Issue link: https://canadawidemedia.uberflip.com/i/468229
Tragedy On Set New Path, New Laughs GIRLS Sunday, 8 p.m. & 11 p.m., HBO Canada After much soul-searching, Hannah has a breakthrough. Meanwhile, Shoshanna's awful job interview manages to have something approximating a happy ending, and Ray takes his still-ongoing neighbourhood noise complaint to the community board. Finding the Funny Q How long did it take you to work out the material for Paid Regular? A Well, I started writing it a year and 10 months before I recorded it. But I pretty much had it down five months before that. That was just tweaking stuff and trying to get the dates to record it. But it was fun working it out. I worked it all over. I did it in 10 countries: Denmark, Amsterdam, Switzerland, China, Canada — of course, America — Australia . . . tons of places. I was just trying to make it as universal as possible. Q Over that period of time, was there anything that you ended up having to cut because it wasn't topical anymore? A No, I don't really do topical stuff. I never read the paper or anything. I have seen a lot of comics do that, though. You do a joke, people are all talking about it for two months, but then seven months later nobody's talking about it anymore, and then three months after that, your special comes out, and it's just embarrassing. It's like, "He's still doing jokes about this?" Q When it comes to making the special "TV friendly," as opposed to uncensored, do you have a say in what material makes the cut and what doesn't? A Oh yeah, totally. I determine what's going to be on there and what's not, and most of that was just to do with picking which bits were going to be on TV. It wasn't about what's TV friendly and what wasn't. I don't even really understand what that means, anyway. They're telling me the words that aren't allowed, and I'm like, "OK, I guess I won't say that." It's so irrelevant. But they figure out where the beeps go, and I just pick what material makes it into the broadcast edit. I had to lose 30 minutes! I kept 41, but I lost 30. I just had to take out entire bits. It was the only way to do it. Comic Ari Shaffir talks about creating his latest standup special ARI SHAFFIR: PAID REGULAR Saturday, 10 p.m., Comedy C O M E D Y C E N T R A L , 2 H B O C A N A D A 14 TV WEEK LAST WEEK TONIGHT WITH JOHN OLIVER Sunday, 10 p.m., HBO Canada We can't be sure that John Oliver will be discussing the Oscars on his satirical news show this evening, but knowing him, we can't imagine he won't make a few snarky remarks before moving on to amusingly eviscerate more important political matters. JOKES ON FILM Hot Comedies