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Patton Oswalt attends the 62nd Annual ACE Eddie Awards at The Beverly Hilton hotel on February 18, 2012 in Beverly Hills.

Patton Oswalt (who you may know from his recent Comedy Central special and everything else) and Marc Maron (who you may know from KPCC's Comedy Congress, his WTF podcast and soon from everything else) ended up on the same flight earlier today, from New York City to Los Angeles. Maron was riding coach while Oswalt went first class.

What are two Twitter-prolific comedians to do when separated by space? Tweet at each other repeatedly from across a plane. They poke fun at their coach/first class battle, their trademark styles (some deep cuts in there for comedy nerds) and more.

Comedy news site Splitsider assembled their plane communiques for consumption at your convenience. (Uh oh, Maron's probably mad I used Patton's picture. Sorry Marc.)

Amanda Edwards/Getty Images

File: Comedian Dennis Miller presents his new weekly series at Stage 9 Studios November 6, 2007 in Santa Barbara, California.

More often than not, when you see a comedian get political, they're taking shots at conservative rather than liberal ideas. The Comedy Store's Alf LaMont has an interesting piece on this up today at the Huffington Post. (You can also read my in-depth interview with LaMont going inside the Los Angeles comedy scene.)

He recently moderated a panel at South by Southwest on political humor, and as he notes, when he asked for examples of conservative humor, the only name anyone was able to throw out was Dennis Miller. I admit that, when I first opened up his article, this was the first name to come to mind for me too.

There are other notable conservative comedians, though fewer that make their conservatism part of their act. Finding a popular social conservative comedian is even harder. One bright note for conservative comedy: there seems to be more representation when it comes to libertarians, though this also includes libertarians who lean more to the left like Bill Maher.

LaMont spoke with Professor Peter McGraw about the topic before the panel; McGraw writes the Humor Code blog for Psychology Today. He boils down the reasons for the bias to five reasons; the fifth is reliant on LaMont's own political perspective, though there seems to be some room for common ground in his other points.

It's a topic that seems to be in the zeitgeist recently, as I've seen several other articles on the topic; Mike Lafferty at the Orlando Sentinel had what I thought was the most interesting piece on the topic, talking about how the paper has a section that compiles political humor and satire from late night talk show hosts and online. It comes at it from the earnest perspective of trying to provide comedic balance, but conservative humor is simply hard to come by.

It seems like comedy should be able to take on a range of targets, regardless of ideology. As LaMont writes, "Even political comedy is best approached not from a political point of view, but rather a point of view of what is funny."

Do you have any ideas for why comedy is like this? Is it simply tradition? Is there something inherent in comedy that makes conservative comedy more difficult or less appealing? Do you think KPCC does a fair job of trying to be equal opportunity humorists during Comedy Congress? Share your thoughts in the comments.

(You should also go read my interview with one of the panelists from that South by Southwest panel, funny lady Sara Benincasa.)

GallagherSmash.com

Gallagher smashing watermelons, as he is wont to do.

Gallagher, the over-the-top comic with a fondness for smashing produce, is hanging up the sledgehammer. He’s retiring after 32 years on stage. (Yes, he was still performing.) He's just out of the hospital following a serious heart attack.

His trademark: smashing things with a sledgehammer, showering debris all over the crowd, most of whom show up with plastic to protect their clothing.

Highbrow, he’s not. He once said it didn’t matter how clever his jokes were, so long as the audience couldn’t hold their liquor. Gallagher likes to say outrageous things, and do even more outrageous things.

He also made a stir last year in the comedy community when he walked out of a podcast taping with comedian Marc Maron after Maron brought up accusations that Gallagher's comedy is racist and homophobic.

Two weeks ago, Gallagher had a serious heart attack in the middle of a show. Doctors put him in a coma to help him recover, and he has.

Gallagher went home from the hospital on Wednesday, then told an Ohio radio station that he’s done performing live.

But take heart. Gallagher promises to keep the outrageousness coming, online. (Is that a promise, or a threat?)

He may even be persuaded to do a private party or two. Crushing watermelons at a bar mitzvah... we can just picture it.

Discovery Networks

This Sunday at 8pm, Discovery premieres its beautiful new series, "Frozen Planet"

The big news in TV this week is the return of "Community," the little show that could, to NBC this Thursday [*Update: Comedy Central has announced that they will begin airing reruns of "Community" in 2013 - also on Comedy Central this week is the return of "South Park," but perhaps more importantly, "Ugly Americans," beautifully drawn, surreal, and brilliantly funny, Wednesday at 10:30pm]. Sunday, Discovery launches its spectacular new series, "Frozen Planet," at 8pm. This is another beautifully shot show exploring the nature of the colder parts of our planet, both above and below the surface. Kind of ironic that this show hits the screens on the tail end of one of the warmest winters on record in North America. Sunday also brings the season finale of AMC's "The Walking Dead," a must watch, although it might be difficult to top the episode from two nights ago which had major developments.

