Late Friday afternoon, NBC announced that it has declined to pick up John Mulaney’s sitcom, Mulaney. It was a surprising move, given that the highly anticipated and already buzzy show had Lorne Michaels as a producer and an incredible cast. Having seen a version of the script, and based on Brad’s on-the-scene reporting, I can say that it was a good pilot and that the series had enormous potential. It’s a shame that it won’t be on NBC’s schedule this fall. But in the long run, what NBC will really regret is not just picking up the show Mulaney, but adding John Mulaney to its primetime ranks.

There are no surefire bets in comedy or television, but I stand by this as a truism: Lorne Michaels picks winners. Regardless of the near-constant din about the quality of Saturday Night Live‘s writing that has lingered for decades, it’s impossible to dispute his eye for talent. The list of major stars who got their first exposure from Michaels is thoroughly impressive, with everyone from Bill Murray to Kristen Wiig owing huge debts of success to their SNL breaks. The most amazing rags-to-riches (or awkward-to-megastar) story will always be Conan O’Brien — not many people saw what Michaels did in the early of years of Late Night with Conan O’Brien (as the ratings proved). Now it’s impossible to imagine the modern day comedy scene without Conan’s influence. And remember the reaction when Jimmy Fallon was announced as his late night successor? That guy? Who wants to watch him giggle for an hour every night? And yet, it was the now-68-year-old Michaels who saw Fallon’s potential to build a light-hearted late night show that appeals to the young audience rapidly deserting the format.

Since debuting last year, the Yahoo web series Burning Love has quickly grown into not just one of the best comedies on the internet but one of the best comedies anywhere – web, movies, TV. Centered on a reality dating show, Burning Love masterfully mocks all the vapid, fame-hungry weirdos who populate America’s reality shows, while also expertly satirizing the reality shows themselves.

Burning Love was created by Erica Oyama, a comedy writer who’s previously penned scripts for Childrens Hospital and David Wain’s web series Wainy Days, and directed by Oyama’s husband, Ken Marino of The State and Party Down fame. With Burning Love‘s third season having just kicked off, I had the chance to talk with Erica Oyama about why Season 3 is “the dumbest season yet,” adapting the profane childrens’ book Go the Fuck to Sleep into a movie, and why so many people on the internet mistake Burning Love for a real reality show.

It’s fair to say that the comedy podcast boom would not exist without Jesse Thorn. Thorn, who began doing his public radio show, The Sound of Young America, as a college student in 2000, began podcasting the often comedy-centric show in 2004. (He also taught Marc Maron how to podcast.) In 2011, The Sound of Young America became Bullseye with Jesse Thorn, and starting this April, the show will be heard on NPR stations around the country.

Thorn’s podcasting network, Maximum Fun, which hosts Bullseye along with Jordan, Jesse GO!, Judge John Hodgman, and a half dozen others, continues to grow, recently adding Dave Hill’s Podcasting Incident to the mix. I recently caught up with Thorn at his office/podcasting studio in LA to discuss the move to NPR, production values in podcasting, and mixing high-mindedness with a good laugh.

Can you tell me a little about what the NPR deal will mean for the show?

Well, hopefully it means good things. Basically, the way public radio works is there are a few different organizations [like NPR] that distribute shows to stations. So NPR will essentially be in charge of bringing my show to public radio stations. There are three, four hundred NPR member stations around the country, who pay a certain amount of money to them to be able to carry their programming. So all those stations that you hear All Things Considered on or Morning Edition on are all NPR member stations, but they’re not run by NPR. In fact it’s sort of the other way around.

Recently, public radio weekends have changed a lot. In part because the Car Talk guys have retired. The last big weekend show is Wait, Wait, Don’t Tell Me, which started 10 or 15 years ago now. So this is a moment where of stations are trying to put together national programming for weekends, and so it’s a really important time. And we partnered with NPR because NPR is NPR. That’s the thing that NPR has that none of the other choices have.

5:00 a.m. Wake up and look out window. Be happy that yesterday’s forecast was right—several inches of new snow has fallen. There’s work to be done.

5:10 a.m. Get dressed in six layers of heavy winter clothing. Begin interminable wait until 9 a.m., the earliest possible hour that civilized society has deemed acceptable for a person to start his snow blower on a Saturday morning.

6:30 a.m. Start snow blower.

7:20 a.m. After taking twice as long as necessary to clear driveway, start work on the sidewalk and curb in front of your mailbox. Thoroughly brush all snow from top of mailbox itself. (Drying with a clean, soft cloth is optional.)

Ardie Fuqua is worried that he’s been too funny. “I didn’t get too many laughs, did I?” he asks, sliding into a seat next to me in the back row.

