat is erg knap van Bill "Ahnuld" Maher Verder "the North Carolina-born beauty is also tossing in "un-reimbursed costs of clothing and makeup"" Kom ooooooop zeg, dat geloof je toch niet? Ben benieuwd hoe dit afloopt.