Comedy Central's Comedy Awards hit stage Saturday

Comedy Central's second-annual Comedy Awards will hit the Hammerstein Ballroom in New York on Sautrday, when they will be taped for air on the cabler May 6. At Variety, we have a preview of the event, led by Christy Grosz's feature on the one awards ceremony that seems guaranteed to be as funny as every other kudofest wants to be.

Gathering a group of the funniest comics in the business is a great first step in crafting any awards show, but Comedy Central's Comedy Awards isn't just another self-congratulatory evening. It's the rare awards show that is by and for comedians, the whole anti-establishment lot of them.

"In fact, the humor that other film, TV and theater trophy shows strive to inject into otherwise stoic affairs just comes naturally for the Comedy Awards," says Casey Patterson, exec veep of event production at Viacom Entertainment Group.

"Everybody who appears on the stage is a performer-writer. Everybody's writing their own stuff. There's no bad, forced, awkward awards-show patter."

In addition to big names like Tina Fey, Louis C.K. and Jon Stewart writing their own material for the telecast, Patterson says there are usually a few brainstorming sessions about the show with top writers from latenight and primetime.

"It ends up being a much more collaborative back and forth," Patterson says, pointing to scribes from Funny or Die and "Tosh.0" as well as "Conan" making up the staff of eight full-timers. "The staff represents all the different voices in comedy." ...

Click here to read the rest. In addition, we have stories on what a Comedy Awards nomination means for an up-and-coming honoree, as well as a sampling of the kind of jokes that helped lift 10 comedians to their nominations in the club comics category.