Jeffrey Gurian: Make 'Em Laugh

Before we even start, if you don’t know who Milton Berle or Henny Youngman were, look them up on Wikipedia right now. (Or, better yet, watch this exchange between them on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZTM252Zffq0 .)

Now, Jeffrey Gurian has been a fixture on the New York (and national) comedy scene long enough to know every name you can drop, from those guys on forward.

“It’s amazing to me that I got to meet and work with so many of these people,” he says, referring to the extensive collection of photographs adorning his wall. He ticks some off: “George Burns, Phyllis Diller, Sid Caesar, Jerry Lewis, Red Buttons – the people from the great age of comedy.”

He is not dwelling on the past, though. As a comic, Jeffrey has performed stand-up comedy at most of the major clubs in N.Y. and L.A., and has been featured on three episodes of Comedy Central’s “Kroll Show,” including the viral “Too Much Tuna” sketch, along with Nick Kroll. John Mulaney, Amy Poehler, Seth Rogen, Laura Dern, Jon Daly, and Katy Perry. So it is possible you’ve seen him.

Gurian is also a regular on Sirius XM’s Bennington Show, where he is on air and brings on guests/friends like Trevor Noah, Colin Quinn, Artie Lange, Russell Peters, Lisa Lampanelli, Susie Essman, and Robert Smigel, as well as rising young stars from MTV. So you might have heard him, too. Plus, he’s a best-selling author, with two books to his name and two more coming out soon, so you may have read his name somewhere.

Plus he writes a weekly column in the top comedy website The Interrobang called “Jumping Around With Jeffrey Gurian,” widely read on both coasts, in which he covers whatever’s going on in the New York comedy scene.  His reputation, backed up by known names like Paul Provenza and Nick Kroll, is that you can effectively judge whether you are truly a comedian by whether or not you know Jeffrey. It’s said that he knows everyone in comedy and they know him. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O3n8bwJnl3g

His Comedy Matters TV You Tube channel attests to that, with over 400 video interviews he’s done with A-listers in comedy like Jimmy Fallon, Chelsea Handler, Jon Stewart, John Oliver, Seth Meyers, Trevor Noah, Mike Epps, D.L. Hughley, Amy Schumer, Amy Poehler and even women not named Amy!  http://www.youtube.com/guriannewsnetwork

Comedy writers, like book editors and music arrangers, are unsung heroes and heroines of the entertainment world – they get their accolades second-hand. When the novelist wins the Pulitzer, when the comic gets a sustained laugh, theirs is a quiet pride.

One of Jeffrey’s proudest moments as a comedy writer was being given his own column in the legendary Weekly World News,  (the pre-cursor to The Onion), called “ Gurian’s World of the Bizarre,” in which appeared stories like “Man Crawls Across the Ukraine” and “ Rare Virus Sweeps Japan; Victims Too Weak to Bow.”  He says with pride, “They said my stories were so strange, I needed to have my own column.”

In addition to being a part of comedy history since the late 70’s, Jeffrey is an historian of comedy. His book, “Make ‘Em Laugh,” with an intro by Chris Rock, is a history of the Comic Strip, a legendary comedy club in New York, that has been open since June 1, 1976. “It’s where Eddie Murphy was discovered,” Jeffrey says, “and where he, in turn, discovered Chris Rock; and where Jerry Seinfeld spent the first four years of his career.  It’s where Ray Romano came out of, as well as Jim Gaffigan, Lisa Lampanelli, and Larry Miller. .So I interviewed everybody over a period of four years,” he goes on.

“I interviewed Billy Crystal, Jerry Seinfeld, Paul Reiser , Gilbert Gottfried, Susie Essman,” and the list goes on. “So many of them started their careers at that location. And it’s still open today.” New comics keep launching careers there, and several have gone on to become SNL cast members, like Colin Jost, Jay Pharoah, and Pete Davidson, so a new, updated version of the book,  retitled “Laughing Legends,” from Skyhorse Publishing, is due out on July 5^th, 2016.

There is yet another way you could possibly know Jeffrey Gurian. You might have heard him say, “Open wide.” Jeffrey Gurian had what some might be tempted to call a secret identity – as Dr. Jeffrey Gurian, a successful cosmetic dentist.

“While I was writing for Rodney [Dangerfield] and Joan Rivers, and the Friar’s Roasts, I was a cosmetic dentist,” he confesses. “When I was 12 years old, I decided I wanted to be a dentist, and I was already writing comedy. So my whole life was that split.”

But it doesn’t end there. After pursuing a successful second career rebuilding smiles, he became a teacher.  More specifically, a clinical professor at NYU School of Dentistry, in the Oral Medicine/Oro-Facial Pain Dept.

“My specialty was taking away headaches with just my hands. No medication and no injections.” Gurian says he was and still is a strong believer in energy healing. “They allowed me to do that when I was at NYU, and they let me lecture to the graduate students and attending doctors on my techniques of “Healing Thru Touch.”  Healing, Spirituality and Energy Work are a big part of his life.  He also developed a cure for stuttering which he used to cure himself of a severe stutter which he suffered with into his twenties and beyond. 

Harkening back to his days as a reporter of fake news, Gurian’s other forthcoming book is a selection of weird news gathered from around the world, titled “Man Robs Bank with His Chin, and Other Unusual Stories Missed by Mainstream Media.”

That book, published by Micro Publishing Media, features an intro by Scott Dikkers the creator of The Onion, with stories like “Holding Your Own Hand To Combat Loneliness,” “Man Slips On Pat of Butter, Winds Up In Next Town,” and “Mexican Hat Dance Adopted By Sweden.”

“The thing is, I haven’t slept in many years,” Gurian says with a laugh. “I stay up all night researching the whole entire world for the most unusual stories to share with the public.” These, he says, are the stories that somehow get missed by mainstream media but which he feels the public deserves to be aware of.   Especially stories like “Man Killed for Giving Girlfriend a Snail Instead of an Engagement Ring,” or “College Professor Fired for Casually Removing his Spine in Class.”

New York Post columnist Cindy Adams once said she figured out the connection between Jeffrey’s fields.  She said, “He makes people laugh to see if they have any teeth missing!”  That seems about right!   For more on Jeffrey you can visit his website at http://www.comedymatterstv.com