STAND-UP:%20COMEDY%20WITH%20A%20BITE

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STAND-UPCOMEDY WITH A BITE

• By Alleen and Don Nilsen

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Stand-Up Has a Long History

• Royal jesters, in motley clothes and carrying
  fake scepters, were actually a kind of stand-up
  comedian.

• For todays 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 todays
  ventriloquists speak through their puppets. It
  was a way of distancing themselves from
  criticism.

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• MAX BLACK ( WILL FARRELL GET OFF THE STAGE)
• https//www.youtube.com/watch?vNoXLu9Rz70g

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Mark Twain Might Be Considered Americas 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 Twains 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 Twains The
  Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County.

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• George Carlins Im a Modern Man
• https//www.youtube.com/watch?vhkCR-w3AYOE

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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
  stand-up comedy. They stood before an audience
  and managed to develop the kind of rapport that
  allowed them to speakand laughwith 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.

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• MARGARET CHO TALKS ABOUT RACE
• http//www.youtube.com/watch?vkc6mLwOa2Ig

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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.

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• James Corden
• https//www.youtube.com/watch?vsnDEDpCIOsc

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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.

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• WILL FERRELL (JOHN C. REILLY JACK BLACK AT THE
  OSCARS)
• https//www.youtube.com/watch?vo5JAPkvnysofeatur
  echannel

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Abbot and Costello protected their spontaneity by
never starting in the same place when they did
their famous Whos on First? piece.
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We would assume that a male would wear the left
hat while a female would wear the right hat, but
comedianswho are always looking for
surprisemight go the other way.
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• Chelsea Handler
• https//www.youtube.com/watch?vw6k_278oGHI

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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.

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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.

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• Mary Maxwells Deadpan Prayerhttps//www.youtube
  .com/watch?vvPFCn3itBFEfeatureyoutu.be

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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 jokingboth from inside
  and outside the groups.
• Still today we see comedians desperate to stand
  out from the crowd.

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• DEMETRI MARTIN
• http//live.demetrimartin.com/

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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.

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PATTON OSWALT

• http//www.pattonoswalt.com/

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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.

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• TREVOR NOAH AFRICAN AMERICAN
• https//vimeo.com/ondemand/trevornoah?gclidCN7ajd
  PP1cQCFYNsfgodbrkAvw

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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,
  hes practicing and getting new ideas. He
  wants time to ponder and refine before going
  national.

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• Chris Rock
• https//www.youtube.com/watch?vv3HPF92NhrE

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Most Comedians, Even TV Stars, Take Time Off to
Go On Tour

• Jerry Seinfeld has gone on record saying that a
  comedians 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 mans 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.

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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.

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Are These Jokes Likely to Be Used by a Stand-Up
Comedian? Why or Why Not?

• A bicycle cannot stand alone. It is two tired.

• When youve seen one shopping center, youve seen
  a mall.

• A sign on the lawn at a drug rehab center said
• KEEP OFF THE GRASS!
• DONT JOIN DANGEROUS CULTS PRACTICE SAFE SECTS.

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Is Stand-Up Overdone?

• The Laugh Factory is editing its recordings in
  preparation for making them available online,
  much like music.

• Here is Dave Chapelle performing stand-up at the
  Laugh Factory

• 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.

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Do Comedians Just Naturally See the World
Differently?

• If you were a teacher, would you have wanted
  Hedberg as a student?

• Comedian Mitch Hedberg

• When Hedberg was warned that he was blocking a
  fire exit, he responded, As though if there was
  a fire, I wasnt going to run. If you are
  flammable and have legs, you are never blocking a
  fire exit.

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• Mitch Hedberg
• https//www.youtube.com/watch?vu6xaj2fC1jI

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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 worlds 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.

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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.

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LARRY THE CABLE GUY

• http//www.larrythecableguy.com/

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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 networks
  censoring of an old British story about a
  confusion over whether W.C. stood for Wayside
  Chapel or Water Closet.

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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 _______
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So Where Is Stand-Up Today? Actually Its 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.

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• STEVEN WRIGHT
• https//www.youtube.com/watch?vvroWEVKnsWElistP
  L60E4B18D8874F50E

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Jon Stewart and Stephen ColbertAmericas 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 Americas most informed
  citizens.

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All Comedians Have Dreams. Heres 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

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• Welsh Comedian and his lost luggage in Australia
• https//www.youtube.com/watch?vTSFmipc_60s