69, Get It?
March 21, 2008 · Print This Article
Why is it when over the hill rockers pack their fat asses into spandex and play 30 year old songs people file into arenas and hold up lighters, but when a has been comic attempts the same feat everyone avoids eye contact? Brian tries to explain this phenomenon and gets a great audio aide by a melon smashing baffoon.
Other topics include being too smart (or condescending) for the room, finding the perfect mix of nerves, are comedy teams still relevant, Texas tries it’s hand at the festival circuit and whipping your audience into shape. Why you want beef and broccoli now?
Email: brianmcomedy@gmail.com and give us a call on 206-203-4692
please excuse this very long answer to the question asked in this week’s show. i’m off the road for a week and if i don’t spend all day in my office on BTB, i’d have to “spend time with my family like a regular person” and, you know, that’s an unthinkable thing.
anyway, here’s my theory why old comics have trouble staying funny:
as any working comic can tell you, the most important part of a show is convincing the audience that you’re funny. the audience has not come to see _you_, they’ve come to see the show; they have no idea who _you_ are. thus, when you get on the stage, you have to work very hard in the first few minutes to convince the audience that their $20 cover and two over-priced drinks were worth it.
this forces you to write and re-write and re-re-write until your act is “bullet-proof.”
once the audience is convinced you’re funny, you can relax a little bit and open the show up. silences aren’t deadly anymore because the audience figures you know what you’re doing. jokes that would have gotten light responses earlier in the show get bigger responses late in the show because now a “funny guy” is telling them.
(this is something i’ve noticed when doing colleges. a lot of times, i’ll do an hour and fifteen minutes or longer. the first fifty minutes of my act is straight written comedy. if it all goes well, by the time i make it to that point, the audience is pretty much convinced i’m a funny guy. when i tell stories or take questions after that fifty minute mark, i get huge responses on jokes and improvs that i know for a fact are “soft” pieces. i know this because i’ve been emboldened by some of the responses to the stories and have tried to move them up in the act as part of the regular, written bits. the laughs are significantly weaker the further i move those stories up in the act.)
now, some comics get a following. in the case of famous comics, the following can be huge. these comics are no longer anonymous hopefuls, but stars who are performing for theaters full of people who _came to see that comic specifically_.
the initial phase of the comedy show, the “i need to prove i’m funny” part, is now not necessary. that was taken care of by earlier performances. these comics are, from the start of the show, in the “he’s funny, so he must know what he’s doing” phase. soft stories, self-serving jokes, punchline-free premises are all going to get responses they would _never_ get at a regular show because the psychology of the audience is already shifted in favor of the performer.
because a comic only has the laughter of the audience to gauge whether or not something is funny, they _don’t know their new jokes are soft_. how could they? they just got an applause break — it _has_ to be funny if it just got an applause break, right? RIGHT?
thus, when you see a guy ten years past their first HBO special, you usually see a weaker comic. this isn’t because the guy forgot how to be funny, it’s because the audiences the guy has been performing for hasn’t pushed him to hone his act like the ones he performed for before he got famous did.
(note: it is possible to combat this phenomenon by refusing to test new material out in front of “your” crowd. specifically, i’m thinking of Chris Rock, who prepares for each new HBO special by going into the trenches of NYC at random times and testing out each new piece in front of audiences that didn’t pay to see him. of course they know who he is and give him the credit he deserves, but the psychology isn’t shifted the same way it is when they’re a fan who has paid $50 to see him at a theater. i think this is why Rock, who is now working on his _fourth_ HBO special, has maintained an edge that a lot of other comics have not.
most comics won’t take the time to go to NYC and do $25 spots. why? because they’re $25 spots, that’s why. if you can headline a theater for $10,000 or more, why the hell wouldn’t you take the money? it takes the discipline to turn down a money grab to _really_ craft a new hour of material. very few of us have the discipline — i mean, seriously, ask yourself what _you_ would do.
incidentally, i think this is why Dane Cook has taken so much heat for his latter work being so much softer than his earlier stuff. much as i dislike Dane’s cooler-than-thou personality, i don’t blame him for producing weaker material. he’s getting between $100K and $250K to do a college now. when he walks out there, he gets a standing O. when he tells a semi-funny joke, he gets a standing O. when he says “goodnight” he gets a standing O. how could he possibly know what’s funny and what isn’t when he’s getting a standing O for everything he does?
we unknown comics have an advantage when it comes to knowing when something isn’t funny: the audience doesn’t laugh.)
