Author and podcaster Matt Callan steps Behind The Bricks today to discuss the fallout from Artie Lange’s appearance on Joe Buck Live. That self tanning mother fucker had it coming!
Topics on the day include shitty Father’s Day gifts, why awkward silences can be television gold, how important is an opening joke, and a blatant omission of 30 intelligent, well thought out opinions of David Letterman vs. Sarah Palin. How bad do you have to be to get banned from HBO?
Email: brianmcomedy@gmail.com and give us a call on 206-203-4692
Take a tailored form of the same clip from Joe Buck’s show, make it into dialog and put it into a screen play for HBO special. This scene is a bunch of soldiers sitting around playing grabass and busting balls while in the Middle East somewhere. Result:
1. Perfectly believable. 6 year Navy vet, I probably DID have this exact conversation without the personal references.
2. Nobody complains to anybody. Because we support the troops.
No, I’m not “coming around”. Just want to say, let’s be intellectually honest here.
What is more unfathomable than a guy collecting and watching old baseball game videos? It has to be Major League baseball trying to prevent a guy from collecting and watching old baseball game videos. Great show as usual.
I hadn’t seen/heard the Buck/Lange thing till this moment, but I found it pretty entertaining.
As for opening jokes – that’s a tough one to make rules for, but I hate the old “I know what you’re thinking, I look like X and Y had a crack baby.”
Picking on the scenery seems to work, unless every comic who’s ever been in the room has made the same joke.
Short and sweet is the common advice, but tell that to Ron Shock.
I agree with you Dan…still working on my opening jokes. Though I don’t think I look like x and Y had a baby… more like O and D had a baby.
Do you guys greet the crowd or just go on to fist joke?
When I still used to play a guitar in my act, my opener would be a take on the classic Which Celebrities Do I Resemble schtick a lot of comics use , but all set to music and listing all the famous people I supposedly resemble due to the retro Beatles haircut i used to wear.
This piece always went down well well, and also stopped any smartass heckler in the audience telling me who i look like during my set, because I’d already listed them all in my opening number
ON another topic: MJ’s death means more hack jokes being hucked around. I expect most to be like this: “Michael Jackson passed away this morning from a massive heart attack. Authorities have released a statement saying that they will melt his body down and make plastic toys so kids can play with him for a change.”
As a certified asshopper, I don’t have a problem with Artie Lange making homophobic comments. In fact, I don’t know any other gay men who are offended by Artie Lange. This might be because of his banter with George Takei, but I think it’s more likely that Artie Lange is That Guy. Artie’s the loudmouthed asshole at the party who says things he doesn’t really mean because you’ll pay attention. That’s his schtick, so he can be forgiven. People don’t really want to emulate Artie. He’s not like Larry the Cable Guy or Andrew Dice Clay. Nobody secretly feels like Artie. Nobody sees Artie as implicitly granting them permission to be a homophobic fucktard in public. Artie’s persona is “what not to do.”
I’m actually glad I didn’t have a show of any kind to do on Thursday, most of all an open-mike, because of the deluge of Jacko jokes that I’m sure every audience in America had to endure. I was on Facebook when the news was confirmed, and I swear there were three full pages of them within minutes.
I’m all for the occasional topical joke, on a few conditions: 1) I can do it THAT night, 2) It’s a solid, genuinely original joke, and 3) I’m not following nine others who have worn out the topic.
I do often write topical jokes I have no intention or chance of using just for the writing practice, though.
I made this cartoon over the weekend. Tell me if the premise is funny. I imagine like a comedian like Arty Lange or Jim Norton telling the three little pigs story…
http://www.transferbigfiles.com/Get.aspx?id=24eecf9f-d892-4e00-a082-cb8abd08caee
Thanks again brian, this show rules.
Redtophat tried to watch, all I got was 1:11 of blank screen…
really. shit. sorry about that. that is definately the right amount of seconds. shit. Oh well. It sucked anyway. Thanks for trying.
I went to the a raw night on Monday and there was only one Michael Jackson joke in the entire show case. I was really pleased, maybe the shit storm was weathered and well?