Entertainment

NBC's Bringing Back This Comedy Staple

by Alanna Bennett

Comedy's in a pretty cool place right now: with more and more comedians being able to get themselves noticed through the Internet (people like Rob Delaney with his twitter following, Britanick with their online sketches, and many, many more), people are breaking out in a wider variety of ways than have been seen in a while, and more and more eyes are on comedy because of that. Network television, of course, wants to harness that while also working within its own traditional structure — which is why NBC's bringing back Last Comic Standing .

Yup, Last Comic Standing is getting an eighth season this summer, and with Wanda Sykes as executive producer. With more and more comedies people look forward to being set up not on NBC (Fox, we're lookin' at you), it makes sense that the network would be making a concerted effort to get comedy-loving eyes back on them now that Parks and Rec and Community are two of their only remaining beloveds.

There are a ton of comedians who aren't super well-known yet who we'd love to see on our TV screens more often (Ron Funches, holla), and we'd love to see a whole buncha ladies up there challengeing the boy's club. Here are some ideas of who might try out:

Aparna Nancherla

Nancherla was recently on Conan, and we loved a whole lotta what she had to say. Side note: She was also apparently the first Indian-American woman to do stand-up on American television, which is really cool and also one of those things that makes us want to yell at all of American history for not getting there sooner.

What were we saying?

Oh yeah: Nancherla seems like a good egg, and she should be on TV more often.

Any of the ladies from Girl Code

Sometimes we love Girl Code, sometimes we aim sustained eye-rolls at it, but either way it's a show that's got some talented and funny women working for it. Nicole Byer? We're pretty sure she's gonna make it big at some point. Jamie Lee, Carly Aquilino, Shaylah Evans, Tanisha Long, Alice Wetterlund? We wouldn't be surprised to see any of them take a stab at it.

Shelby Fero

We hear Shelby Fero's actually got a writing gig on The Pete Holmes Show right now, so she might be too busy, but if she's not she should totally do this. She's one of those comics who came to recognition in the comedy community through her twitter usage — which is great, and she should keep doing that, but we also want more people to know her name because we talk about her a lot.

Abbi Jacobson and/or Elena Glazer

These two are known mainly for their web series Broad City, so who even knows if they're interested in doing a show revolving around stand-up. But they should be, mainly because they are also people who we want to see more of in our daily media consumption (what can we say, this list is mainly selfish).

There are a ton of comics out there looking to get their stuff seen more, so these are just some preliminary lady-oriented brainstorms, but we're genuinely excited to see who comes out of the fold for this eighth season.

Wait, did NBC just do something kinda cool??