one more thing i forgot to mention: the same success that gives you audiences willing to pay theater prices to see you also takes you out of the clubs and thus the pulse of what’s happening in the world of stand-up.
dennis miller’s most recent HBO special had a cialis joke in it (See Alice, get it!?) this isn’t just hack, this is _super-hack_. there are approximately nine thousand bullshit road headliners doing See Alice jokes and 4 hour erection jokes. how could Miller, who was the antithesis of hack when he hit the scene in the 80s, be doing a joke that wouldn’t be out of place at the worst Tribble-run one-nighter? easy, he hasn’t been in a comedy club in 20 years.
here’s what i mean: there isn’t a single comedian who hasn’t seen one of those erection commercial jokes and haven’t thought of a writing a joke about it. they’re just too ridiculous not to mock. a regular working comedian, however, has been doing clubs three times a week and knows that there are nine million other comics doing the same jokes. or, if they don’t realize that, they belong to a community of comics that will say, “hey, what the fuck are you doing? a See Alice joke, are you kidding me?”
dennis miller, though, doesn’t know what’s out there. how could he? when he does stand-up it’s before an adoring crowd of 4000 people at a theater. he doesn’t go to clubs or hang out with working comics. thus, a See Alice joke.
i guess what i’m saying, if you add up the 1500 words of these two posts is this: go watch Rocky III again. when it gets to the point where Apollo tells Rocky that he’s “lost the eye of the tiger” you’ll know exactly what i’m trying to say.
now, if you’ll excuse me, i need to go listen to my “survivor’s greatest hits” CD…
Fuck me Jay, I think you’re turning into that old dude on Kung Fu guiding us down the right path!
A quick thought on old comics losing it……do you not think often the BIG comics of yesteryear, most of those you mentioned Brian, had a ‘hook’. Something we talked about on BTB before.
Yes, this hook gets in the crowds and makes the millions but its going to get boring. The very definition of insantity is to keep repeating an action and expecting different results. Nope, you’re not going to get a better or even differnet comic by wearing that viking helmet and telling shitty scandiavian shictk for the rest of your career.
My 2 pennies!
Damn Jay, I got carpal tunnel just reading your posts. Of course you’re right. In fact, that’s one of the parts of Steve Martin’s biography that I really enjoyed. He hated that people would cheer before he even said anything. I respect a comic who realizes it and tries to rebel against it, because 9 out of 10 would do exactly what you described, put the blinders on and assume people are cheering because their material is on fire!
Good call on hooks Nick. I think that may be part of it. There is no doubt that many of the comics who have reached the rock star level of success had a hook. That’s one of the dangers of hooks. They get you noticed (hey, it’s the git-r-done guy!) but when the tide turns that’s what they’re going to use to hate and mock you.
Jay,
That’s an excellent post on joke placement and where to put a joke in your act to get the most laughs. In fact, it fits in perfectly with many of the humor theories in the research field. Recipients of humor do indeed come into an act with the attitude that “I don’t know this person, so he has to prove to me he’s funny.” If the person makes them laugh up front, then they are more receptive to laughing at jokes later on that might not be as funny had they been told earlier in the act, simply because they have been conditioned to laugh at what you say. It’s why so many old comedians still sell out theaters even though their acts are more hack than humor — we have been conditioned to laugh at them, because it’s what we’ve always done. It’s a major component of Freud’s Psychoanalytical theory, which holds that we laugh at what we are conditioned to laugh at. It’s why we always laugh at someone who walks into a wall or telephone poll, or falls down, even though we’ve seen that physical humor a thousand times before.
Coming from purely the fan side, I think old music acts get big press for their reunion tours over old comics just because of the nature of the art forms. Music is easy to enjoy over and over, whereas comedy tends to get less funny every time you hear a bit repeated. It’s not like the Stones are out there doing a bunch of relevent new songs at age 70, they’re still singing the same stuff they wrote in their 20’s. It just wouldn’t be as cool to see Eddie Murphy in his 50’s come out and do his act from Raw again.
There is a segment of comics that “get one for free”. By that I mean that audiences are drown to them as soon as they hit the stage. An example is Josh Blue. He’s the kind of guy that audiences want to love right away and tends to get more leniency. (Of course this only lasts a short while, after that you have to earn it which Josh definitely does). When I first started and looked like a kid I used to get one for free, but now that I’ve turned into just another middle aged white guy, it’s back to trying to write funny material.
“now, if you’ll excuse me, i need to go listen to my “survivor’s greatest hits” CD…”
That shouldn’t take long to listen to , Jay!
