Quick, look outside!
Notice anything different out there on this gloomy-ass Monday (besides, you know, it being about 58 degrees with heavy rain all around Boston even though it’s late July and we should all be outside in tank tops drinking smoothies and laughing about patios and corgis)?
The keen-eyed may have noticed that today, according to the City of Boston, is Judd Apatow Day — celebrating the producer/writer/director/actor/comedian’s two appearances tonight at The Wilbur in Boston. The late show (tickets are still available) will raise money for The Shout Syndicate’s Greater Boston After School Arts Fund.
“Judd Apatow is one of the greatest comedy minds of our time,” reads Mayor Martin J. Walsh’s proclamation, which you can read in full below. “As a writer, director, producer, and comedian, Judd Apatow has taken bold creative risks and experienced extraordinary artistic and commercial success. In a genre replete with stories of boyish wish fulfillment, Judd’s characters face consequences — age, death responsibility.”
Walsh’s proclamation cites Apatow’s biggest successes, including films like Knocked Up and Bridesmaids, as well as TV shows Girls and Freaks & Geeks. It actually even calls Freaks & Geeks “perhaps the greatest television show in history.”
Walsh also praises Apatow as one of the first contributors to The Shout Syndicate’s Greater Boston After School Arts Fund, who supports nonprofit organizations helping after-school programming for teens in the Boston area. Apatow discussed his charity work in a recent interview with Vanyaland.
“One of the ways I’ve approached doing stand-up this time around, I’ve tried to do as many shows as I can as benefits,” he tells us. “So we reached out to some people in Boston to get a feel for what they thought was a good charity, and it got to where a lot was pointing to this After School Arts Fund, which I feel is very important. It’s an area that loses its funding very quickly, and it changes kids’ lives, so I’m really happy we can do this late show to support them!”
Featured Judd Apatow photo via the Comedy Cellar.