STAND-UP:
COMEDY WITH A BITE
By Alleen and Don Nilsen
1
Stand-Up Has a Long History
Royal jesters, in motley clothes
and carrying fake scepters,
were actually a kind of stand-up
comedian.
For today’s comedians,
microphones work as their
symbol of authority.
They had special
identification because they
were the only ones allowed
to criticize the King.
Some jesters spoke
through scepters (made
from pig bladders), as when
today’s ventriloquists speak
through their puppets. It
was a way of “distancing”
themselves from criticism.
2
MAX BLACK (& WILL FARRELL: “GET OFF THE STAGE”):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NoXLu9Rz70g
3
Mark Twain Might Be Considered
America’s First Standup Comedian
• He was forced into touring the U. S. and sharing his
most humorous stories, along with his cryptic
observations, during the late 1800s because when he
went into business as his own publisher, he lost
money. The tours were a way to recoup.
• Starting in the 1960s, Hal Holbrook, a talented
performer, began recreating Twain’s “lectures.”
• We saw Holbrook at the State University of New York
in Oswego in 1965 and still have a vivid memory of
his retelling of Twain’s “The Celebrated Jumping
Frog of Calaveras County.”
4
George Carlin’s “I’m a Modern Man”:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hkCR-w3AYOE
5
Defining AmericanStand-Up
Comedy
• Bob Hope, Jack Benny, George Burns, Fred Allen,
Milton Berle, Henny Youngman, Alan King, and
Frank Fay are said to exemplify a pure form of standup comedy. They stood before an audience and
managed to develop the kind of rapport that allowed
them to speak—and laugh—with strangers who had
suddenly become “friends.”
• Performance comedy is more theatrical, more
scripted, more elaborate, and more fully developed.
Performers use costumes, props, and stage settings
as do most of our contemporary late night TV hosts.
6
MARGARET CHO TALKS ABOUT RACE
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kc6mLwOa2Ig
7
STAND-UP IS COLLABORATIVE
• Jason Rutter says that “Like conversation, stand-up is a
collaborative production … made possible by the active
involvement of those that make up the interaction.”
• Paul McIlvenny says that “Working the room” consists of
figuring out the homogeneity of the group because
laughter is an expression of shared values.
• Comedians quiz club owners for key pieces of
information with which the audience can identify. They
look for community names and ways of contrasting local
socio-economic classes in the particular region.
8
James Corden:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=snDEDpCIOsc
9
The Marx Brothers
Although the four brothers
were most famous for acting
in films, Groucho was a true
off-the-cuff comedian. In
You Bet Your Life (beginning
on radio in 1947 and television
from 1951 to 1959), he engaged
in hilarious conversations
with contestants who had
been carefully chosen. But
to protect spontaneity
Groucho would not meet
them until show time. He
was a genius at getting them
to say funny things.
10
WILL FERRELL (JOHN C. REILLY & JACK BLACK AT THE OSCARS):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o5JAPkvnyso&feature=channel
11
Abbot and Costello protected their spontaneity by
never starting in the same place when they did their
famous “Who’s on First?” piece.
12
We would assume that a male would wear the
left hat while a female would wear the right hat,
but comedians—who are always looking for
surprise—might go the other way.
13
Chelsea Handler:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w6k_278oGHI
14
Comedians Are Eager to Find an
Identifying Mark
• Groucho Marx had his
glasses, his cigar, and his
moustache (an idea
borrowed from Charlie
Chaplin).
• Phyllis Diller had her
long cigarette holder.
• Dave Chappelle dresses
in Army fatigues.
Even in real life, Don finds
that if he wears a funny tie,
people assume he wants to
joke with them.
15
THE VOICE AS A COSTUME
AND AS A PROP
• Jason Rutter says that when worn as a
costume, “the voice is used by the comedian
to create a character which they play for the
entirety of a narrative sequence.”
• At other times, the comedian may use the
voice as a prop for a limited time, as either a
“quotation” from a character, or as a
caricature by itself.
16
Mary Maxwell’s Deadpan Prayer:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vPFCn3itBFE&feature=youtu.be
17
Early on, comedians sought to
identify themselves with ethnicities
• These went way beyond
African American,
Hispanic, and Asian
communities.