You make some spot-on points about Dennis Miller. I began listening to his early stuff about 5 years after seeing his name referenced in a Bill Hicks biography. He’d never appeared on UK TV before, but he seemed in the Hicks camp of smart comedy, so I bought the Off-White Album and thought it one of the best comedy albums I’d ever heard. I got hooked on Miller and began buying as much of his stuff as possible - even his books of Rants. Unfortunately this was around the time he’d converted from being a liberal into a right wing cheerleader for Bush, and I believe his stand-up suffered accordingly. To be a satirical comedian but to refuse to make jokes about the President is just silly.
Miller now presents a conserative radio show, which I admit to listening to occasionally, just in the hope of hearing a glimpse of the funny Dennis of old. The sad thing is how much of his old material he recycles on the show for jibes against anyone he disagrees with, e.g. “Hilary Clinton is like the Black Knight in Monty Python’s Holy Grail - you can hack all her limbs off, but she still doen’t know she’s been beaten..”etc..
It’s so sad to listen to - like that boring Uncle who always repeats all the same old stories at every family gathering.
…just finished listening to the podcast. That clip of Gallagher - sweet baby Jesus! I was listening while lying on my bed, and after hearing that trainwreck of a clip, I had to pull the bedsheets out of my ass because my buttocks had clenched-up so tightly.
Gallagher must also be one of the few stand-ups who was the butt of a joke in other comic’s acts of the time. Both Bill Hicks and Dennis Miller have slagged the guy off in their set.
Music vs Comedy, from the music side.
First, it is true, being a musician it;s way easier.
Just like Tony suggested, musicians can come back whenever they want as long as they keep playing the songs that made them twenty years ago. Geez, even if half the band is gone.
I played with bands during high school and college, and here’s why it’s a much more cruel to be an artist in the comedy world.
On nerves: I side with Brian, that having nerves it’s a good thing, but when they are taking over it’s a different story. A comedian is still there alone with the mic, a musician has it’s instrument and somehow that’s your wall, and if you are really nervous we start counting the rhythm, and that’s it.
On having a bad night: Nothing is as sad as a comedian having a rough night (see gallagher example). meanwhile if you are a big musician (like gallegher but Ian) you can be completely drunk, and miss the rhythm, forget bridges, or even play out of tune, and the crowd will still cheer.
On making material: WAY easier to come up with rhythms and melodies that punchlines.
On learning the art: You know how to count, you can be a musician. Yea, you have to practice a lot, but that’s just repetitions that can be done while watching tv (unless you’re a drummer, then everyone will hate your “practice years”)
I’m a big fan of both comedy and music, and I only see 2 real advantage of being a comedian over a musician, and that is that you don’t have to carry tons of equipment to each gig, and I assume is not difficult to find a room to practice.
You guys definitely have to work harder, and hats off for that.
On a different note: I notice in my last comments a bunch of mistakes, so take it easy “grammar nazi”, I know I’m bad, to my defense I learned english with standup as a second language, so blame Bill Hicks.
This may have been discussed on a previous show, but here’s a question: is there a difference between “racist” and “racial” humor? I think there is, but I’m sure opinions vary.
Personally, I think most “white people/black people” jokes are hack regardless of which category the comic thinks the bit falls into. But what about this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iwkCztQhPvY
?
I don’t think white people/black people jokes are hacky, but I do think the delivery of “white people are different than black people because white people do this, and black people do that.”
Other things that can fit that category are
“New York is different from LA”
“Cats are different than dogs”
“Men are different than women”
Racial humor and racism are two completely different things. Racism, and being racist, means hating someone because of the color of their skin. Racial humor means making fun of the different qualities of each race, and how each race interacts with members of a different race. It sucks that the two get mixed.
Jay can speak a little more about this. After all, he’s our resident White Boy in da Hood.
funny you should mention “white boyz in da hood” — i _just_ got around to digitizing the video and putting it up on my website.
if any of y’all want to see me performing stand-up on showtime, check out the media section of my website:
http://www.jayblackcomedy.com/media.html
(the concept of this show was getting white guys to perform in front of an all-black audience. the funny thing is that the producers kept asking me if i thought there was a difference between performing in front of white people versus black people. i kept saying “no”, much to their disappointment. i guess that undercut the idea of the show :))
Jay, great job on WBITH. I went to youtube and watched other clips because I had never even heard of this show, and the rest of the line-up annoyed the shit out of me, especially the guy who did the “driving while high is safe because you’re going 6 miles an hour” bit, a la Bill Hicks.
