There’s a little under 15 minutes of the upcoming sixth season of Last Comic Standing in this post. A couple of interesting things about it:
It’s all stuff too filthy for network TV, so it’s unlikely you’d see any of it on LCS anyway.
Since it’s raw footage, there’s none of LCS’s typical tells about the funniness of the performer. No music, no judge commentary, no sandwiching between bad or good comics. Just the stand-up, so you can judge for yourself whether the comic is funny. What a novel concept!
With the later in mind, I’m not going to comment on any of these videos. You can decide on the hilarity or lack thereof of the comics within.
I suspect this is an attempt at that old viral marketing, but I think I’m the first person to stumble on the footage. They’re were all uploaded a couple of days ago but none of them even 50 views yet. So NBC may have no idea this shit is out there. They might disappear quick. Watch while you can. The first two are below:
During last week’s episode of “Real Time”, one of Bill Maher‘s guests Esai Morales made reference to a documentary called “American Drug War”, which asserts a government interest in the distribution of drugs. Maher quickly called it a conspiracy theory. (And it does sound like one, when its so briefly described.)
A regular viewer of Maher show is Kevin Booth, the director of “American Drug War,” who’s a little bothered by having his work being just dismissed as a conspiracy theory. Booth was also close with the late Bill Hicks, producing much of his early albums and recording many of his live shows. He’s continued his involvement with comedy through his production company Sacred Cow, working with such Hicks-worthy successors as Doug Stanhope and Joe Rogan.
The drug war is a little outside the scope of my site here, but Booth made the point that I’m going to focus on here. The director said this in an email to his Sacred Cow members about Maher’s dismissal of the documentary:
I wonder how many people remember Bill Maher’s famous routine that got him fired from ABC -
“Who is the real coward ? when the United States is launching missiles from floating Iron Islands 200 miles away”
as first being performed by non other then Bill Hicks back in 1992
I don’t have encyclopedic knowledge of Hicks’ work, so I can’t verify exactly what album/performance Bill said this at. But what’s interesting in that it’s probably not necessarily a punchline, but an applause line. A piece of clapter in Tina Fey‘s vernacular. It kind of opens up another target as well as a defense of joke stealing.
Can making a simple observation of the truth as one sees it really be called stealing? Good comics are supposed to see things as they are, can you fault two for sizing things up exactly the same way? When I think about it, I don’t necessarily think of the punchline of the infamous Carlos Mencia‘s “Who going to build the wall?” joke stealing controversy as necessarily funny inherently. People would say the same thing without it being a joke. It’s an insight, a truth. Jokes are exaggeration - stealing an exaggeration seems far more egregious to me ( as evidenced by the subsequent reveal of the Cosby vs. Mencia son playing football routine).
In a sense when a comic is pointing out a repressed fact like these, they’re getting a laugh because of the tension of how we can’t acknowledge that truth in polite society. But everyone who’s hears it and laughs it, has thought the same thing - even subconsciously. Can you slam a comic for saying the unsaid thing second?
By the by, Booth says he really does like Maher’s show, describing himself as a “huge fan” of Bill Maher. He even mentions he just bitching a little to get his attention, obviously to get the documentary seen by more eyes. (It currently plays on Showtime.)
I haven’t seen American Drug War, but I did what Esai suggested and searched YouTube for it. From what I’ve seen, it’s an interesting treatment of the subject, more focusing on the “Prison Industrial Complex” and the corporate interest in the drug war in the clips I’ve viewed. Plus, it’s got comics - besides the afforementioned Rogan - there’s also a lengthy interview with Tommy Chong and a conversation with Tom Rhodes about Amsterdam and its drug laws. They’re in there, doing what good comedians do - telling truths that go unsaid.
An interesting post about directing comedy from Cinemoose puts forward this Buster Keaton quote, “Tragedy is a close-up; Comedy, a long shot.” They argue that it still applies to comedy today. Why?
Long shots put the straight man in the scene, helping to both set-up a bit and also land the jokes with the straight man’s reaction, who subs for the audience.
Close-ups put you in the mind of the character, creating sympathy which destroys the distance necessary for comedy.
They use the old banana peel analogy, that cutting the viewers witnessing the fall would create laughter but cutting to the man who slipped would put our emotions with him.
I’m not sure this is true any more. Today’s comedy is a little crueler… allowing us to laugh directly in the face of a character’s pain.
Also, long shots aren’t really necessary to get the reactions in any more. Often that same thing is done in other ways - think of the quick pans in “The Office.” The joke is heightened because we get to anticipate what Pam or Jim reaction might be to the sexist/annoying thing that Michael just said.
There’s a trust today that the audience knows that this is a terrible funny thing, so we don’t need a straight man to substitute for us as much anymore. Often in sketches I kind of prefer it if everybody in the sketch buys into the crazy thing going on - it makes the sketch get funnier, rather than relying on a character saying, “What are you people doing?” for the jokes.
