Jun022005
Filed Under Awards, Sketch Comedy
The 2005 Emerging Comic of New York Award nominations have been set and are now open for voting. If you lust after a particular downtown comic, this is the best way to get their attention, outside of a balloon bouquet sent to their temp job. Vote now!
Jun022005
Filed Under Comedy Writers
Believer Magazine has an online exclusive conversation between the comedy writing twins Steve and Mark O’Donnell. It’s random but it does touch upon being funny as a profession for the “fairly” and Jimmy Kimmel being discovered as “quick and smart” once he gets out from under the pressures of network influence. A good quick read.
May312005
Filed Under Sitcom
A favorite of mine finally made it to DVD last week… Newsradio
. The “Arrested Development” of its day, NewsRadio deserved from NBC the nurturing hands FOX gives “Arrested.”
What I admire the most about NewsRadio was that creator Paul Simms was exploring similar territory to “The Office"… trying to mine comedy from the workplace and real workplace issues. This focus probably came from Simms working on Larry Sanders, with it’s breakthrough focus on backstage showbiz (and sadly, repeated ad infinitum today - please stop navel gazing Hollywood).
NewsRadio was obviously a lot broader and bigger than
The Office, but it was very innovative in dealing with office politics, romances and relationships beyond the usual sitcom metaphor of coworkers as family. Concerns about downsizing, jockeying for titles and assignments and NSFW materials left in common areas were all were seeds for NewsRadio plots. For once, it felt like creators of a TV show had real jobs prior to becoming writers. (For a borderline obsessive/sweet homage to the show, check out Newsradio and the Comedic Art, which has nothing but superlatives for the show.)
In recent years, I’ve seen Simms work only occasionally in the New Yorker’s Shout and Murmurs page but not much on TV. Anyone who called NBC’s 90s-era Thursday Night Friends-Disposable Show-Seinfeld lineup a “shit sandwich” might have a hard time finding a network to love him, but Simms is a fantastic talent and if he’s still making pilots, someone should commit to a series and give him the kushy timespot denied him for so long.
May262005
Filed Under Stand-Up Comedy
Comedy in alternative venues is starting to get mainstream attention with a story in the NY Post today. An interesting point made by Christian Finnegan was how much harder you have to work with an alt audience because “You get a lot of bemused chuckling and wry smiling - like, ‘Oh, I see where you’re going.’” Previously I mentioned that comedy clubs surrender up a stink of desperation that make most smart audiences put up a wall between themselves and a performer, naturally making getting laughs harder. But it seems things aren’t easy all around.
Of course, if an audiences is that aware, they’re already a step ahead of seeing comedy in a venue like the Tee-Hee Teepee. They’re at the alternative venues, using their savvy to make Christian’s job harder. Other audience that might be less discerning faithfully head to the Chucklehut, willing to endure the flopsweat. Still, not every hipster loves this trend and working with in rock clubs isn’t necessarily any easier (as anyone who’s seen David Cross take a half hour to pack his bag on the “Let America Laugh” DVD can attest). Despite this, I think anything that gets comedy in a new context is great.
May262005
Filed Under Jokes
The Sunday NY Times had an obituary for the joke that was more akin to the discovery of a tombstone than a corpse - far too late. I don’t think any comic since Lenny Bruce has told the party jokes that the author describes (’cept maybe Jackie Martling). In fact, I’d argue that comics have been performing more personal observational humor since the very beginning… there’s no ownership in a joke that anyone can tell. Who’s act does it belong to and why can’t I hire this guy who will tell it for cheaper. Not telling “a guy walks into a bar...” isn’t a trend, it’s a tradition.
Of course, with more than a few references to the forthcoming Aristocrats movie, it’s obvious that the author was hunting for a trend to talk about the film. But if there is a trend in humor that the Aristocrats joke does reflect it’s the “anti-joke.”