Has anyone written an original pot-joke in the last 20 years? If so, someone please point me to a clip. I’m not anti-pot, but whenever I hear a comic say, “Where are my pot smokers at?” I cringe.
Best pot humor I’ve heard is Dave Attel and Arj Barker with Ron Shock getting an honorable mention for his sermon on legalization. Other than that, you’re right on Dan. Munchies, laziness, etc. I get it. I’ve seen Cheech & Chong too.
I agree, Dan. The rest of the comedians sucked. Hell, Vos didn’t even do that well.
The worst part of White Boys in the Hood for me–sorry, Black–was the special highlights section.
What they did here, was the MC went around the streets saying things like “To be a comedian, ya gotta have a dick joke. Every act has to have a dick joke–here are some dick jokes we heard on our stage.” Then every comedian who did a hacky dick joke would be clipped in.
So, my question is: How many prospective open micers saw that highlight video and now think, to be a comedian, you need to have a dick joke, pot joke, race joke, etc? Or am I overreacting?
hey everybody, havent posted in awhile and i probably wont get to again at least fo a week or so. However I found something interesting the other day. apparantly the book Comedy at the edge is being turned into a documentary, this is exciting becuase there are only a few really good Stand up documentarys, and from what i heard its going to be pretty good. so keeps your ears open for a release date if i dont find it first. Happy easter.
Music is about familiarity. There’s a hook, and it’s repeated several times during the song.
Comedy is about surprise. There’s a build up of tension, and a release. If you know how the release is going to happen, you’re less likely to have as strong a reaction.
Luckily the older comedians that I’ve seen live, Carlin, Cosby and Robert Klein, have all been awesome, because they always had new material.
So rather than aging rockers playing the same crap, they were like Jazz musicians riffing in the same style but with completely different melodies.
Hey Everyone,
I had a dilemma last week that was kind of talked about in the message board. I had a joke that I did at the end of my set that went really well. I thought of an idea for a callback using that joke and decided to try it at the beginning and it ended up dying.
Is there a certain type of opener joke that works best for you guys? How often do you move a joke around to be able to find where it fits in your set? I’m always moving it around and I find it hard to keep it consistent.
Hey Ryan. Would it be rude or nosey to ask to hear the opening joke and the callback you did? I’m sure everyone here would offer nothing but constructive criticism in why the gag died.
Great show there B,
Just wanted to throw in my story about how Galleger (probably misspelled but fuck that asshole) is a dick.
So he wsa booked to play this smaller venue in Houston and a buddy of mine had the fortune of booking his openner and middle. So of course he threw it to me and another good friend of mine, Sam Demaris.
You’ve heard my material and let me assure you Sam isnt any cleaner but we had more or less planned on going up and completely destroying in front of him. Fun stuff.
This ass makes the venue, an old but landmark kinda place, compeletly rebuild their stage. I think it cost them a few grand at least. Just for him. Then, after presales went up and were hyped for MONTHS, only sells 14 tickets. Granted me and sam probably had another 50 people coming just to see us open for him, but still. He up and cancels the show! I mean thats a special kind of fuck you to a venue. Cost them a few grand and then bail sans show?
Anyway, thats my Galleger story.
I don’t think you can rely on a strict rule on how to choose an opener, but a lot of comics will be happy to give you theirs. Among the several I’ve heard:
-use on of your shortest jokes
-use your most self-deprecating joke
-close with your best joke, open with your second best, etc.
That last one I’ve always found odd because, while you may have jokes that tend to do better than others, your two best jokes are always the ones that THAT audience laughs hardest at - you can’t be confident they’ll work the same way every time.
It also depends on your act. Sticking with the above “rule” for example, what if your second best joke is also your raunchiest pedophilia joke? That may not work. Then again, if you’re in front of a young audience there to see an RRR-rated show, it could be the best opener ever.
Jim Norton does a lot of raunchy sexual material, and his fans look forward to that, but even he opens with something neutral everyone can get on board with, like wishing death upon the entire country of France via heat-wave. Once the audience is hooked, he can segue more easily into being raped by his uncle.
Hi guys. I don’t contribute much to BTB but I do enjoy the show a lot and listen every week though I am a much more frequent contributor to TAI. I just wanted to chime in on the Gallagher clip. That is fucking ridiculous. I hate the whole little line about how he does this all over the country and how he’ll be brave by ’standing his ground’ since they ‘all came to see him’. I hate when any performer of any sort acts like the public is blessed to see him when the only reason he showed up at that place to begin with is to get paid. Any time that happens, the crowd does own you. It is your responsibility to make sure they get what they paid for . Ok, done ranting. Keep up the good work BMo and everyone that contributes to BTB!
