Watch “TS!W 720: Stephanie Drake Talks About Kissing Jon Hamm on “Mad Men”” from Top Story! Weekly Episode 252: “Hidden Cashed Out”

I’m a huge fan of “Mad Men,” so when we did our show for iO West’s 12th Annual Improv Comedy Festival and had as our special guest Stephanie Drake – aka Don Draper’s secretary Meredith – I thought it would be fun to do something about the big kiss she’d had on the midseason finale just a week earlier. Especially since we all know that right now Jon Hamm is the one exception that all straight guys would make…

TS!W 720: STEPHANIE DRAKE by Michael Hughes

Starring Stephanie Drake (Stephanie), Phillip Wilburn (Phillip), Josh Rachford (Josh), Tommy Bechtold (Tommy) and Bennie Arthur (Supergirl)

Directed by Kristina Adelmeyer

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Watch “The Miracle That Saved Obamacare” from Top Story! Weekly Episode 228: “It’s Kind of a Big Deal”!

So the December 8 episode of Top Story! Weekly? No big deal. Our guest comedian was only BOB FREAKIN’ ODENKIRK!!!!!

So with a completely sold-out house, and a guest comedian who was one of the reasons I wanted to do sketch comedy, I made sure we brought our A-game. And I came up with an opener that is probably the most UCB-ish game sketch I’ve ever written for TS!W, based upon a suggestion from Phillip Wilburn that the Obamacare website could be a “Christmas miracle.” I went in a different direction, and it ended up opening the show.

Bob was great. And he liked us!

THE MIRACLE THAT SAVED OBAMACARE by Michael Hughes

Starring Artemis Pebdani (Abigail), Bennie Arthur (Charlie), Tammie Smalls (Gwen), Stacy Rumaker (Shoshanna), Jen Cain (Karen), Tommy Bechtold (Young Boy), Derek Reid (Balthazar) and Phillip Wilburn (Boss)

Directed by Michael Hughes

Watch “TS!W 720: Marilyn Hagerty” with Emily Maya Mills from Top Story! Weekly Episode 215: “Twerked Lines”!

Back when I directed the old iO West Mainstage Sketch show, I had the great pleasure to work with the wonderful Emily Maya Mills, who the LA Weekly says “could be the next Carol Burnett.” Emily guested in the cast of Top Story! Weekly last Sunday and I got to write a desk piece for her where she played the 87-year old restaurant reviewer Marilyn Hagerty whose glowing review of the Olive Garden went viral last year. She is, of course, wonderful here, as she is in the other sketches she did.

TS!W 720: MARILYN HAGERTY by Michael Hughes

Starring Emily Maya Mills (Marilyn Hagerty) and Phillip Wilburn (Phillip)

Directed by Michael Hughes

Watch “Virgin Flight” from Top Story! Weekly Episode 197: “Do You Know Who I Am?”

A story about how passengers on Virgin America can now buy each other drinks gave me an excuse to bring back Top Story! Weekly’s favorite hero pilot who crash landed a plane in the Hudson River saving 155 people’s lives!

VIRGIN FLIGHT by Michael Hughes

Starring Phillip Wilburn (Captain Chesley B. “Sully” Sullenberger), Kipleigh Brown (Teri) and Josh Rachford (Chad)

Directed by Michael Hughes

Watch “A Big Hunk of Hamm” from Top Story! Weekly Episode 192: “Ten Years After”!

Okay, so a sketch about how Jon Hamm’s penis is so big that “Mad Men” producers have asked him to wear underwear may not be the most sophisticated thing I’ve ever written. But this sketch (from the First Annual Los Angeles Scripted Comedy Festival, which featured our special guest Lucas Grabeel from “Switched at Birth” and “High School Musical” – check out some more hilarious sketches from the show on YouTube) seemed to get some good laughs from the audience. Very happy people picked up the allusion in the Jon Hamm/Don Draper monologue!

A BIG HUNK OF HAMM by Michael Hughes

Starring Gregg Lopez (Jon Hamm), Artemis Pebdani (Elizabeth Getzinger), Brian Vestal (Vincent Kartheiser), Jen Cain (Elisabeth Moss),
Josh Rachford (P.A.) and Phillip Wilburn (Makeup Artist)

Directed by Michael Hughes

Watch “Can’t Occupy This” from Top Story! Weekly Episode 126: “Keeping Up with the Divorcians”

If you’re a certain age, when you hear “Oakland” your mind goes to “Hammer”. So when I had to think of an angle on the Occupy Oakland incidents last week. . . that’s where my mind went!

