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    #51
    Originally posted by Incandenza View Post

    Podcasts, Twitter, Netflix algorithm.
    Indeed. I've listened to hours and hours of podcasts about how they do what they do, but I have never been to a comedy club or paid money to see a stand-up in my life. Even when I lived in DC or Boston. For me to willingly leave my home and pay to sit - or worse, stand - in a crowd, I have to really want to go.*

    I did pay to go see Gary Gulman in Pittsburgh in February 2020, but the morning I was supposed to go, I didn't feel well and was having some dizziness issues, but I didn't know that's what it was. I thought it was the flu. Driving to Pittsburgh and sitting in a crowd felt risky. Too bad. I'm sure it was great. I relate to him very well and he's a really nice guy.

    Most stand-up isn't that funny, really. And some of it is actually really awful - just assholes saying dumb shit that the drunks will agree with. That's not comedy at all.

    Maybe 10-15% is really worthwhile and it usually takes comics five to ten years to be any good and those five to ten years involve a lot of travel, bombing, terrible venues, terrible crowds, terrible bookers, terrible fellow comics, etc. And then, even if they get good, it's a lot of travel and hassles.

    Pete Holmes show on HBO, Crashing, covers that very well. His book is good too. I'm a huge fan of his podcasts. Steve Martin's book is great too although obviously about a totally different era.

    There are also some shows that are only semicomedy, but really good. Like Hannah Gadsby's shows. Mike Birbiglia, Neal Brennan and Chris Gethard have done some fantastic things that have comedy but also have so much personal non-funny stuff that it doesn't really count as a stand-up set per se. More of a one person show, but that makes it sound more pretentious and crap than it is.

    Some critics have said that's the future of comedy. I hope not, because it's really hard to do that well. A crap version of somebody trying to do Hannah Gadsby would be way worse than a hack just telling jokes about airports or whatever.


    * It's getting harder and harder to convince me to willingly be in a crowd indoors for obvious reasons.



    Last edited by Hot Pepsi; 16-09-2021, 16:59.

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      #52
      I sometimes binge a bunch of those Just For Laughs half-hour comedy things from Montreal. I'm often amazed at how bad the comedy is, and this is at a top-tier comedy festival that presumably has some pretty discerning bookers.

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        #53
        Originally posted by WOM View Post
        I sometimes binge a bunch of those Just For Laughs half-hour comedy things from Montreal. I'm often amazed at how bad the comedy is, and this is at a top-tier comedy festival that presumably has some pretty discerning bookers.
        Yeah. Even at something exclusive like that, the hit rate is probably no better than 50%. YMMV

        Of course, a lot of it fails simply because it's not very original and we're old enough to have heard the same joke premises many times before. Younger people might get more out of it.


        Another name I forgot to add was Marc Maron. I'd somehow forgotten that he's still doing stand-up. His last special was great. It was just before the pandemic, so it feels like a thousand years ago.

        I recognize that most of my favorites are straight white middle aged men, but then I'm a straight white middle aged man and comedy tends to be very personal.
        And, like most industries, it still tends to be hostile to women and LGBTQ people and BIPOC people tend to be shunted off into "their own" scene and not get on TV as much, so I just don't know as many of those comics because they're less visible.

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          #54
          I was thinking about this discussion last night, and Russell Peters popped into my head. He's Indian/Canadian and manages to do a TON of race stuff, but he does it from the inside rather than the outside, so it lands beautifully. He'll do stuff about your Fillipino grandmother that has the Flips rolling in the aisles, because he does it from a shared racial experience POV. He seems to have gone quiet, but he was one of the highest grossing standups for a few years.

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            #55
            I've just watched a compilation of his stuff and didn't laugh once. His OJ routines were variations on one fairly obvious point (that he did it but we are not allowed to say it out loud)*; his other work was often a US version of the 'ironic' comedy we had in the UK where the comic tells racist/sexist/transphobic jokes but claims to be doing so as parody, even though the laughs say otherwise.

            *And how do you avoid the obvious misogyny of getting weekly laughs out of the trial that resulted from the brutal stabbing of a woman? I mean, you can and obviously should tackle an obvious injustice (a woman's murderer walks) but at least try to do it in a way that doesn't sound like you're minimizing the horrific nature of her death. Bill Hicks would have found a way to do it because he had empathy, I believe.
            Last edited by Satchmo Distel; 16-09-2021, 19:33.

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              #56
              Pasted from another forum: his sexual assault technique:

              And I’d do it to get girls! I’d be in a bar and for some reason when you’re drunk, girls will put up with it if you try to grope them or whatever. (In a high-pitched voice “What are you doing? Haha!” If you’re sober, they’re like, “Hey! Just what do you think you‘re doing?” So I’d just garble my words. I have used being a drunk to my advantage many times.

              https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/tv...nsored-819420/

              Then there's this Facebook post that the victim has Tweeted (content warning: triggering):

              https://twitter.com/Mollyissilly/sta...524288/photo/1
              Last edited by Satchmo Distel; 16-09-2021, 20:29.