• Scotch, Welsh, German,
Norwegian, Jewish, and
Irish were all fodder for
joking—both from inside
and outside the groups.
• Still today we see
comedians desperate to
stand out from the crowd.
18
DEMETRI MARTIN:
http://live.demetrimartin.com/
19
“Hot topics” in the 1960s and 70s, were
politics, race relations, and sex.
• Alan King, Danny Thomas, Don Rickles, Joan Rivers, and
Jack Leonard became popular at nightclubs and resorts,
while Woody Allen, Shelley Berman, Phyllis Diller, and
Bob Newhart became famous on television.
• African American comedians Redd Foxx, George Kirby,
Bill Cosby, and Dick Gregory developed white audiences.
• Lenny Bruce was known as ‘the’ obscene comic, while
George Carlin was arrested in July of 1972 after
performing his still famous “Seven Words You Can Never
Say on Television.”
20
PATTON OSWALT:
http://www.pattonoswalt.com/
21
In the 1980s and 90s there was a wide
variety of comedy.
• Stand-up expanded from nightclubs into major
concerts with huge audiences.
• Bill Cosby and Steve Martin were “gentle”
comedians, while Robin Williams was frenetic.
• Richard Pryor used an acerbic style, while Rodney
Dangerfield and Buddy Hackett stuck with the old
style, avoiding social satire.
• Saturday Night Live and The Tonight Show brought
stand-up comedy to the whole country.
• One newspaper editor suggested that stand-up
comedians were the new “heroes” in our society.
22
TREVOR NOAH: AFRICAN AMERICAN
https://vimeo.com/ondemand/trevornoah?gclid=CN7ajdPP1cQCFYNsfgod
brkAvw
23
Comedians, not doctors, are the
ones who “practice.”
When Chris Rock was
recently interviewed by Jon
Stewart, they talked about
changes in stand-up.
Rock resents people
taking pictures and
sending copies out to
their friends.
This is because when he
does stand-up in clubs, he’s
“practicing” and getting new
ideas. He wants time to
ponder and refine before
going national.
24
Chris Rock:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v3HPF92NhrE
25
Most Comedians, Even TV Stars, Take
Time Off to Go On Tour
• Jerry Seinfeld has gone on record saying that a
comedian’s skills are best honed in stand-up.
• The challenge in stand-up is that the audience
expects to participate.
• George Schultz, owner of the famous Pips Club in
Brooklyn tells about forcing a comedian to go on
even though there were only four guests in the club.
• He taped the man’s “performance,” and afterwards
both Schultz and the exhausted comedian
discovered that in the course of his show, he had
created 20 new jokes because he had interrelated
with his audience.
26
Who Creates the Jokes? Is it the Writer
or the Comedian?
• Audiences are increasingly asking “Whose joke is
that?” Does it belong to the comedian or a writer?
• Some critics think they can distinguish between
comedians telling their own jokes vs. when they are
telling jokes created by someone else.
• Everyone agrees that, at least, the comedian needs
to feel “ownership” even in something like Jay Leno
showing in-print mistakes that viewers have sent in.
• One story supporting the idea that comedians are
inherently funny is about Milton Berle visiting the
dying comedian Jim Backus and telling old jokes for
two hours. As he got up to leave, Berle said, “I hope
you get better.” Backus replied, “You too.”
27
Are These Jokes Likely to Be Used by a StandUp Comedian? Why or Why Not?
A bicycle cannot stand
alone. It is two tired.
When you’ve seen one
shopping center, you’ve
seen a mall.
A sign on the lawn at a
drug rehab center said:
KEEP OFF THE GRASS!
DON’T JOIN DANGEROUS
CULTS: PRACTICE SAFE
SECTS.
28
Is Stand-Up Overdone?
Here is Dave Chapelle
performing stand-up at
the Laugh Factory
The Laugh Factory is editing
its recordings in preparation
for making them available
online, much like music.
• How can newcomers
compete against
smoothly edited TV
performances?
• Some open-mike clubs
will no longer accept
amateurs because their
audiences are “spoiled”
by the “perfection” on TV.
29
Do Comedians Just Naturally See
the World Differently?
