Comedian Sean O’Connor has been thoroughly warned.

"I love Adam [Newman] and I would never heckle him in Athens because he told me he would kill me if I did," O’Connor says.

Newman left Athens more than two years ago to pursue stand-up comedy in New York City, mostly on a whim. “And now I’m famous and just make videos all day long,” he says, referring to his job as production coordinator and regularly appearing actor on CollegeHumor.com.

And O’Connor, who moved to Brooklyn for similar reasons (“[New Jersey] was like, ‘We’ve given you all of the genius grants’”) has a history of ruining jokes.

At the New Orleans Comedy Arts Festival in April, an impromptu open mic marked the inception of O’Connor’s tradition of playing That Guy. “[Newman] started doing ‘A’ stuff, like his best material at an open mic," O’Connor says. “So I started heckling him.” O’Connor’s special brand of heckling often involves yelling out punch lines, the quickest and surest way to derail any comedian’s rhythm.

“Sean drinks and likes to be the center of attention. It’s fine, we all love Sean, and we know he needs the attention, and he’s an asshole,” Newman jokes.

Newman is also known in Athens for his role as one-third of tongue-in-cheek metal group Coulier, which collectively played a number of conceptual jokes of its own. Examined retrospectively, Newman’s foray into a comedy career easily adds up - consider a Coulier CD release show headlined not by Coulier, but by a Coulier cover band, or the band’s final show where nine bass players took the place of its two guitars. Or, just consider a band named after Dave Coulier.

Newman, O’Connor and a handful of Newman’s favorite New York comedians will hit Flicker Theatre for a New York Comedy Takeover Weekend, featuring an early and late show on both Aug. 29 and Aug. 30. Its proportions are less epic than other Newman-masterminded events, instead taking a shape that suits an audience’s natural attention span, he says.

One of the main reasons Newman left for New York was to take advantage of the tough, perpetually new audiences that he says just can’t exist in a small college town. But in returning to play for Athens, Newman anticipates presenting the city that has no consistent scene of its own (a few notable exceptions aside) with “not only comedians that I think are funny, but comedians that are really establishing themselves as good New York comedians,” he says. Further, about half of the lineup has called Athens home.

Andrew Wright is another one of the comedians who spent some time in the Classic City. Originally from Marietta, Wright attended the University of Georgia between 1998 and 2002, and shortly thereafter, headed north. “Basically I got my degree in fart jokes, packed up, moved to the big city and proceeded to tell fart jokes,” he says. Like Newman, Wright counts the visit to Georgia as more than just an opportunity to perform.

“I’m looking forward to coming down to Atlanta and hanging out with André 3000 and Jimmy Carter, like I do whenever I’m in town,” he says.

While Wright first claimed that his performance would include every extant brand of humor - “straight, gay and Paula Poundstone” - he remembered later that his repertoire consists strictly in bulldog jokes. “I do about 20 minutes on what’s the difference between French bulldogs and English bulldogs. American bulldogs are pretty weird,” he says.

Wright’s comedic stylings aside, like any artist asked to label himself and his work, Newman has trouble categorizing himself. Still, within the vague confines of “alternative comedy,” he says that that general species of live comedy allows for variety in form and media, with room for digression often and easily from traditional one-two set-ups and punch lines.

As such, attendees can expect a performance by effeminate death metal duo Über Lüber (Newman and roommate Trevor Williams, another University graduate) and video clips of the comedians’ various television appearances. For Newman and O’Connor, this means "The Tyra Banks Show," with their live commentary.

While Newman and company do tend toward New York City’s smaller venues and bars in lieu of the brick-wall backdrops of comedy clubs, it doesn’t necessarily mean any strict philosophy or code of ethics is at work behind it.

“A lot of people cross over,” Newman says of those comedians who successfully venture back and forth between scenes.

“Really, all of us, I think, would like to do well in both the clubs and the alternative places,” Newman says about his fellow touring comedians. “I think the ultimate goal for any of us is to get in front of any audience and make them laugh.”

And if O’Connor does decide to heckle Newman after all - death threats be damned - it’s a safe bet that Newman will be a step closer to realizing his goal anyway.

Valentina Tapia

WHO: Adam Newman, Sean O’Connor, Andrew Wright, Mark Normand, Conner Taylor, Trevor Williams
WHERE: Flicker Theatre
WHEN: Friday, August 29 & Saturday, August 30
HOW MUCH: $7