From Happy Tree Friends, Sonic & Gumby to Autism & Creativity w/ Ken Pontac

What do Happy Tree Friends, Sonic the Hedgehog, Gumby, and Mr. Bumpy of Bump in the Night have in common? Ken Pontac has been a creative force behind all these wonderfully bizarre projects.

Ken joins CH101 to talk about how dropping acid before an Eraserhead screening led to working on Gumby, why tragedy equals comedy on Happy Tree Friends, what it’s like to get hate mail from Sonic fans, and the overall ethos behind his creative process.

Ken also has a new documentary, Colors of the Spectrum: Beauty in Neurodiversity, which centers on his work with autistic artists at Autistry Studios, exploring the relationship between autism and creativity.

Check out Ken’s documentary series

Comedians Who Filmed Their Stand-Up Specials While Pregnant w/ Ophira Eisenberg

Ophira Eisenberg is known for hosting NPR’s Ask Me Another, The Moth mainstage, and her new stand-up special, I Used to Be Nicer. She also has the distinction of filming her previous special when she was 8 ½ months pregnant.

Ophira joins Comedy History 101 to dive into the history of comedians who filmed their stand-up specials while pregnant.

From Joan Rivers pushing pregnancy taboos on The Ed Sullivan Show to Ali Wong’s Baby Cobra, Jena Friedman’s Ladykiller, Kira Soltanovich’s You Did This to Me, and Ophira’s own pregnancy special, Inside Joke.

At one time, a comedian couldn’t say the word ‘pregnant’ on TV. Now being pregnant on stage can make for the centerpiece of a stand-up special.

OJ Unseen: Exploitation of Evil — Inside O.J. Simpson’s Juiced Prank Show

O.J. Unseen: Exploitation of Evil is the new HBO Max doc series that revisits Juiced, O.J. Simpson’s trainwreck hidden-camera prank show. It was meant as a comeback project for the double “alleged” murderer.

And, I, Harmon Leon was hired off Craigslist to be O.J. Simpson’s “funny little sidekick.”

In this CH101 reprise episode, I go behind the scenes of Juiced and what it was really like pulling pranks with O.J. Simpson on the worst idea ever conceived for a reality TV show - now featured in O.J. Unseen: Exploitation of Evil.