Late last night, it was announced that Tony- and Oscar-winning actress Patricia Neil passed away at age 84.

Yeah, I didn’t remember who she was either.

When I first read about it in the foggy haze of the early hour, instead of Patricia Neal, my comedy-soaked brain saw Patrice O’Neal. As you can see from the photos above, this is a hard pairing to confuse.

For a brief moment, I thought that Mounties had infiltrated America and came to finish him off for his border-crossing transgressions. Thankfully, he is alive, well and getting ready for a string of dates in Vegas.

I was apparently not the only one to have this mental confusion. When twitterer @WayneLibonati mentioned it, O’Neal replied:

@WayneLibonati just saw that. Creeped my out for a sec

Indeed, Patrice. Glad to know you’re still around to keep us laughing.

Rick Younger and Vanessa Shealy » Two Sides to Every Story:

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Jen Kwok » Take You Home
(feat. Carolyn “Miss CKC” Castiglia and soce, the elemental wizard)

Each Wednesday we feature some of the best new music-based comedy videos. Want us to feature yours? Send us a link to: suggestions (at) chucklehutch (dot) com, and be sure to subscribe/friend us on Youtube, FunnyOrDie, orVimeo, and we’ll stay on the lookout for your newest uploaded performances.

From ABC News:

Police at the Mexico City airport, who detained a man with a suspicious bulge under his T-shirt Monday, found 18 small endangered monkeys concealed under his clothing in a girdle.

Roberto Cabrera, 38, traveled to Mexico City aboard a commercial flight Friday from Lima, Peru, and was searched when he began behaving “nervously,” police said in a statement.

My question is: what was going through this guy’s mind after the fourteenth monkey? “Twelve, thirteen, aaaaaand fourteen. Whew! Done! That should be plenty. Wait a minute. Done? Did I really say “done”? THAT’S PANSY TALK! My dear sweet Papa, God rest his simian-loving soul, didn’t work three jobs to raise a boy who would quit after a mere fourteen primates. Screw that shit! Hand me those other four monkeys, dammit!”

On last night’s Late Night, Jimmy Fallon decided to turn the writing duties over from his crack staff of seasoned (yet apparently overworked) comedy professionals to the hive mind of the Twitterverse.

Tweeters were encouraged to write comedy gems in response to the hash tag suggestion #whydonttheymakethat. The staff plucked the best tweets and Jimmy read them aloud on Monday Night’s broadcast.

While some were funny, and some were familiar riffs on other comedians’ works (compare the “shrunken elephant” idea to Paul F. Tompkins‘ House Bear bit), this begs the question: Is this the future of comedy writing, throwing out premises to the hive mind and airing the best bits?

I don’t think it’s too far-fetched to imagine there’s a suit somewhere in the bowels of 30 Rockefeller Center thinking that they can program an entire hour of clever responses to twitter hash tag premises. They wouldn’t have to pay a writing staff, they could get an easily disposable, easy on the eyes host or hostess, and with millions of Twitter users, they’ll have huge, completely free pool to draw from.

They could even use the America’s Funniest  Home Video model of content acquisition and award some kind of cash prize for funniest tweet of the week. It’s still cheaper than salary and benefits for a whole writing staff.

Comedy writers should be shaking in their collective boots.

» Conan O’Brien just can’t catch a break. After edging out both Jay Leno and David Letterman for an Emmy nomination in the “Outstanding Variety, Music or Comedy Series” category for his stint at The Tonight Show, it looks like the Emmy producers have decided not to broadcast the awarding of that category, according to a tweet by Team Coco writer Deon Cole. While Cole’s tweet made it clear that NBC was not to blame, it’s obvious that someone is concerned with saving NBC from the potential embarrassment of having O’Brien win during NBC’s Emmy Broadcast. [Hollywood.com]

» Comedians James Adomian, Laurie Kilmartin and Maronzio Vance were all booted from Last Comic Standing. It’s now officially at “World Cup after all the teams I remotely care about were eliminated” level of disinterest to me (which, given my distain for soccer, was already pretty low). Yes, I’m sure the rest of the teams are fine soccer players, but my heart is no longer vested in it. Sorry, remaining contestants!

Claudia Cogan

Joe Fernandes

Brian Dunkleman

Adi Blotman

Want your stand-up video featured here? Send us a link to: suggestions (at) chucklehutch (dot) com, and be sure to subscribe/friend us on Youtube, FunnyOrDie, or Vimeo, and we’ll stay on the lookout for your newest uploaded performances.

» Comedian Jamie Foxx apparently decided that crazy is better than balding by tattooing some designs onto his skull. Jason Alexander might want to look into this. [MediaTakeOut]

» In an unscheduled interview  with Punchline Magazine’s Dylan Gadino on the streets of Montreal, Doug Stanhope expounded on his blistering denouncement of comedy classes on his Monday morning website posting. “It’s not like you can’t get some good from a comedy class,” admited Stanhope, “you can learn something anywhere, but it’s all available for free. You’ll never find comics that are hesitant to give you their opinion on fuckin’ comedy.” Dylan also has some great interviews with Todd Barry and Chelsea Peretti posted on his youtube channel that are well worth watching. [Youtube]

» Comedian Donald Glover talks about his new rap album, the failed viral campaign to make him the next Spider-Man, and hints about what season two of Community has in store: “The show is kind of a mirror for pop culture, especially for the characters. So I feel like everything that happened over the summer will probably be played with. So everything we did, whether it’s a Scream 4 reference or a Spider-Man reference, I think like that’ll be in the show.” [nymag.com]

»Sean McCarthy at The Comic’s Comic blog posted his first-person account of Steve Martin’s hosting gig for two gala showcases at Montreal’s “Just for Laughs” comedy festival.