CAN’T OCCUPY THIS by Michael Hughes

Starring Derek Reid (MC Hammer), Deanna Russo (Mayor Jean Quan), Brent Pope (Cop),Jen Cain (Tiffany), Tommy Bechtold (Kevin) and Matt Blitz (Glen)

Directed by Kristina Adelmeyer

Watch “The (Mostly) White Album” from Top Story! Weekly Episode 124: “Another One Bites the Dust”

That video with Herman Cain singing a parody of John Lennon’s “Imagine” with the lyrics changed to be about pizza(!) got us thinking: how would parodies of Beatles songs by the other Republican candidates sound?

THE (MOSTLY) WHITE ALBUM by Michael Hughes, Matt Manser, Phillip Wilburn and Jacob Harper

Starring Amy Paffrath (Amy), Hartley Sawyer (Hartley), Gregg Lopez (Mitt Romeny), Phillip Wilburn (Rick Perry), Kipleigh Brown (Michele Bachmann), , Tommy Bechtold (Newt Gingrich), Colin Contreary (Rick Santorum) and Derek Reid (Herman Cain)

Directed by Kristina Adelmeyer

Watch “Gadhafi’s Last Crawl” from Top Story! Weekly Episode 124: “Another One Bites the Dust”

With last week’s events in Libya, it was time for one last visit with Gadhafi, Alan, Diego, Pop Secret, Lawry’s Seasoning Salt, and of course, Chuck Beanster!!

GADHAFI’S LAST CRAWL by Michael Hughes

Starring Phillip Wilburn (Muammar Gaddafi), Hartley Sawyer (Alan) and Tommy Bechtold (Diego)

Directed by Kristina Adelmeyer

Dick Cheney Makes a Movie Based on His Book “In My Time” – with Hartley Sawyer and Drew Seeley from “Glory Daze”!!

We had a very attractive cast in Top Story! Weekly this past week. So when I started thinking about how to make a sketch about Dick Cheney’s new book – especially about the gap between Cheney’s account of what happened and everyone else’s – I thought about having Cheney cast someone very handsome to play him in the movie version of his book. That lead to the sketch below, which got the show off to a great start. But Hartley Sawyer and Phillip Wilburn get all the credit for the movie trailer!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GukIUfpsHsY

DICK CHENEY, AUTEUR by Michael Hughes

Starring Phillip Wilburn (Dick Cheney), Kipleigh Brown (Marci), Hartley Sawyer (“Dick Cheney”), Derek Reid (“Colin Powell”), Shannon Ayers (“Cheney Aide”), Amy Paffrath (“Valerie Plame”), Drew Seeley (“Scooter Libby”) and Matt Moore (“George W. Bush”)

Directed by Michael Hughes

Watch Elton John, George Michael, Lionel Richie and Ke$ha Singing About the Economic Crisis – with Drew Seeley and Hartley Sawyer from “Glory Daze” – from Top Story! Weekly Episode 117: “Dick in a Book”

When you have someone in your show who’s had a Top Five single on the Billboard charts, you want to have them sing! So we took a sketch concept we’ve done before, tweaked it a bit, and came up with this dynamite closer to the sketch portion of our show featuring Derek Reid “Dancing on the Ceiling” as Lionel Richie, Kipleigh Brown skanking it up as Ke$ha, and an awesome duet between Drew Seeley as George Michael and Phillip Wilburn as Elton John – plus Amy Seeley and Hartley Sawyer hosting. This was pretty great. Enjoy.

NOW THAT’S WHAT I CALL ECONOMIC CRISIS MUSIC by Kristina Adelmeyer, Michael Hughes and Phillip Wilburn

Starring Amy Paffrath (Amy), Hartley Sawyer (Hartley), Derek Reid (Lionel Richie), Kipleigh Brown (Ke$ha), Drew Seeley (George Michael), and Phillip Wilburn (Elton John)

Directed by Michael Hughes