One trait of comedy that’s also very true today is mimicry. Not so much parody, but a scene needs to be done in the style of drama to make it funny. Besides the acting being played straight, the directing must be played straight as well. It makes the exaggeration all the stronger. Here’s an example, from Human Giant and their sketch “Sketch Artist.” Rob Huebel never breaks the senior demeanor of a cop haunted by his partner’s death and killer and neither does director Jason Woliner, making the arrival of the killer that much more funny.
After introducing the silly killer, they keep up the dark, straight part of the scene with Huebel bleeding. (Human Giant is possibly the bloodiest sketch comedy show ever filmed I think.)
So what do you think? Does Keaton’s maxim still apply?
I’m not in Los Angeles, so California peeps take advantage of this. Here’s the image released with information on tickets to the taping of Bob Odenkirk and David Cross’s new sitcom, “David’s Situation”:
For those without image support, that’s 310-382-3260 for tickets. Only two tickets per request (and the duo ask you not to hog ‘em). The taping is Friday, May 9th.
This isn’t something that I’ve really heard a lot of complaints about in the LA theater. In LA the theater is not that big so it would be easy to spot someone doing that so maybe people don’t do it as much. Sometimes people will do it in Asssscat and I guess we don’t care because we’re not doing written material. On the other hand, I had a guy tape me when I was doing my one man show in North Hampton MASS. It’s 30 seconds of part of one of my bits and it’s totally out of context so I’m not sure make any sense, and then it cuts to me doing my outro where I plug my CD and website. So that’s a pretty lame representation of my show.
If comedians told us that it is a regular problem then we would have our theater manager patrol the audience a little more. If we saw someone taping then we’d ask them to stop and cut off a finger (not a thumb). If they did it again we’d cut off a hand. A third violation is when we then cut off the hand of the mother of the perp.
Matt’s punishment strategy is sound I believe. Even douchebags love their mothers.
But Matt’s got an even better attitude about it, perhaps stemming from his improv background. Check out this recent Australia performance where he actually gets up close and delivers the address about his dog Martin Luther King and his dream for the audience member’s camera, heightening the conviction of the bit.
It’s not necessarily something stand-ups could do, but it’s a brilliant example of a talented player using what’s in the room.
Edited to take out the Australian referrence. It was in the YouTube video but apparently is not accurate. Thanks for the correct, Jouster!
All comedy is comedy, right? So we can put some aggressively cheerful girl out on the street and have her interview Neil Hamburger fans waiting in line to see his show and it’ll be web gold! Warning: This is car wreck viewing.
Of course, this might be genius. After all, uncomfortable moments like these are very much the definition of funny unfunny. But I’m probably being too charitable.
By a mile.
I can’t leave you with that above. So here’s the Courtney Love / Cranberry Sauce routine loved by so many of those fans above. But with Hamburger drawing it for an inordinately painfully funny long, long period of time.
The filming of Bruno, Sacha Baron Cohen’s follow-up to Borat, recently made some news while shooting in Wichita, Kansas. Besides disrupting a local church Easter play, the crew also filmed a scene at an airport which was caught with this spectator’s video.
It’s a little fascinating to see in this context because though Bruno and his dance partner look silly and it is a funny dance, you don’t really have a joke. What’s necessary for that?
The reaction - the breathless gawking and confused stares. Thank goodness for local news media. Besides quoting anonymous witnesses as saying the antics “almost looked like pornography”, they also filed this somewhat ridiculous report, where they warn audience members that they might be offended, as if two men dressed very silly doing a funny dance was pornography.
Check out Ma and Pa Kettle smiling - smiling! - at 0:59. They sure like pornography, huh? The media doesn’t notice that older couple. Of course, I don’t think the Bruno movie will be showing them either. Maybe those are “look at the fruits!” smiles, but perhaps its genuine amusement at something outside the everyday. No matter what, the ambiguity of it wouldn’t be funny. (I certainly hope Sacha Baron Cohen proves me wrong.)
But it’s interesting how both that news report and, likely, Bruno will rely on the one version of America - that we’re offended or shocked, not that we’re amused and picking up our cell phone cameras. One’s doing it to enforce the status quo, the other to slam it.
Mike Judge tells MTV he's kinda warmed up to the idea of doing a live action Beavis and Butt-Head movie. He just animated a short segment with the duo for the upcoming "The Animation Show."
Andrew Dice Clay: "I think girl comics are doing better than guy comics today. They're more exciting than guy comics." Later, tells interviewer about a girl coming over who a "10-and-a-half." (AV Club)
The good: CBS adds two sitcoms to schedule. The bad: Mike Birbiglia's show appears to have not been picked up. You can watch previews of what they did order.
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