DVR This! TV highlights for the week: Tonight - "Bizarre Foods America" (Savannah) (Travel @ 9:00pm), Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner (1962)(TCM @ 9:15pm), Grover Norquist is on "The Daily Show," Jon Bernthal of "The Walking Dead" is on Letterman. Tuesday - "Raising Hope" (Fox @ 8pm), "New Girl" (Fox @ 9pm), "SouthLAnd" (TNT @ 10pm), "Justified" (FX @ 10pm), "Key & Peele" (Comedy Central @ 10:30pm), Will Ferrell on "The Daily Show," Nick Offerman of "Parks and Recreation" on Letterman. Wednesday - "Modern Family" (ABC @ 9pm), "Psych" (USA @ 10pm), "Ugly Americans" season premiere (Comedy Central @ 10:30pm), Josh Wolf/Brad Wollack/Kerri Kenney-Silver on "Chelsea Lately" roundtable. Thursday - "Community" (NBC @ 8pm), "30 Rock" (NBC @ 8:30pm), "The Office" (NBC @ 9pm), "Archer" (FX @ 10pm), Chris Franjola/Natasha Leggero/Ross Mathews on "Chelsea Lately" roundtable, Kiefer Sutherland on Leno. Friday - "Real Time With Bill Maher" (HBO @ 8pm). Saturday - The Magnificent Ambersons (1942) (TCM @ 7pm). Sunday -  "Frozen Planet" series premiere (Discovery @ 8pm), "The Walking Dead" season finale (AMC @ 9pm), "Eastbound & Down" (HBO @ 10:30pm).

Events: You can be a live audience member of the Fake Show Podcast this Thursday night - Tom Kenny, Ron Lynch, Eddie Pepitone, and Paul F. Kozlowski are on the bill. If you want an Irish perspective on St. Patricks's Day, go see Greg Fitzsimmons perform at the Hollywood Improv on Saturday night [*Update: Bill Burr and Joe Rogan will also be on this show!]. A week from today, March 20th, is the Fancy and Enchanting comedy and music fundraiser for the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society, featuring Bob Odenkirk ("Mr. Show" & "Breaking Bad"), Rob Delaney, Janet Varney, The Spanglers, and more - 100% of all proceeds go to LSS.

Other Media: If you missed the Laugh for Sight fundraiser last week, you can surreptitiously enjoy some of it via Greg Fitzsimmons' FitzDog radio podcast that has interviews with show participants Bill Burr, Kevin Nealon, and Pablo Francisco. In case you missed my post last week, SF Sketchfest co-founder, Janet Varney, has debuted a new podcast with Christina Hendricks ("Mad Men") as her first guest.

Recently the second season of "The Louise Log" web series began appearing online and I urge you to check out this brilliantly funny show. Coming from a place of interior monologues and subtlety, the show was created by indie-film producer Anne Flournoy. I've embedded a recent episode below:

We're big Eddie Pepitone fans so, in addition to urging you to see him this week at the Fake Show Podcast, let your friends in Seattle and San Francisco know that he's coming to town. Their lives will never be the same after seeing him. Below is a very funny promo that was aired on the Long Shot Podcast that Eddie participates in every week:

Tonight the horror spoof show, "Todd & the Book of Pure Evil" premieres on FEARnet at 7pm Pacific, here's the bleeped promo: 

In a talk about the unexpected at the Long Beach Performing Arts Center, something apparently goes awry. Horribly, awfully, wonderfully awry.

In actuality, that's not Colin Robertson but a hero to this improv nerd right here, Mr. Eugene Cordero, who you may have seen popping up here and there, including cameos on shows like "The Office." He also performs regularly at L.A.'s Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre.

"Robertson" was introduced as "a futurist whose startup has discovered how crowd sourcing solar panel technology innovations can lead us to a new paradigm for health care reform," which the group behind it labels in a behind-the-scenes article as "basically nonsense, but nonsense that sounds interesting and innovative at first glance."

The video apparently is edited to make it slightly less awkward, as the original talk featured even more awful "OH MY GOD I FEEL SO BAD FOR THIS GUY" coursing through the audience.

It was put together by Improv Everywhere, a group whose name may be a bit of a misnomer as most of what they do is heavily scripted and a bit closer to sketch than improv. Persnicketiness aside, they're continually a delight; here are a few more of their surprising bits that fall somewhere between flashmobs and "Saturday Night Live."

At a previous conference, they created a real life musical:

Mr. Eugene Cordero also appeared as a pro wrestler interrupting an actual wedding for a previous Improv Everywhere bit:

And in a mission you may have heard about on NPR's "This American Life," they set out to give a band their best gig ever:

You can check out more of Improv Everywhere's "missions" here.