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                #57
                Edit: About Russell Peters
                His website shows he's currently on tour in the UAE.

                I suspect he's getting paid what Patton Oswalt called a sacreligious amount of money for that gig.

                He's also in the upcoming Clifford the Big Red Dog film.
                Last edited by Hot Pepsi; 16-09-2021, 22:02.

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                  #58
                  Originally posted by Patrick Thistle View Post
                  In comedy it's harder to separate the art from the artists.
                  It's a job description that practically requires you to be an asshole. I shut off the part of me that wouldn't want to know or be friends with the person. Their personal lives are often a shambles. The ones who don't seem like assholes are never the funniest, although, speaking of cis male tastes, I only saw one female comedian mentioned on this thread, so how about a plug for Melissa McCarthy, Kristen Wiig, Cecily Strong, Tina Fey, Amy Poehler, Kaitlin Olson (Always Sunny), et al, who might be generally more tolerable in real life while still being hilarious?

                  I think SNL is overrated, more bad writing than not, but you have to factor its being live. Being funny live when it's not your act is a special talent, and the best SNL moments to me are gifted performers being funny incidentally to the script, goofy personas and whatnot.

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                    #59
                    That's a great post, Bruno. Female comedians are not playing out their toxic masculinity on stage, whereas that's a central component of almost any man's act. The key is how they relate to that toxicity; most seem to use irony to create distance from the toxic 'character' they are playing but that's a mask that often slips: the misogynist, racist transphobe that he's ironically portraying is the real him. I can like Norm in his moments of self-awareness when you know from his eyes that he knows he's being a dick and he makes himself the butt of the joke but I'd always be asking if he actually cares how dick behavior in his act affects others. and more importantly, if he's that person offstage, in which case he's likely to be, at best, borderline criminal in his behavior towards women and other minorities.
                    Last edited by Satchmo Distel; 17-09-2021, 09:45.

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                      #60
                      Yeah, if your business model is to be rewarded and revered the most for acting more like a dick, it could blur the distinction for you. In his latest special, released nowhere because he's canceled, available for direct purchase, Louis CK actually addresses or tries to address the behavior that blew up his career. The crowd eats it up, but he doesn't manage to sound contrite or concerned about who he hurt. Which wouldn't be funny. The special is funny otherwise, and I've read some calling it one of the best ever, but I guess time will sort that out.

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                        #61
                        I'm pretty terrible with names and saw the eulogies from people whose views on comedy I trust, so I wandered off to YouTube and... I didn't find him funny at all. If anything, I found his jokes laboured and obvious. Quite a lot of it was just elongated versions of the sort of joke that you'd just roll your eyes at, if someone shared it in a pub. Just didn't get it.

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                          #62
                          He was the Canadian Ronnie Corbett

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                            #63
                            Well, no, not at all. The long, shaggy-dog type jokes Ian refers to are what he used to get invited on to shows like Conan O'Brien to do. That was the talk-show schtick. His real deal was standup, so watch at least a half hour of one of them before drawing a final verdict. Again, it might not be your thing, but he was no Canadian Ronnie Corbett.

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                              #64
                              Norm had a meta thing he'd often try of taking something corny or unfunny and pretending it was funny in a deliberately point-missing way. He struck me as more funny in person off the cuff than as a writer.

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                                #65
                                Yeah, that was definitely an element of it. The earnest 'not quite getting it'. A lot of his 'funny' wasn't in the joke but in the delivery, but that's his standup roots. But there was also a quality to his jokes that had an elegance. Obviously anything you read is now going to be tinged by the appalling trans joke upthread, but as I say, that wasn't the whole of the man. Watch the Comedians In Cars Getting Coffee episode with him if you're interested. (It, of course, is now obvious from his physical appearance in said that he was ill.)

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                                  #66
                                  Originally posted by WOM View Post
                                  Yeah, that was definitely an element of it. The earnest 'not quite getting it'. A lot of his 'funny' wasn't in the joke but in the delivery, but that's his standup roots. But there was also a quality to his jokes that had an elegance.
                                  Also Ronnie Corbett

                                  It's not really a criticism as such, I think both of them could be really funny, and that way of delivering what turned out to be a weak joke was actually really well done, and MacDonald was probably better at it than Corbett.

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                                    #67
                                    Omigod, I would possibly die laughing if I found a Two Ronnies episode where Corbett leans back in his chair and says that Brandon Teena line.

                                    Originally posted by Bruno View Post
                                    Kaitlin Olson (Always Sunny)
                                    I did not know she did stand up, I love her in Always Sunny so will have a look.