I voted for “Steven Wright - I Still Have A Pony” even though I haven’t heard it yet. I’m just hoping it’s better than the others listed. I’ll get it from Brian if (and when) I win the Joke of the Week contest.
Regards
P.S. - You don’t have to worry about shipping charges to Japan, Brian. I’ll be happy to accept my winnings via download from Amazon.com
Music vs. Comedy — When you go see a band play, you “hope they play that song you like.” You would never go see a comedian and hope he does that joke you love. You already know the joke.
So, old-timer musicians have their catalogue to draw on, but no one is in Carlin’s audience hoping he does his old “smaller piles of stuff” routine.
This is a double edged sword for music comedians like Stephen Lynch; his shows are essentially standup material in song form, but his audiences know the songs (and therefore, the jokes). I have seen his audience scream for a song, but then it doesn’t get the big laugh or reaction it should, because there was no surprise.
Lynch does songs; which is different than Demetri Martin or Zach Galafinaklhemeir-Schmidtt, who merely use music to underscore their standup –which let’s them completely (and somewhat artificially) control their timing… it’s genius, kinda.
*So, what are Brian’s thoughts on musical-comedians?
I have a hack-y material story to share. I merely dabble in standup, a few open mics here and there; but I work full time as a comedic actor at some of the tourist traps of Orlando, FL. One of the shows I do, I act as the MC/ Host for the evening, and therein I have a “this is Florida, so we have to count things twice” joke. It always gets a big laugh. Depending on the crowd, and how chummy I think I can be with them, I will sometimes chide them for laughing at a joke 8 years old. A few weeks ago, a guy yelled back, “but its funny!” So there, sometimes hack is funny. I think it just feels too easy for us.
Thanks for the great podcast!
Hey Ricardo,
Basically I did this joke at the end of a set. The premise is that I read this article that said in 1994 the US military investigated building a “Gay Bomb” that when detonated made enemy soldiers “sexually irresistable to eachother.”
I then said that it was in fact a true story (it is!)and if they googled it they would see that it’s also a drink (its not!). It’s kind of like a Jager Bomb, except its Red Bull and Wine.
I then did a joke later in the set about me in a bar and I mentioned that I talking to this girl, sucking back on a couple Gay Bombs and got no reaction. I thought it was a good call back.
This joke (without the callback part) did really well at the end of my set and didn’t do well at the beginning and I couldn’t figure it out because it’s the same joke. I have more punchlines for the joke but they’re not that relevant to the problem. Do I need more lead-in time before I talk about a Gay Bomb, is it not a good starter joke? The problem is that most sets I do, I only get 5 minutes so it’s not that easy to have time to do a callback.
Any advice or criticism would be great! Brian, I’d like to hear your thoughts too!
Ryan
Thanks Ryan H. Although I wouldn’t be too sure that people never hope to see their favorite joke from a comic. I’ve seen Chris Rock live twice and both times there was a drunk dude screaming “Toss Salad Man! Do Toss Salad Man!” God I hate everyone.
Good points, Ryan H., about the tough spot musical comics may find themselves in. I had never considered that (probably because, with the exception of FOtC and Henry Philips, I don’t much like musical acts and don’t give a rat’s ass about their problems).
But I agree with Brian that there are plenty of folks more than happy to hear their favorite jokes over and over. A comic will immediately head to the bar the second his best friend takes the stage, but real human beings are different. They have this uncanny ability to watch comics without any of the following:
envy
disinterest
jealousy
contempt
vitriol
smugness
disgust
detachment
condescension
hatred
technical analysis
bile
Even my far-from-famous, not-even-full-time, day-job-having, begging-for-feature-work ass has, on one or two occasions, heard the question, “Dude, why didn’t you do that one joke?” If George Carlin announced that he was going on tour to do all his greatest hits from “Hippy Dippy Weatherman” to “Stuff,” I’m willing to bet the entire tour would sell out in a day.
I bought the latest Brian Regan DVD and in the Bonus features they show him coming out after the set to thank the audience and, kinda like a musician coming out for an encore, the audience starting shouting out bits they wanted him to perform, “Take Luck!” and the like. I thought it was kinda obnoxious but he obliged.
And last time I saw Cosby, he closed the show by doing the Dentist bit from “Himself” at about double the speed he did it in the TV special. It had the entire place rolling on the floor, even though we’d all seen it at least a dozen times.