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Post by Cybermortis on May 27, 2014 15:52:10 GMT
How hard IS stand up comedy?
I think we should put the Mythbusters on stage to find out if it is as hard as the pros would have us believe. What do the rest of you think?
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Post by GTCGreg on May 27, 2014 16:14:46 GMT
Sounds like fun viewing to me.
Adam I can see doing stand-up. Jamie, not so much. We've all seen the videos of Jamie try to tell jokes. Not pretty.
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Post by the light works on May 27, 2014 17:12:26 GMT
somehow I am not optimistic about seeing this in an episode.
but to address the idiom: it is easy to tell a joke and get a chuckle. it is harder to tell an hour and a half to two hours of jokes and consistently get enough chuckles to have people come to hear you do it again and bring their friends along with them.
and judging by the proportion of people who have died to the proportion of people who have become successful in the field of comedy, I would say that the idiom has at least a technical degree of accuracy.
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Post by OziRiS on May 27, 2014 21:44:54 GMT
Well, the average stand up routine is actually more like 5-15 minutes for the club scene. 1½-2 hours is more of a one man show thing and compared to the total number of comedians in the world, not many are good enough to get to that point. Hell, a Comedy Central special usually only lasts about half an hour and those are certainly hard enough to get.
There are only so many Eddie Murphys, George Carlins and Robin Williams' out there...
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Post by the light works on May 28, 2014 0:18:22 GMT
Well, the average stand up routine is actually more like 5-15 minutes for the club scene. 1½-2 hours is more of a one man show thing and compared to the total number of comedians in the world, not many are good enough to get to that point. Hell, a Comedy Central special usually only lasts about half an hour and those are certainly hard enough to get. There are only so many Eddie Murphys, George Carlins and Robin Williams' out there... actually, I hesitate a little to put Eddie Murphy in that list... he's at his best delivering other people's material. |
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Post by Cybermortis on May 28, 2014 8:58:28 GMT
The other thing to consider about comedy acts, even stand up, is that it is very rare for them to be unscripted. Even the likes of Billy Connelly, who used to appear frequently on a chat show (Michael Parkinson) in the UK back in the day and have the presenter and audience in hysterics from ten seconds after walking on stage right through to the end of the show, work with some form of script. Billy always started with a scripted part of his act, and had other parts that were partly scripted (or at least pre-planned in his head).
So we're not talking about going to a comedy club or bringing in an audience and pushing someone on stage. There are very few professionals who could pull off a routine in such a situation.
I'm thinking that they could find a stand up comedian from the SF or Californian circuit and bring them in to give the victim(s) some advice. Then have them write some material and a routine, bring the Comedian back a week or two later to hear it and give further advice to help refine the act and then have them perform a week or so after that. Coming up with material might not be too stressful, the show has three or four writers in Australia (they deal with the narration) plus the victim and the rest of the cast and crew in SF might well be able to come up with material they could try - all of which would be behind the scenes.
This isn't too dissimilar to how pros work, as few write all their own material - writing for stand ups is a full time job for some people who lack the skills or inclination to get on stage themselves. (They also wouldn't be getting on stage 'cold'. They could bring back their pro to warm up the crowd first and to help judge how they did - the ultimate judgement would come from the audience but having a pro there would help in regards indicating if the crowd was difficult)
This would probably be a rather, funny, show regardless of how well the victim did. If they pull off a good set they can show that on screen, if they pull off a bad set that could also be somewhat amusing for the viewer and be hidden and edited so as not to be quite so painful. Either way they would be able to decide based on experience how hard it is to do stand up - remember that all of the cast are used to standing in front of an audience for interviews and the like. Which makes them ideally suited to comparing experiences.
(Personally I think Tory and Adam would be best suited for this - maybe have this as one team versus the other, which is something I don't think they do very often but would mean that they are not automatically condemning someone to get up on stage when they really don't want to. Or where it is fairly clear from the start that they are likely to tank)
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Post by OziRiS on May 28, 2014 9:45:36 GMT
I'd say Adam and Tory as well. Kari might even be able to pull it off, but I don't think Jamie or Grant fit the comedian type. I think they'd be uncomfortable with it to say the least. Not that Kari wouldn't, but I still think she'd do better. She has a "natural funny" about her that the two others just don't.
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Post by silverdragon on May 31, 2014 7:35:17 GMT
You have from the moment you walk on stage to the moment you pick up the mike for the audience to decide if they like you.
Loose that, you lost the crowd.
Your first joke has to be your best....
Obviously.
The second one has to be even better.
You cant tell the same joke twice.
Timing IS everything.....
So what you need is a "Perfect storm" of all the right ingredients at the same time.
I have witnessed the comedians anthem, the sound of your own footsteps, and that is not a nice thing to walk off stage with.
Worse is to be chased off stage.
Saw that happen at an open mike night once as well....
But to be honest, her opener was to insult half the room, the second line was to make it the other half's problem, and the third line was insulting to everyone.
The fourth line was delivered from a broom cupboard "Can you phone me a Taxi?..."
Still not sure if anyone ever did..
She may well still be there.
Strange, its even harder for Women to make good comedians?...
How many GOOD women comedians do you know?...
Yo can trot out maybe a dozen?....