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                                      #68
                                      Originally posted by delicatemoth View Post
                                      I did not know she did stand up, I love her in Always Sunny so will have a look.
                                      I don't think she does much standup if any, I was just mentioning her as a great comedian, or comic actor as that's probably the more apt term. I love her.

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                                        #69
                                        Yes she is, that show has a great cast who are an essential part of why their 'cruel' (is this a better word than 'dark'?) humour works.

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                                          #70
                                          I don't know her, but she apparently came up through improv rather than standup. Entirely different skillset, and probably way more suited to doing a sitcom than a standup would be.

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                                            #71
                                            Yeah, and most who have been successful SNL cast members haven't been major standup acts. The big exceptions are Eddie Murphy and Chris Rock. Less high-profile but still successful at standup are Colin Quinn (quite good sometimes), Dana Carvey (meh), David Spade (meh), Adam Sandler (no), Dennis Miller (no), Kevin Nealon (also quite good as I remember, it's been forever), Sarah Silverman (hit and miss)... Pete Davidson I can't understand the appeal, and his recent standup special struck me as more of the same laziness. Michael Che has a special I think. Anyway, the comedy picture gets a lot more diverse when you include actors, and it seems (?) to allow for a nicer bunch of people.

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                                              #72
                                              David Spade will continue to be one of the all-time comedy mysteries for me. Not only isn't he funny, he doesn't seem that lovely as a person. Even his own personal assistant tried to murder him.

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                                                #73
                                                Originally posted by Bruno View Post

                                                It's a job description that practically requires you to be an asshole. I shut off the part of me that wouldn't want to know or be friends with the person. Their personal lives are often a shambles. The ones who don't seem like assholes are never the funniest, although, speaking of cis male tastes, I only saw one female comedian mentioned on this thread, so how about a plug for Melissa McCarthy, Kristen Wiig, Cecily Strong, Tina Fey, Amy Poehler, Kaitlin Olson (Always Sunny), et al, who might be generally more tolerable in real life while still being hilarious?

                                                I think SNL is overrated, more bad writing than not, but you have to factor its being live. Being funny live when it's not your act is a special talent, and the best SNL moments to me are gifted performers being funny incidentally to the script, goofy personas and whatnot.
                                                All your examples aren't stand-ups. If I listed all the sketch performers and actors I like, there'd be a lot more women. Improv seems to be more popular among women getting into comedy than stand-up

                                                I don't think you have to be an asshole to be funny.
                                                Steven Wright isn't an asshole. Gary Gulman isn't an asshole, neither Pete Holmes or Ron Funches. Funches persona is a guy who really likes to be high, because he is a guy who likes to be high. I prefer that energy.

                                                That seems to be a trend now of comics trying to be more positive because the Bill Burr-style "everything sucks" screaming about everything has gotten stale, especially in a time when it feels like everything is going to hell. The quintessential example of that is Shane Torres' bit about Guy Fieri on Conan.

                                                And since social media is the most important tool comics have to get people to come to their shows, comics can build an audience by talking about their own lives and creating that kind of connection with their fans. Taylor Tomlinson is like that.


                                                I think SNL is better than that, but as you suggest, the best sketches are the ones that probably didn't appear to be that funny on paper. Like Cowbell, Get off the Shed or The Californians. It's all in the commitment and execution. I don't think the writing is bad so much as they've got to serve a pretty boring audience. If they could do all the weird shit that only the writers think is funny, I'd probably like it more, but it wouldn't be as popular or get laughs in the studio.

                                                I've noticed that YouTube is awash in videos that are just a series of people's favorites five-fifteen second clips from SNL sketches. That suggests that most sketches would probably be funnier if they were shorter and just focused on the best lines. But it would be much harder to do a live show changing every minute or two.

                                                Of course, a lot of the best SNL bits are the taped ones.

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                                                  #74
                                                  Ronnie Corbett's monologues were excellent and probably stand up better now than any other part of the 'Two Ronnies' save for some of the classic sketches. I wish the BBC would put them out in some stand-alone form.

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                                                    #75
                                                    Originally posted by Bruno View Post
                                                    Yeah, and most who have been successful SNL cast members haven't been major standup acts. The big exceptions are Eddie Murphy and Chris Rock. Less high-profile but still successful at standup are Colin Quinn (quite good sometimes), Dana Carvey (meh), David Spade (meh), Adam Sandler (no), Dennis Miller (no), Kevin Nealon (also quite good as I remember, it's been forever), Sarah Silverman (hit and miss)... Pete Davidson I can't understand the appeal, and his recent standup special struck me as more of the same laziness. Michael Che has a special I think. Anyway, the comedy picture gets a lot more diverse when you include actors, and it seems (?) to allow for a nicer bunch of people.
                                                    Michael Che's special is pretty good.

                                                    Sandler had good stuff on SNL.

                                                    Pete Davidson is ok, but not great. He has good chemistry with Timothee Chalamet in a few sketches. But his range is pretty limited.

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