LA, Ep. 33

October 1, 2014 — On a literary night for the ages that brought autumn to new writerly and comedic heights, Literary Death Match returned to Largo at the Coronet for a Screenwriters-Reading-Prose edition of LDM that saw Carol Leifer narrowly outduel Liz Meriwether in a calamitous Literary Charades finale that won Leifer the LDM LA, Ep. 33 crown. 

But before the finale was even a thought, the scintillating night began as Round 1 began with Carol Leifer (comedian, four-time Emmy nominee — Seinfeld, Modern Family, SNL — and best-selling author of How to Succeed in Business Without Really Crying) who read a brilliant excerpt about remembrances of her father on his birthday (with gems like Poppa Liefer telling her things like "You've seen one [penis], you've seen 'em all." Next up was Graham Moore, screenwriter of The Imitation Game & New York Times Best Selling author of The Sherlockian. Moore fired back with a perfectly-penned excerpt from his upcoming which featured a graphic description of a man being electrocuted high above the street, with graphic illustrations of the man's flesh falling off the electrical wires to the earth below. 

The mic was then passed to the trio of all-star judges: Jonathan Ames, creator of HBO's Bored to Death and author of Wake Up, Sir!; Kathyrn Hahn, actress from Afternoon Delight, Parks & Rec, The Secret Life of Walter Mitty; and Chris O'Dowd, actor from Bridesmaids, Girls, IT Crowd and author of the forthcoming Moone Boy: The Blunder Years. The judges then offered up heaps of praise for both authors with O'Dowd responding to Leifer's reading by saying he missed connecting with his father, though he wasn't dead. And in response to Moore, Ames talked about how fascinating elecricity is. "I don't really know how anything works," Ames said. "Looking at those lights, how the hell are they shining?" "You're a sick fucker," Hahn started, before praising his prose's effect on the audience. "I was thinking about the poignancy of the electricity that you just created in this room." Then, after a deliberating huddle, the trio made the night's first impossible decision, declaring Leifer the night's first finalist. 

Then came Round 2, led off by Liz Meriwether (playwright, screenwriter and creator/showrunner of New Girl on Fox), who reeled off a fantastically raucous piece she'd written before Obama won the presidency that keyed on bedding candidates for the presidency. Hillary Clinton was first "because women's issues are so important." And lines like "Little Mike Huckabee sat on a tuffet. He was dry but I wasn't," and Obama's asking about "the audacity of putting all my fingers in your butt." Then it was time for the endlessly talented Megan Amram, writer for Parks & Recreation, comedic Twitter genius, who read from her all-new book Science...for Her! — a short piece called "America: A Review," hilariously framing US history as a TV show. Amram reminded us that "'America' was originally a spinoff of the long-running 'England'" and that "Most of the stories had already been done on 'The Simpsons' and then summed up the series' format as "combining all the loose plot points of a 'Tyler Perry' sitcom with all the fun of being white."

Again the judges were in the spotlight, with O'Dowd admitting "I would watch Hillary (Clinton) have sex. I'd watch anyone have sex," before admitting he "still doesn't know where women pee from." O'Dowd also observed: "(George W.) Bush is the perfect 'Fonz." But every time he hits the juke boxe: Hurricane Katrina." Ames confessed he thought President Obama would have a "long, thin cock" based on his experience shaking the POTUS' "skinny, bony" hand. With another impossible decision before them, after a huddle the trio declared it would be Meriwether that would advance to the finals. 

Then up stepped LDM creator Adrian Todd Zuniga, who announced the night's finale: Literary Charades. With a trio of actors on the stage, Zuniga delivered titles of famous books adapted into TV shows or film that the actors had to play out while Leifer and Meriwether guessed the titles. After Leifer rocketed to a commancing 6-0 lead, it was Meriwether who snared a four-point counterpunch. With everything to play for it was Leifer who shouted out Silence of the Lambs first, winning her the Literary Death Match LA, Ep. 33 crown and literary immortality to go with it. 

Follow us on Twitter: @litdeathmatch