Anti-jokes use the tension of a setup that telegraphs “here’s something funny” coming with the followup of delivering something intentionally not, either in a mundane or, in the Aristocrats’ case, filthy way. A good example of these is here and here. It’s for and from sophisticated audiences who know comedians and their tells well enough that it becomes funnier to watch humor eat its own tail than hear a tride-and-true punchline. When I was working on Jokes.com in 2000, we were so jaded from screening 20,000 jokes we built an anti-joke category as a relief. The recent book “A Portrait of Yo Mama as a Young Man” does what feels like a anti-joke crucification of the “Yo Mama” joke. On television, I’d argue that the original “Office” and much of the Adult Swim line-up are good reflections of the anti-joke aesthetic in action.
This desire to subvert typical setups and being “funny” even infiltrates homes for anti-jokes. I’ve noticed a few submissions to the Aristocrats Joke database have been about writing a straight version of the family’s act rather than going for the filth typically associated with the joke. It may just be that those writers are unfamiliar with the tradition or exactly the opposite, familiar enough that it’s funnier to subvert it.
The NY Times piece is right about one thing, we are much more self-conscious about being funny… it’s just taking a different form and may well eat the observational humor it says is ascendent now.
Thanks to Jesse Thorn for the heads-up on this. Go listen to his radio show!
May192005
Filed Under Sketch Comedy
I’ve been a little paralyzed from updating lately because I felt I needed to talk about Dave Chappelle’s flight from his own show. Like a lot of people, I felt sympathy for the man. All the rumors and details - mental hospitals, drug addiction and $50 million - sounded more like gossip instead of my usual interest in deconstructing poop jokes. None of Dave’s troubles in the press had any direct roots to his comedy… at least none that were being put forward at the time.
Dave Chappelle’s interview with Time confirmed that this is a bit more of an art-driven pullout than the usual celeb shenanigans. Chappelle’s fears that his sketches might perpetuate the stereotypes they mean to destroy struck me as a very real concern. Dave’s sensitivity does seem a bit high - the spark for his worries seems to be the raucous laughter of a single white male during a filming of a sketch. But I can still see why it bothers him. Comedy can be a pretty blunt instrument. Because so much of it plays on attitudes we don’t speak of, you first have to show the attitude you don’t like and then destroy it. But the act of reflecting racism, sexism, homophobia or anything else of that nature confirms the suspicions inherent in them. You run the risk of someone missing the point and thinking you share the same prejudice.
To me the risk is always worth taking. I think the more you bring the ugly side of life to light, the more these things robbed of their power. Worrying that one person might get it wrong and not get it isn’t worth it when compared to the others that will. It’s like this: if a child imitates a video game and kill someone, it doesn’t mean video games are bad. If a sketch about stereotypes reinforces racism in a few people, it’s not worth it to worry about because of the others who do get it. But that’s easy for me to say. I’m a white protestant male from the south, pretty much the template of the insider in this country now.
A lot of people make hay out of the $50 million Dave’s making. I’m a little concerned with our sense of scale when it come to entertainment, but I do see the money affecting Chappelle in some ways simply because his entire career has been based on taking risks with racial stereotypes. It’s what got him that $50 million, along with all the attention that comes with it. When you get access to an opportunity like that, you naturally reexamine your motives. Even if your jokes are no different, simply because of the money measure in our society, the jokes are more important. I’ve finally got the mic of the world now, what am I going to say and is it going to land the way I want. It’s easy to deconstruct racism in front of small audiences, but the bigger the audience, the more likely someone’s going to hear you wrong.
I hope Chappelle realizes that his instincts are strong and that the laughs of one white guy are a fair sacrifice for the people he is reaching. Take all the time you need, Dave.
May052005
Filed Under Stand-Up Comedy
Comedian Todd Levin recounted a recent appearance where a single joke of his featuring a rape whistle met with audience disapproval. Particularly vexing is that the audience seemed to focus on one word instead of the context. The joke (not stealing, just quoting):
“My mother has always been a scared and cautious woman. For instance, she was in her high school marching band – she played the rape whistle.”
Todd goes on to state that though he hates comics who defend their material, he actually chastised the audience for not enjoying the joke. I think Todd’s distaste for defending his joke is natural, considering most comics misuse it to justify hack material or disturbing exaggerations that lack any wit. But in this case, the bit is pretty clever and the joke isn’t about rape, it’s about fear. I’m glad Todd did it. Though laying into the crowd only rooted one clap from the back of the room, I think sometimes comics need to remind audience to listen with more than their ears.
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