Jun162004
There’s Really Funny and there’s Reality Funny.
Filed Under Stand-Up Comedy
TiVo forsook me again with Last Comic Standing. Part two of the Vegas finals aired tonight and TiVo didn’t know it, even know it was on the schedule. Weird. Hopefully, I’ll catch the Comedy Central rerun.
That said, I’m all caught up with the episodes TiVo did record. First, a thought on getting to the Semi-40: Lots of comics had gimmicks (wearing jock straps on their head, pretending to be a Nazi or, in desperate “me! me! me!” fashion, following the auditions to EVERY city) that get you on blooper reels. But the real way to get to the 40 is have a different type of gimmick… the compelling story for the producers to latch onto, like:
♦ being a stripper
♦ being 19 and having nine months of stage experience
♦ being a part of a comedian couple with two children.
Not that these people weren’t funny (two and a half of them were...). They’re good stories to tell on the way of getting to the Final 10. LCS is a “reality” show, not a comedy. Thus the tenets of reality trump funny. The winner is not the funniest person, it’s the comic who’s “story” was the most interesting.
Of the finalists, my fave right now is Bonnie Macfarlane who had the audacity to go for broke with the “c word” in her Las Vegas set. Not only is she funny, but she’s got a great “story” for the reality producers to hang on… finalist and future Gap employee Ant seems to hate her. She doesn’t get along well with other female comics (or they don’t get along with her… not really clear on that so far). I’m sure she won’t win, but it’ll be great watching someone who takes risks.
I think Gary Gulman has got what it takes to win the whole show. I caught him as an opener for Dane Cook and he was amazing. He seems nice enough for America to like/sympathize with (and a genuine nice too, he was talking to people in line pre the show I saw as well… it ain’t just a I-need-a-cheering-section-in-Vegas thang) and he’s really funny. His jokes on food, while not exactly the freshest target, killed.
Non-finalist guys who I hope to see more of: Dan Ahdoot (who’s solid, just needs more material), Chris Voth, Monty Hoffman and, apparently, the robbed Dan Naturman from the synopsis I’ve read about tonight’s show.
Though I hate wishing ill will of 1/4 of NBC’s sitcoms next year, but have you seen the ads for Father of the Pride? The animation is dazzling movie quality stuff, but I’ve yet to see a joke that justifies transplanting the family sitcom in this setting. Not to mention the bad taste of the whole enterprise! Sure you have Siegfried and Roy’s approval. But they’re insane. It’s part of the premise of the show!
Well, soon, onto other things beside LCS. I’m already sick of it and we have hours of housemate-snipping to go apparently.
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