# anyone ever open mic at a comedy club? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [January 2, 2003, 9:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anyone-ever-open-mic-at-a-comedy-club/146281 "2003-01-02T21:59:05Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 9\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![metroshane](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/aeb1de/32.png) [@metroshane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/metroshane)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2003, 9:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anyone-ever-open-mic-at-a-comedy-club/146281/1 "2003-01-02T21:59:05Z")
I’m thinking about it. Of course I’m probably not near as funny as my mom says I am, but I’m reading a book about how some famous comedians got their start and thought it’d be fun to try. I have no aspirations of making it…but it might be fun to take a bunch of friends out and try it. Even if I bomb, I’d be funny…at least to me and my friends. Anyone ever try it? ---
**Author:** ![Stoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/stoid/32/272_2.png) [@Stoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stoid)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2003, 10:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anyone-ever-open-mic-at-a-comedy-club/146281/2 "2003-01-02T22:10:49Z")
Yes. I was a comic for about 18 months and I did lots of open mikes. I also competed and did well (11th out of 110 comics, in LA). I suggest you get your hands on a copy of the SNL with Jerry Seinfeld and closely study the “Stanup Comics” Jeopardy-style game. It is an excellent primer for what NOT to do and the jokes NOT to tell. ---
**Author:** ![metroshane](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/aeb1de/32.png) [@metroshane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/metroshane)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2003, 10:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anyone-ever-open-mic-at-a-comedy-club/146281/3 "2003-01-02T22:17:07Z")
I’ll do that…but wouldn’t it be funny to be totally inappropriate and do everything you’re not supposed to do? ---
**Author:** ![Daniel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/3ec8ea/32.png) [@Daniel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Daniel)\ **Post date:** [January 3, 2003, 12:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anyone-ever-open-mic-at-a-comedy-club/146281/4 "2003-01-03T00:01:21Z")
I have a friend who is now president of his speech team, but his first time competing at the college level, he tried an ADS (After Dinner Speech - basically, a comedy speech) that deliberately and blatantly broke every rule (including the time limit). The one thing I remember his judge saying about that was that his problem was he wasn’t established yet as a competitor. Meaning, you can get away with these things as long as your audience is convinced that _you know better_. So I guess the moral of the story is, wait until you have a sitcom 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![KGS](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/90ced4/32.png) [@KGS](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/KGS)\ **Post date:** [January 3, 2003, 12:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anyone-ever-open-mic-at-a-comedy-club/146281/5 "2003-01-03T00:44:55Z")
Ok, I gotta know. What are the rules? What jokes are you not supposed to tell? ---
**Author:** ![Alphagene](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/8e7dd6/32.png) [@Alphagene](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alphagene)\ **Post date:** [January 3, 2003, 1:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anyone-ever-open-mic-at-a-comedy-club/146281/6 "2003-01-03T01:36:24Z")
A good start is the [Hack Stand-Up Comedy FAQ](http://www.cs.uu.nl/wais/html/na-dir/comedy-faq/hack.html). It’s almost five years old, but reading it will allow you to realize that some of your jokes may not be anywhere nearly as original as you’d think. Or as funny. ---
**Author:** ![Stoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/stoid/32/272_2.png) [@Stoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stoid)\ **Post date:** [January 3, 2003, 2:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anyone-ever-open-mic-at-a-comedy-club/146281/7 "2003-01-03T02:03:17Z")
Excellent, Alphagene! And dead on. The rule is: don’t suck. And that FAQ will go a long way towards helping you not suck. ---
**Author:** ![Arnold\_Winkelried](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Arnold\_Winkelried](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Arnold_Winkelried)\ **Post date:** [January 3, 2003, 3:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anyone-ever-open-mic-at-a-comedy-club/146281/8 "2003-01-03T03:05:03Z")
I’ve never done it myself, but I’ll just relate one experience I sat through - a 20-minute routine by an amateur comic in a local coffee house, where I heard not one laugh, guffaw, or even chuckle for the whole 20 minutes. I was wondering how the poor guy found the courage to continue. He was sweating bullets by the end. ---
**Author:** ![metroshane](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/aeb1de/32.png) [@metroshane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/metroshane)\ **Post date:** [January 3, 2003, 3:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anyone-ever-open-mic-at-a-comedy-club/146281/9 "2003-01-03T15:19:28Z")
The book I’m readind has interviews with just about every top comic you can think of…and they all say they’ve been thru periods of not getting a single laugh. they’re just the ones that kept going anyway.