From Tuesday 8:30pm to Thursday 10:30pm, the Comic Strip Live set a new Guinness World Record for longest stand-up comedy show in history: 50 continuous hours featuring more than 80 comics performing no less than 20 minutes each for at least 10 audience members, with collected donations benefiting the Intrepid Fallen Heroes Fund.

Among the time-passage highlights (beware of salty language):

TUESDAY

7:30pm: A half-dozen bartenders, waitresses and managers mingle under the outside awning, several wearing the navy T-shirts commissioned for the event ("World Record Holder" on front; “Comic Strip Live’s Guinness World Records Longest Standup Comedy Show, 50 Continuous Hours" on back). The same slogan adorns a sign on the brick wall behind the stage inside, where sponsor Red Bull has provided a minifridge of free cans.

8:30pm: Club manager J.R. introduces host William Stephenson, who in turn welcomes the capacity crowd to "some shit that has never, ever happened before."

9:50pm: Chuck Nice: "Welcome to the comedy gang bang. Fifty hours; that’s a lotta meth. Fortunately I brought enough for the whole class.”

10:55pm: Before launching into a loose practice hour for his upcoming Borgata Casino taping, Jeff Ross compares the "World Record Holder" shirt he’s sporting to "something they’d wear at the Special Olympics." And later, "Did you know the war in Iraq costs us $12 billion a month? For that kind of money, we could have gotten better shirts."

WEDNESDAY

1:41am: Al Ducharme to dude kicking back in the front right corner: "Did you bring your own pillow? That’s awesome! How long are you going to stay?" Pillow Guy’s response of "The whole time!" earns him a round of wild applause.

2:30am: Stephenson’s got to be joking about hosting the entire event. Got to be. Then again, the dude is going on six hours, and he is swigging massive amounts of coffee in the control booth. Meanwhile, Jon Fisch admits, "I may have had too much Red Bull. My balls are sweating Red Bull!"

3:50am: Nick Swardson was skulking about in a blue bandana an hour and a half earlier, but he’s eventually split without making a surprise appearance. Luckily, nocturnal demigod Dave Attell makes his scheduled slot, riffing, "I’m so glad to be a part of this first night, before you guys begin to reek of baby wipes and Purel. And I’m not going to tip the hand, but if you stay to the end there’s going to be a total fuck-suck orgy.… I want it to go so long I go from straight to gay back to curious."

5:45am: It’s light outside. And Paul Mecurio is perplexed by a woman named Davita standing up in back: "Ma’am, are you comin’ or goin’?" "Mah aaaaass huhts!" The Emmy winner begins filming for his website, asking, "Does your ass still hurt? Bring it up! Show the junk in the trunk, bitch!"

6:25am: Muffins are served! And cinnamon rolls! Orange juice! A five-pound bag of organic baby carrots…?

8:45am: After a somewhat lackluster run of talent, Ted "I am an 8:30am comic!" Alexandro earns four applause breaks within ten minutes. A record in its own right?

8:55am: Jon Fisch: "This is my second set, motherfuckers! Whoo! Same dude, new hoodie! Slept in my Honda Accord!"

10:30am: Pete Dominick: "I’ve never done stand-up at 10am. I have no idea why you people are here, but I appreciate it. I appreciate it that you don’t have jobs.… Ted Alexandro was just here earlier? He rapes children! He rapes kids every Thursday morning at 8am and I know where!"

6:30pm: Stephenson, having taken two 20-minute naps on the air mattress in the basement, notes, “This is an experience I shan’t forget soon. I’m not even halfway through and I’ve already shit my pants. Twice.” J.R., meanwhile, has napped a total of 15 minutes. Publicist Ryan McCormick, not a wink.

9pm: Gary Gulman: "At the end of the set I’ll be setting another record for biggest beard of bees.… We’re setting the record for going the longest time without somebody making an Indian joke."

9:20pm: Marina Franklin takes the stage for a third time. A few tables ahead a guy confirms, "Hey, I saw her, like, 12 hours ago!" But whereas the earlier reaction was hit-and-miss, this time she absolutely decimates.

10:10pm: As Mike Birbiglia kills for 40 minutes, staffers in the main hallway crane their necks upwards at the TV set that never ends up showing the snippets Fox 5 taped earlier this afternoon.

