High Anxiety Starring Mel Brooks... and millions of us!

When too many things in my life go awry I have the tendency to suffer from anxiety and panic attacks. Why am I writing about this on a public relations and entertainment blog? Because there is one movie that helps me to laugh off my own anxiety and panic attacks, put them into some perspective and even make fun of myself. I love the movie High Anxiety, starring Mel Brooks, Madeline Kahn, Cloris Leachman and Harvey Korman.

The classic Mel Brooks comedy is about a famous psychiatrist who just happens to suffer from high anxiety, himself. Mel Brooks plays Dr. Richard H. Thorndyke, a revered east coast psychiatry professor who is offered a position at a prestigious psychiatric hospital in California. What he comes to find out is that the hospital staff are keeping people “crazy” to continue to make large sums of money from the patients’ families. Simultaneously, Brooks’s character is secretly being treated for his own anxiety by his old psychiatry professor and mentor, an ancient looking shrink meant to be a humorous take-off on Sigmund Freud, himself (accent and all!).

If you ever fall prey to anxiety or panic or any variation of it, or even if you just love Mel Brooks’s brilliance at poking fun at serious subject matter, High Anxiety is a must-watch!

You can catch this comedy classic on DVD or on Netflix.

If you think late night show, Chelsea Lately is hilarious, the behind-the-scenes mock-umentary, After Lately, will make you laugh yourself cross-eyed! I love how far Chelsea and all ofthe Chelsea Lately comedians are willing to go in the name of comedy, ranging from “that’s just wrong” to “I can’t beleive this is even on TV!”

I spoke with one of Chelsea Lately‘s most popular comedy writers and roundtable fixtures, Heather McDonald, for a very candid interview about the absurdity of pop culture celebrity, her friendship with the Kardashians, working for Chelsea Handler, and being a Republican in Hollywood.

Here are two exclusive advance excerpts from my Heather McDonald interview:

on where and how they shoot After Lately:‘
“Oh, yes. Those are our desks and we’re right in the studio. So we’ll finish taping Chelsea Lately, and then it’s like, “Your call time for After Lately is six o’clock and then we’ll shoot scenes at night or on a Saturday. It’s hectic but it’s a lot of fun because I’m so close with everyone. It really is like a family. Definitely people get on our nerves and there might be little snide remarks, but for the most part everyone loves each other and wants each other to succeed and have a good time.”

On sudden reality TV fame::
“I definitely see the absurdity of the instant fame that pop culture and reality shows have done for people. I do really enjoy the Housewives. The Beverly Hills Housewives are so much fun, definitely my favorite. They take these women who probably always wanted to be an actress, and now at 45 they’re on the cover of Us Weekly.”

My interview with Heather McDonald will post on Friday, November 25th!

George Carlin was the very definition of an honest man, and a true comic genius. Carlin’s word were prophetic and spot on, in this 2005 George Carlin stand-up comedy clip. Carlin’s material and frank statements about America’s economy and problems in Washington DC bares eery resemblence to what has gone on in the United States since Carlin left this earth three years ago.

In this classic George Carlin stand-up video clip, the late comic and societal commentator sounds off on public education, politicians and Washington lobbyists in a telling piece of comedy material.