Every New Year's Day millions of people vow to improve their lives by making New Year's resolutions. Unfortunately, in most cases, all those good intentions turn into just nagging memories within a couple weeks. But this year Angelenos are being offered a funnier way to deal with their problems and shortcomings -- standup comedy.


Judy Carter's Comedy Workshops, the premiere training ground for up-and-coming standup comedians in Los Angeles, is opening its doors to the public on January 13th for a free comedy class at the Hollywood Improv, from 3-5PM.


Carter, author of The Comedy Bible, is celebrating the 20th anniversary of her workshops. She's excited to see what new material this year's holidays have spawned.


"At our free workshop we encourage students to embrace their defects and to turn their expanding waistlines into punch lines."


Sukey Smith, a Santa Monica comic agrees. "I made a New Year's Resolution to lose weight. But instead I took the Workshop. Now when people ask me if I sit around and eat bons-bons all day I say, 'Yes, you can't just plump up like this without any effort.'"


Dennis Laganiere, an IT Manager from Valencia who also took Carter's Workshop knows all too well the dangers of actually sticking with a New Year's resolution.


"I've lost 40 lbs. this year and lost my standup act!" Laganiere said. "I used to tell a joke about how the doctor asked me, 'Does your asthma get worse when you exercise?' I said 'I have no idea.' Now that I'm thin, self-deprecating fat guy jokes don't work anymore.


"Let's face it; a healthy diet is a diet of laughs." Carter says. "Because George Burns and Bob Hope lived to be 100 years old and Dr. Atkins is dead."