10:50pm: Welcome to the Jeff Ross Run-Through Hour Redux. On Stephenson: "He’s been emceeing for about 27, 28 hours. But he smells like he’s been emceeing for 50 hours.… This is fun. We should all take our pants off. Would that be a little asterisk in the record? ‘Oh yeah, and they all had their pants off.’"

THURSDAY

Midnight: Chuck Nice: "What you mean, ‘Where’s my whiskey?’ You mean Scotch? Aw, you guys saw me last night? Aw fuck, now I’ve got to do new jokes. I was drunk last night; what do I talk about?… Now that I’m here, I’m gonna drink. Can I get a Scotch and a beer? There ain’t no reason to hide anything, you know?" Confirms an audience member with a good memory, "Oh, we know!"

12:20am: Ben "Cash Cab" Bailey: "Holy shit, 28 straight hours of stand-up comedy? I’m going to have a hard time doing 20 minutes."

4am: Swardson’s skulking about again. And again, he ends up leaving without performing.

5:30am: Brian McFadden: "This is like a Jerry Lewis telethon, only slightly funnier."

6:10am: Stephenson: "For those of you about to leave, you ain’t. Seriously. I’m going to tackle you."

6:55am: Moody McCarthy: "I don’t mean to be a downer to anybody, but I just went on the Internet, and Dane Cook did a 51-hour set.… If you want a copy of tonight’s show, there’s a 30-DVD boxed set."

7:45am: Egg and cheese sandwiches! Bagels! Danishes! Juice! Extremely limited crowd response!

9am: Pat Dixon: "It doesn’t feel like 9 in the morning, does it? It feels like some kind of interdimensional vortex or something. An alternate reality." From the audience: "Or Hell!"

9:15am: Lee Camp: "It’s like we’re in a nuclear bunker. And Armageddon is going on outside, and we’re like, ‘Fuck it, let’s do some comedy!’"

9:45am: Dan Ahdoot: "Where’s the Guinness guy? He’s peeing? Is the Guinness guy getting a hand job in the back? ‘Best World Record ever!’"

11:30am: Stephenson: “Somebody could show me the tape of this 50-hour performance, and I would not recognize one fucking minute.”

12:40pm: Dan Naturman: "I’m getting tired just from William. He’s contagious or something.… Is this going in the book or on the website? I like the guy with the long fingernails. That and the beard of bees."

4:45pm: While three-peater Bernadette Pauley notes of the breakfast danishes still languishing on the front table, "These have been here since the Paleolithic," it’s confirmed in the main hallway that the news report that was supposed to air at 10 last night in fact aired at 6pm.

5:40pm: Bill Santiago: "I’m setting my own personal record tonight. I’ve never worked this early in my life just for a T-shirt."

6:55pm: Cory Kahaney: "I’m not going to ask you to clap for William. He really only did this for the stage time."

7:30pm: Jim David to Pillow Guy: "Do you have a job?" "I took sick days!"

8:15pm: Eddie Brill: "Look at this shit! I would never put that in my body! Fuck Red Bull!"

9:05pm: Pillow Guy brushes his teeth at the back of the capacity-and-then-some crowd.

9:55pm: Rich Vos: “Let’s have a hand for all my opening acts, 50 hours of ‘em!”

10:30pm: Closer Judah Friedlander brings J.R., McCormick, a teary-eyed Stephenson and various other persons of importance on stage for the presentation of a framed certificate. Speechifies the Official Guinness Spokesdude: “On behalf of Guinness World Records and comedy fans everywhere, we’d like to present Comic Strip Live with this certificate stating that they have set the world record for the Longest…” before being drowned out by applause. Says Stephenson, “The reason we went for 50 hours is that we want to not only set the record, but we are going to keep it for the rest of time. Nowhere but New York City can you get this many comics together for one purpose, and we did it.”

10:35pm: Greg Giraldo kicks off a surprise encore performance: “William: two records in one night; that’s amazing. Longest comedy show and smallest cock.”

10:50pm: Stephenson: “That’ll conclude our program here at the World Famous Comic Strip Live.… There are 6 billion people on the planet so it can’t be about any one of us. So fuck you; here’s to all of us!”

**

Photos courtesy of Ryan McCormick