Did anyone else watch last night ?
I didn’t really think they were that funny. I only laughed at one. The woman who made funny faces and made the joke about “Mommy?Mommy?Mommy? I can do this.”
The only other one that made me smile was the guy who was a cop in Maine. I live in an area like that, so I could relate.
What makes you eligable to try out ? I know I’ve seen a lot of the comedians on specials on Comedy Central. I thought these peole had already made it.
I half-watched while eating dinner, ironing curtains, and talking to my sister on the phone (only the last two were done at the same time). From what I saw, no, they weren’t really that funny. I thought that it was supposed to be for amateurs too, but from all the “oh, reallys” and hesitation the judges gave people when they said they hadn’t been doing stand-up long gave me the impression that they expected people with years of experience. They did give the one amateur guy, the Russian, a shot though.
The “Mommy Mommy Mommy” girl was Jessica Kirson - I know her as an acquaintance and I was actually a little annoyed with the material she chose to do in the first go-round. She’s MUCH funnier than they showed in her spot and last night didn’t reflect that. But hey, at least she made it.
I don’t know what the criteria is, but obviously, it’s not limited to amateurs or Kathleen Madigan wouldn’t have been there - I’ve seen her in so many stand-up shows, I was a little surprised to see her.
Some of these people sucked rocks. How the hell did they think they were funny? But I did like a few of them - the only one I was disappointed about who didn’t make it was the Mary Beth Cowan girl from Boston. I thought her librarian joke was a riot (okay, I find librarian humor funny).
And mr. avabeth wasn’t watching with me except in various spurts, but after the third round, he kept calling to me “Has Buck Star shown up again yet?”. Gotta give the guy applause for tenacity.
I’m curious to see how it goes. If anything, it’s made me want to get down to Open Mic Night and try it. I may suck ass, but I’ve wanted to try stand-up since I was in high school. I’ll never do this, though - I enjoy laughing too much at the talent scouts - wouldn’t want them to be mean to me;).
Ava
A couple of them were just plain weird – the older woman on spanking her grandchild, and the “little person.” I laughed a couple of times, but didn’t bust a gut over anything.
I watched last summer, but missed the shows with the try-outs, so I was curious to see what the early stages were like. Some of the people were so bad, you had to wonder what they were thinking. I mean, I’m pretty freakin’ funny, but I have no fantasies of being a stand-up comic.
And why were they picking so many people in the early cities, and only one or two from the later ones? Was that just bad planning on the part of the two guys?
During the tryouts the comics really don’t have enough time to get any sort of momentum going but I did see some genius in a few of them. One of my favorite comics was on the show and if Kathleen Madigan doesn’t make the finals, I would be very surprise as she actually has a quite impressive resume
I thought some of them were pretty good, but it’s hard to tell when you only get 30 seconds of someone. The judges had me laughing, though.
And, no, I don’t think it’s meant to be for amateurs. All of the comedians on last year’s show were touring comics. Jeez, can you imagine a housefull of amateurs? There’s a show no one would watch. I think the reason the judges kept asking is so they could let the person down easy,
“How long have you been doing comedy?”
“Oh, two months or so.”
Much easier to let a person like this down than someone who tells them he’s been on the circuit for 10 years.
I watched for a few minutes, but it was a waste of time. How the hell can you tell anything from thirty seconds? Hell, when Dean Martin’s Comedyworld tried that, they even managed to make Monty Python seem unfunny. :rolleyes:
You need at least five minutes of an act to get any feel for it at all. So this was basically watching the judges choose people without knowing what they were choosing.
I thought some of them were pretty funny. I loved the guy with the joke “I was married for 35 years, then my wife passed away… or moved, I’m not sure.” Comedy gold, that.
But Buck Star – man, I just wanted to slap that guy after a while. He was like a nightmare version of Carrot Top, only not as funny.
I disagree. If a comic is any good he will try out by showcasing some of his best and most rehearsed stuff in 30 seconds and the judges can at least tell if he has a sense of timing, original material, and delivery. I can’t imagine being forced to watch some of those people for 5 whole minutes… you could tell some of them were awful in 5 seconds.
The call backs were their chance to show more of their style and act. The first cuts had to be made quickly since there were so many people auditioning.
I was thinking the exact same thing about Buck Star. It was like they tried to clone Carrot Top but something went terribly wrong and it is really hard to be wronger ( I know it’s not a word) than Carrot Top.
I was completely sucked into this show.