He has just finished a 25-minute set at Caroline’s on Broadway, the argyle-patterned comedy club steps from Times Square, where he is opening Tracy Morgan’s lineup of Thanksgiving Weekend shows. The sound of applause is still ringing throughout the 300-seat club, and Ardie is visibly out of breath, his forehead drenched in sweat from the heat of the spotlights.

It’s easy to understand why overshadowing Tracy would not be on Ardie’s to do list. This is one of their first performances together, and as the opening act, it’s an unspoken rule that one does not outshine the headliner. Ardie, the seasoned hype man, is aware of his place in the pecking order. “I’m just here to make the crowd happy,” he says.

Throughout the night, Ardie dutifully plays the role of right-hand-man, chatting animatedly with Tracy, laughing at his jokes and flashing big, sycophantic smiles his way. But when Tracy is out of earshot, Ardie deflates, as if the animating force that propels him so jubilantly across the stage had been snuffed out. I ask if he’s excited about the show, and he shrugs me off, as he often does when questioned: “I don’t care. It doesn’t matter. It’s just a show.” And then, later, as we vacate the green room to make way for Tracy and his entourage: “Not one person is here to see me.”

Dan Harmon has a lot of stuff in his head, stuff that he used to create and run three seasons of Community as well as found Channel 101 and create a new method for understanding story structure. In these projects as well as in older ones like The Sarah Silverman Program, his failed pilot Heat Vision and Jack, and his current live show and podcast (also the subject of an upcoming documentary) Harmontown, Harmon has made himself known for being both brilliant and hard to work with.

Fortunately for us Harmon won’t stop creating any time soon, with an animated film written by Charlie Kaufman currently in progress as well as an Adult Swim cartoon and sitcoms (including at least one multi-cam) in development at Fox and CBS.

We’ve collected bits of his wisdom from interviews, podcasts, blog posts, and more, so that you, too, can put a lot of stuff in your head and think about it.

Louis C.K. talks a lot. It’s his job. The guy’s been doing stand-up for nearly 30 years now, which means that over the years, he’s shared his thoughts on every subject imaginable. That’s why we combed through C.K.’s stand-up specials, TV show, interviews, talk show appearances, and Reddit AMAs to compile this list of over 70 of his wisest and funniest quotes, arranged by topic. From capitalism to farts, politics to masturbation, we’ve got Louis C.K.’s thoughts on a wide range of topics, all at your fingertips. Enjoy!

After becoming one of the first people to rise to fame via YouTube as a teen writing funny songs from his bedroom in 2006, comedian/musician Bo Burnham is making the big jump to TV this week. He’s starring in Zach Stone Is Gonna Be Famous, a new comedy he co-created that premieres this Thursday at 10:30pm on MTV. A mockumentary about a fame-obsessed high school grad who foregoes college so that he can stay in his hometown and hire a camera crew to follow him around, Zach Stone is Burnham’s first-ever starring role. I had the chance to talk with Burnham this week in advance of the premiere of his show, discussing how he is similar and different to the narcissist he plays on TV, how he’s using technology to expand his stand-up act, and being mentored by Judd Apatow.

Maria Bamford is launching a revolution from her microphone. In less than two years, Bamford has survived the death of her best friend — her pug, Blossom — and a battle with depression, suicide, and hospitalization. The result: Her stand-up contains some of the most transformative work being done around mental illness and stigma today.

Last Monday, comedian Mike Birbiglia Tweeted, “Saw [Maria Bamford] tonight at Caroline’s. I’ve never seen a comedian who made me want to give 25 standing ovations in one set.” He wasn’t alone.

I have seen Maria Bamford perform for almost eight years, primarily at the now-shuttered Lakeshore Theatre in Chicago. Her act has always been brilliantly funny, generous, and kind, but at Caroline’s last week something was different. Her new material has pathos rare not just among stand-ups, but all performers.

Maria Bamford has long been open about her own mental health — her 2009 album Unwanted Thoughts Syndrome chronicles her illness of the same name — but now she has a fire in her belly about the culture at large. She takes power away from her anxieties by satirizing herself (she compares her suicidal thoughts to other “repetitively shit ideas” she’s had, like buying raisin bread in bulk) but she explicitly condemns the stigma that keeps society sick.

Lost Roles is a weekly column exploring “what might have been” in movie and TV comedy as we take a different actor, writer, or comedian each week and examine the parts they turned down, wanted but didn’t get, and the projects that fell apart altogether. This week, we turn our attention to Seth Rogen, an actor/writer/producer who got a series of early starts in his career. Rogen began doing stand-up at 12, writing movies at 13, starring in network TV shows at 17, writing professionally at 19, and becoming a movie star at 25.  Like every actor, Seth Rogen has had his share of close calls with big movie and TV roles he either turned down or didn’t get. Let’s take a look in all the stuff Seth Rogen almost starred in over the years but didn’t, including Dude, Where’s My Car?, a movie about rapping lawyers, and the Superbad/Pineapple Express crossover that never came to be: