‘Too Many Stars’ has plenty of laughs

October 20, 2010 at 12:00a.m.

Associated Press

NEW YORK

When is too much just the right amount?

Comedy Central hopes it’s got the winning number for “Night of Too Many Stars: An Overbooked Concert for Autism Education.”

The network’s third such biennial benefit, this too-fer is also a two-fer, originating from two coasts, and prerecorded as well as live.

Airing Thursday at 9 p.m., the broadcast will consist of a gala concert taped earlier this month at New York’s Beacon Theatre, along with live cut-ins from Los Angeles, where a star-studded phone bank will receive viewers’ contributions during the show.

Rob Corddry, Bryan Cranston, Jimmy Kimmel, Jim Parsons, Sofia Vergara and Rainn Wilson are among the celebrities booked to take calls in Los Angeles from donors.

Jon Stewart will be hosting.

Meanwhile, the New York shindig will boast names such as Steve Carell, Stephen Colbert, Tina Fey, Sarah Silverman, Jimmy Fallon, Tracy Morgan, Joel McHale, Jim Gaffigan, John Oliver, Ricky Gervais, Lewis Black, Chris Rock and Triumph the Insult Comic Dog. Surely way too many!

Hosting this portion, too, of the overbooked affair: Who else but Jon Stewart?

“Night of Too Many Stars” comes packed with laughs, of course. But its underlying purpose is no joke, as Stewart wastes no time reminding everyone.

After greeting the audience with a bedbug joke, he turns serious, stating that one of every 110 kids is diagnosed as autistic.

“Tonight isn’t about curing autism or fighting it,” he says. “Tonight is about helping people that live with it now.”

And on with the show!

Among the night’s silliness:

Colbert and Carell headline a song-and-dance number that pays tribute to heroic U.S. Airways pilot “Sully” Sullenberger.

Morgan and Rock eviscerate the tender ballad “Scarborough Fair” until its writer, Paul Simon, arrives to straighten them out.

And Silverman, in her comic persona as the world’s most winsome narcissist, accepts the self-created Legends of Autism Award.