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Post by Cybermortis on May 31, 2014 12:16:13 GMT
I think the basic problem is gender-stereotyping rather than gender itself. Basically people (by which I mean men and women alike) tend to see comedy, especially stand up comedy*, as being more of a male occupation. This results in fewer women being interested in looking at it as a career, those who do having a harder time getting their foot in the door and then if they do manage to get on stage it is harder to get an audience to accept them.
*Stand up comedy is seen, and I think has its roots in, 'men's clubs'. Certainly in the UK a LOT of the more traditional stand up tended to be VERY sexist in terms of content - Lots of 'Take my wife, please' and Mother in Law jokes, especially in the 70's. I'm not sure of the history in the US, but I'd suspect it was originally similar but gradually made the shift towards social/political commentary around the same period British (or at least English) comedians were still making fun of their wives.
Interesting to observe that those comedians who have withstood the test of time use material that is social/politically based (The late, great Bill Hicks) or who are making fun of men as much as women (Billy Connelly). In those two examples where they do parody women they are really making fun of themselves.
Not that this is testable, at least not by MB, or has much to do with the OP.
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Post by the light works on May 31, 2014 12:58:36 GMT
I have seen that female comedians have a greater chance of becoming gender stereotype comedians than male comedians; and gender stereotype comedy is a one-trick pony. one notable standout was a comedian who spent 95% of her routine in a litany of things men do that isn't appealing. one joke would have been funny, by the third, it was like listening to a kid tell knock-knock jokes, except her delivery wasn't cute.
best onstage death I have heard of was an "award winning" comedian the convention center supplied for one of our awards banquet. he started his routine by unknowingly insulting pretty much the entire administration if the city, and went downhill from there. the only real laugh was when he asked, "Are there any Mormons in the audience?" and Captain Moorman raised his hand.
when your audience gets more laughs than you - its time to go home.
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Post by OziRiS on May 31, 2014 22:13:36 GMT
I think one of the main reasons that there aren't many really succesful female comedians is that for many years, a lot of them spent their entire time on stage just bashing men.
Male comedians will go after women, but it's specific types of women like moms, female teachers, nuns, female politicians, teenage girls, stupid women they've met and many other types, but it's very rarely women in general.
Many female comedians just go after men in general, making statements like "men don't put the seat down after going to the bathroom" and "all you need to make men happy is sports and boobies" and while that may appeal to other women who have had the same experiences with men, it doesn't appeal to a wider audience and it gets old really fast.
The ones who are succesful are the ones who can get out of that and play on several tangents while still being themselves.
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Post by the light works on Jun 1, 2014 15:20:46 GMT
I think one of the main reasons that there aren't many really succesful female comedians is that for many years, a lot of them spent their entire time on stage just bashing men. Male comedians will go after women, but it's specific types of women like moms, female teachers, nuns, female politicians, teenage girls, stupid women they've met and many other types, but it's very rarely women in general. Many female comedians just go after men in general, making statements like "men don't put the seat down after going to the bathroom" and "all you need to make men happy is sports and boobies" and while that may appeal to other women who have had the same experiences with men, it doesn't appeal to a wider audience and it gets old really fast. The ones who are succesful are the ones who can get out of that and play on several tangents while still being themselves. actually doesn't really appeal to a broad spectrum of women all that much, either, from what I've seen. |
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Post by OziRiS on Jun 2, 2014 6:06:01 GMT
I think one of the main reasons that there aren't many really succesful female comedians is that for many years, a lot of them spent their entire time on stage just bashing men. Male comedians will go after women, but it's specific types of women like moms, female teachers, nuns, female politicians, teenage girls, stupid women they've met and many other types, but it's very rarely women in general. Many female comedians just go after men in general, making statements like "men don't put the seat down after going to the bathroom" and "all you need to make men happy is sports and boobies" and while that may appeal to other women who have had the same experiences with men, it doesn't appeal to a wider audience and it gets old really fast. The ones who are succesful are the ones who can get out of that and play on several tangents while still being themselves. actually doesn't really appeal to a broad spectrum of women all that much, either, from what I've seen. Didn't say it did and the reason for that is that you're completely right. As I said, it mainly appeals to women who've had the same experiences with men themselves and it gets old really fast. Even to the people who liked it initially. |
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Post by mrfatso on Jun 2, 2014 13:20:13 GMT
The OP sounds a lot like a program that the BBC did for Sports Relief 2012, a charity fund raiser that is held every couple of years, where a number of former sports stars where coached in becoming stand up comedians by British stand ups. www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01dwgkmIT was won by former Gymnast and TV presenter Gabby Logan. |
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Post by silverdragon on Jun 3, 2014 6:56:11 GMT
Research Sarah Millican.
British comedian who at this time is the second highest earner in UK comedy....
Her tour is big.
However, lets see how many people go twice?...
I am not a fan, as a lot of what she says is gross, she is a female Frankie Boyle, Marmite, and its not just he jokes that are Ugly.
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Post by OziRiS on Jun 3, 2014 8:11:49 GMT
Research Sarah Millican. British comedian who at this time is the second highest earner in UK comedy.... Her tour is big. However, lets see how many people go twice?... I am not a fan, as a lot of what she says is gross, she is a female Frankie Boyle, Marmite, and its not just he jokes that are Ugly. I know Sarah Millican. Seen two of her shows and while I did laugh at some of it, you're right. I'm not watching them a second time. |
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