Dead funny: US museum to resurrect standups with holograms

http://www.theguardian.com/stage/2015/may/07/national-comedy-center-standup-comedians-holograms

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“World’s Last Bob Hope Fan Dies of Old Age” ran one slightly cruel headline in satirical newspaper the Onion – but now the comedian could potentially access a new, living fanbase as a hologram.

The National Comedy Center in Jamestown, upstate New York, is planning a club where lifesize holograms of deceased US comedians perform their past routines, including Hope alongside the likes of George Carlin, Rodney Dangerfield and Milton Berle.

Tom Benson, the chairman of the Center, told the Wall Street Journal it would be “a comedy club where folks can go back in time and witness a classic routine in a setting – God knows where it might have been – and experience that as if they were really there.”

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The plan is for 10 to 12 routines of four or five minutes each, though agreements haven’t yet been made with the estates of the proposed comedians. The Center is set to open in 2016, with a ground-breaking ceremony planned for 1 August this year.

Holographic performances of dead stars have become popular in the music world, in the wake of the rapper 2Pac appearing from beyond the grave at the Coachella festival in 2012, performing alongside Eminem, Dr Dre and Snoop Dogg. A moonwalking Michael Jackson appeared at the Billboard awards last year, while dead Wu-Tang Clan member Ol’ Dirty Bastard appeared with the group in 2013. Janelle Monae and M.I.A meanwhile used the technology to appear on stage together despite being in locations miles apart.

Holograms USA, the company making the Comedy Center’s likenesses, is also working on versions of Buddy Holly and Liberace, and helped Julian Assange to make an “in-person” appearance in the US last year.