It's hard to imagine what American comedy would look like without Mel Brooks. With a sharp eye for parody, a seemingly infinite supply of gags, and enough destruction of the fourth wall to make a postmodern novelist blush, his work has set the tone for countless comedy TV shows and films. It's hard to imagine SNL's relentless TV parodies without Your Show Of Shows(which Brooks wrote for alongside Sid Caesar back in the 50s), The Simpsons without his filmography full of sly pop-culture references, or the careers of Airplane! creators Zucker, Abrahams and Zucker without Brooks' shameless love of (self-admittedly) awful jokes.

.. Marc Maron was at a low point in his life in late 2009 when he took up a new sideline: interviewing fellow comedians in a podcast he calls 'What the Fuck.' Marc’s funny, raw and often revelatory heart-to-hearts with the likes of Louie C.K., Judd Apatow, Carlos Mencia, Robin Williams, Janeane Garofalo, Sarah Silverman and many others have made WTF one of the most listened-to podcasts on the web—and won him glowing write-ups in 'Rolling Stone' and the 'NY Times'.

... Now Maron has parlayed the success of his podcast into Maron, a television show based on his life; it debuts May 3 on the IFC Channel. And he has a memoir, Attempting Normal, in which he says he wishes his imagination was fueled by something other than panic and dread — though he says not to worry too much about that observation.