I’m glad that Ant has made it to the Vegas round, perhaps if he gets into the house he can stop whoring himself out to every “let’s show stock footage and get C-list celebs to share their opinions” show on VH1 and E! I mean, I love the 80s, I love the 90s, 100 Greatest Scandals, ad infinitum, I know it’s easy work but please, Ant, enough!
It’ll be interesting to see if Kerri Louise makes it into the house, leaving behind her husband and twin toddlers.
But my favorites, right now, are the ethnic guys – the Indian Christian guy whose father was afraid of the dark and the Jewish Iranian would-have-been doctor whose parents kept the parallel calendars of his acheivements. I really liked how both of them came across.
I’ve should just give in and go ahead and set the season pass on the TiVo.
I was disappointed by who they have going to Vegas, my favorite people (guy who’s dad’s afraid of the dark, Pablo Fransisco, the cop from Maine, Vladimir) are all out. I thought they deserved to go on.
Anywho, I’m glad the Iranian guy and Kathleen Madigon will be going on.
“Hi, I’m Will Durst, and I’m SLUMMING!!!” Well, that’s how he SHOULD have opened his routine.
As much as I like established pros like Durst and Kathleen Madigan, I don’t think they really belong. They’re like kids who graduate from high school, but the following fall they’re STILL hanging around.
All I know is that I’ve found my new love. There is something about Bonnie McFarlane that just drives me nuts. In the first show with those pigtails and that hat. (She was the one saying that cops shouldn’t wear mirrored glasses because when they’re talking to her she thinks she needs to cut her bangs, etc. etc… )
It’s already clear that the guiding hand of the producers is visible in the process – Sue Costello? Puh-leeze. I understand why they want to get a good mix of people in the house, and don’t really mind their doing casting with thoughts of the show as a show – but they could have at least found better snippets of the faves to make it a bit less obvious that that’s what they’re doing. Hm, unless there are no snippets where the pets are actually funny? Oh that can’t possibly be the case! :rolleyes:
How surreal to see Rich Vos on the panel last night. If only it had been my crushee, Dave Mordell…
My wife and I love the show, but we are super pissed that they didn’t pick Jim Wiggins, the “old hippie”. That guy was hilarious!
So now we have 19 “young” people and 1 “old” person going to Las Vegas. Nice.
I thought Ant was terrible. “You’re in Vegas. 4 queens beats a straight.” What a long lead-in to a completely lame pay-off that vaguely sounds like I’ve heard it before.
Durst is a pro.
Jim Norton is a very funny guy. Crass and rude, but observational too. kind of a “dice-clay” meets “carlin” guy. I hope he shines on this.
Pablo Francisco is funny (he was cut).
Madigan I’ve seen a lot.
At least 3 people did jokes about getting stopped by the cops. I thought the guy who talked about touching the cop’s face was the only original one. Were they all cut?
There were some funny folks, some not so funny. I think 30 seconds is VERY short. Some of the best comics are all about the persona and story-telling, and dropping 3 jokes rapid-fire in 30 seconds doesn’t do them justice.
How can people still make jokes about black/white differences getting stopped by the cops, or NYC cabs not picking people up? So old.
It was funny to see Jim Norton from “Tough Crowd” on there.
Colin Quinn and Rich Vos (who’s also a regular on Tough Crowd) were judges.
Gee, I wonder if he’ll make it?
When you’ve already had a sitcom like Sue Costello or a Comedy Central special like Kathleen Madigan, I think they’ll make it.
One big guy that didn’t make it (I can’t remember his name) was the bartender at the Bada Bing in the Sopranos that keeps getting beat up by Tony.
There was nothing else on last night - so I watched…their routines were way too short to get a feel as to whether or not they had potential to be any good.
The one woman who had had the sitcom that failed, watching her routine, I thought “No wonder it failed, you suck.” I was shocked when she made it. (Especially since two of the people I’d actually laughed at didn’t make it. (Guy with dad afraid of the dark. Also, I liked the delivery of the “wear a seatbelt in a cab” guy, even though the idea was old.))
The second half, I was paying even less attention - I did like the guy with the “med school calendar.” And there was one guy (bald, short, abrasive) who was also completely non-funny, but made it, too.
Arrrrrghhhh! I missed it last night!!! Boo hoo! And I missed Rich Vos? I’m sad now. But, like twickster said, at least I didn’t missed my boyfried, Dave Mordell.
Also, I think my husband and I saw Jim Wiggins a few years back in St. Charles, Illinois (he tried out for LCS2 in Chicago). He opened for Bob Nelson. He picked on my husband for having such a lovely young woman with him (me, you smart asses). He’s 10 years older than me, so it got a good laugh.