Comedian Mitch
Hedberg
If you were a teacher,
would you have wanted
Hedberg as a student?
When Hedberg was
warned that he was
blocking a fire exit, he
responded, “As though if
there was a fire, I wasn’t
going to run. If you are
flammable and have legs,
you are never blocking a
fire exit.”
30
Mitch Hedberg:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u6xaj2fC1jI
31
In the 1990s, while Jerry Seinfeld and Ellen
DeGeneres made odd observations, Steven
Wright was known for his ironic musings, e. g.
• He claimed to have the world’s largest collection of
sea shells, which he stores on beaches around the
world.
• He also said he has a microwave fireplace that he
lies in front of every evening for eight minutes.
• He used to work in a fire hydrant factory, but could
never find a place to park.
• One night a burglar broke into his apartment and
stole all of his furniture, and replaced it with exact
duplicates.
32
Censorship and Stand-up
• In the days of vaudeville, performers would look over
their audience to see if anyone looked like a government
agent waiting to arrest them for “corrupting morals.”
• Mae West developed her coyness and skill at innuendo
as a way of outwitting such censors.
• Belle Barth would slip into yiddish, when she came to a
sensitive point. Her audiences were mostly Jewish New
Yorkers vacationing in the Catskills.
• Lenny Bruce in the late 1950s and 60s was more
interested in changing public attitudes toward
censorship and so each time he was arrested he used the
situation to bring attention to what he thought were
“foolish” proscriptions.
33
LARRY THE CABLE GUY:
http://www.larrythecableguy.com/
34
The Contributions of HBO
• HBO was the first network to produce comedians without
censoring them. This was partly because patrons paid
for their services and so expected more. HBO produced
14 comedy specials starring George Carlin and his
campaign against censorship.
• A new generation of comedians including Bill Burr, David
Cross, Hannibal Buress, Chelsea Handler, Dave Foley,
Todd Glass, Sara Silverman, and Demetri Martin do not
have to worry about censorship of the kind that caused
the Smothers Brothers to lose their show because of
mildly criticizing the Vietnam war, or caused Jack Paar to
walk off his show to protest his network’s censoring of
an old British story about a confusion over whether W.C.
stood for Wayside Chapel or Water Closet.
35
HERE IS A SCALE USED TO RANK COMEDIANS from 1 to
10 on various categories. Try filling it out for three or four
of your favorites. The problem is that to predict success,
even if you find where a comedian stands, you also need to
know where the audience stands in its preferences.
Cultural Savvy______
Cynicism_______
Deadpan_______
Energy_______
Ethnicity_______
Insightful_______
Interactive ______
Invective_______
Irony_______
Political Savvy_______
Redneck_______
Risk Taking_______
Sarcasm_______
Sophistication_______
Spontaneity_______
Wit _______
36
So Where Is Stand-Up Today? Actually It’s On
Its Way to Becoming Sit-Down.
• The late night news stories have borrowed
techniques both from “traditional” stand-up and
from sit-coms.
• Like the sit-coms, the shows start and end with the
same set, music, and introductions so that viewers
feel comfortable.
• Like the stand-up comedians, the hosts use lots of
“old” jokes, but they seem fresh because they tie
them in with current events and celebrities.
• The hosts choose eccentric guests and set them up
to do a kind of Improv so that they have spontaneity,
which is also helped by their live audiences.
37
STEVEN WRIGHT:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vroWEVKnsWE&list=PL60E4B18D887
4F50E
38
Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert:
America’s New Style of Comedian
Greg Beato wrote in an
article, “Amusing Us to
Depth,” that multiple
surveys by the Pew
Research Center and the
Annenberg Public Policy
Center have found that
viewers of The Daily Show
and The Colbert Report
are among America’s
most informed citizens.
39
All Comedians Have Dreams.
Here’s our Prediction of Their Bucket Lists
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
To Play Las Vegas
To Have a Sitcom
To Write a Best Seller
To Host a Comedy Talk
Show
To Star in a Movie
To Win the Mark Twain
Award
To Be a Winner at a
Comedy Festival
To Emcee the Oscars
40
Welsh Comedian and his lost luggage in Australia:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TSFmipc_60s
41