Comedy Central opened its stand-up comedy school today. Classes are free and it's all online. Which makes it exactly like those online traffic school courses without the driving parts.

Crash Course in Comedy, which you can find here, features ten video classes led by Ted Alexandro, a comedian who's had a couple of specials on the network and looks just like that guy in the picture on the left and on the site.

Ted gives tips on stage presence, joke development and writing, and illustrates it all with clips of stand-up comedians like Lewis Black and Dave Attell from the Comedy Central archives. One cool part is a section that allows you where you can build your own comedian avatar, customize the clothes, accessories (thankfully, potential "props" are limited to a guitar or water bottle--sorry Carrot)-- sort of like that Tyra Banks site without the bulimia-- and backdrop-- with a record feature that lets you record the jokes in your own voice. There's a section that allows you to e-mail your stand-up set to pals-- and a gallery where you can post the set so people can rate it.

But the coolest part?