On Thursday, September 26th, the sixth annual Eugene Mirman Comedy Festival began with events at both at The Bell House & Union Hall in Brooklyn, NY. On Friday, September 27th, The Bell House hosted two events: StarTalk Live, a recording of a radio show hosted by astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson, and Invite Them Up, the defunct comedy show which took place at Rififi until 2008. StarTalk Live! featured Neil deGrasse Tyson and Stephen Gorevan of Honeybee Robotics, plus comedians W. Kamau Bell, (FXX's Totally Biased with W. Kamau Bell), Jason Sudeikis (Saturday Night Live) and Eugene Mirman. The panel discussed robots (specifically Voyager and Curiosity but Roombas were briefly discussed) for this episode. Invite Them Up! featured stand up sets by Mehran Khaghani (who went to high school with Mirman), Todd Barry (who spent his allotted time doing crowd work), Michael Che, Kurt Braunohler (who did 30 seconds of standup), Eugene Mirman (who read a letter in response to a ticket he received on vacation for parking the wrong way) and Michael Ian Black (who spent his allotted time complaining about the bio that Eugene wrote for him in the program). After Black's set, Tisdale and Mirman introduced the show's suprise musical guest, Neko Case, who performed three songs backed by Eric Bachmann (of Archers of Loaf and Crooked Fingers) and Kelly Hogan.
