A couple of seasons ago or so, the one where Josh Blue won, I quit watching halfway through because they, in my opinion, kept voting off the funniest comics. I haven’t watched any other seasons since, but the commercials for the upcoming season seem really funny and I’m wondering if I should give it another chance.
Has anybody seen the last season or two? How was it?
It’s been on?
There’s been at least one other season since Blue won. Maybe two.
One. I liked the winner the last season, but my favorite (Jeff Dye) came in third. He should have been first or second :mad:
I liked last season , I’ll be watching the new one.
Which, to be clear, was two years ago. They didn’t have a season last year.
We’ll be watching, and I’m sure I’ll be complaining how 90% of the material is completely hack and derivative. The black guy will make jokes about being black, the fat guy will make jokes about being fat, etc., and most of it will be really, really bad.
Still, someone will shine through. They probably won’t win, but they’ll be there and I’ll be rooting for them.
This is gonna be one of those seasons where they avoid trying to do the reality show thing and just make it a stand up competition. So yes, give it another go.
I’m still pissed off the way that the I’m from HICKORY ALABAMA guy dominated the show a couple seasons ago. He took out many way funnier comedians with what was essentially a ripoff of Jeff Foxworthy (who himself was a one hit wonder comedian), including that one guy who actually made diabetes into something funny!
I think the main reason that LCS got cancelled again was because a woman finally won (who TOTALLY deserved to win, btw), so they felt like they had no new milestone to accomplish, but it came back because #1 we need a show like this (I HATE American Idol, btw) and #2 what the hell ELSE is NBC gonna air in the summer? Now, if they could only QUIT with the damn executive meddling and actually have a fair competition for a change???
“Last Comic Standing” has never been an actual game show; the producers have always decided who will win. The entire nonsense about casting calls and whatnot was purely staged, with walk-ons used as stooges. All the competitors are experienced comics the the ones likely to advance are the producers’ favourites.
So if you’re watching hoping for a game show, forget it. What you’re seeing are professional comics - a show with amateur comics would be unbearably awful - doing a scripted show.
If you want to just see some standup comedy and accept it as such, by all means watch. Any given episode has at least a dozen or more top notch gags.
Last Comic Standing is one of only three “reality” shows I have ever watched (I have watched Amazing Race pretty regularly for the past few years and I have watched Kitchen Nightmare a handful of times) as several years back I was flipping channels and I somehow turned on one of the first ever episodes of Last Comic Standing (with Jay Mohr) and then watched several of the subsequent shows that summer…
I mostly enjoyed it, (even though one of the least funny contestants-Dat Phan?-won that year) but I never really watched LCS again, except for a few episodes during the year that big fat Ralphie May was on. (I only remember this because he had to do a stand -up set the day after his father passed away, and even though I didn’t like him at all, it was very touching how he went on despite his tears, which I have no doubt were completely real)
How do you know it is rigged?
I wouldn’t doubt it for a minute (in fact I would bet that almost all so-called reality shows are a huge put on, including Amazing Race, up to a point) but I would be less likely to bother trying to watch again if I knew that it was all just more mediocre scripted TV.
Well, I have started watching LCS again, and while it is fairly enjoyable, as other posters pointed out, it is pretty clear that some contestants are “made” and are going to be getting the VIP treatment by the producers and judges…
The comics who made the finals are mostly (IMHO) the funniest of the competition (with a couple of notable exceptions) but it is clear this is not a fair contest, at least up to this point. Some actually got twice the set time as others did, and one guy was actually invited by the judges to keep his set going by doing impersonations after his time was up. I guess if the audience really gets to vote and the votes are properly tallied it will be another story, but with the amount of on-air time any one comic gets, alongside favorable editing, the selection can obviously be strongly influenced by the powers that be.
One last thing: Host Craig Robinson is not at all humorous or charismatic and he actually makes Jay Mohr and Dat Phan look hilarious in comparison.
They all got the same time but each comic’s set was edited differently for TV. Andy Kindler talked about a female comic (my memory is crap and I’m bad with names) mentioning Count Chocula, but we never saw that on TV.
And I didn’t mind the impressions. I thought he was pretty good.
ETA: I’m enjoying this more than I did two seasons ago. They actually seem to be passing the funny ones through.
I have only seen clips from the show but I can’t understand anyone wanting to watch it, apart from the drama/suspense factor. If you want to discover good new stand up comedians, do a bit of research on the internet. I am not the biggest fan of stand up comedy, but I have discovered hours worth of material from a dozen or so great comedians out there.
If you really want to know, check the article on Wikipedia. I saw the Drew Carey brouhaha and was amazed the footage of the judges walking off was aired.
So if you look at the title of the show, “Last Comic Standing”, it really is a stretch to call it that. The only word that rings true is “Last”.
Some of the unfunny winners in past seasons would challenge the “Comic” part, although technically they were attempting stand up comedy and comedy is subjective, so I give it a pass.
The word “Standing” implies a fair competition where the strongest survive and the weak are weeded out each week. Maybe the new voting format will improve this part.
If the producer’s vote overrides the judges, then it really ought to be called “Last Producer-Selected Comic Standing”.
That said, I enjoy looking at Natasha Leggero. Hope this isn’t the last we see of her.
All the judges did was tell 90% of the comics that they were funny. The judges seemed to be aware that their presence is solely to make the show seem like a legit talent competition.
You might not like Craig Robinson, but at least he wasn’t as horrible as the odious Anthony “Flopsweat” Clark.
Well hopefully it’s legit this time. I’m pretty satisfied with the selections, although there are two changes I’d make, but since I’m bad memorizing names, and most things in general, I can’t remember the names of the two comics who I’d have in the finals.
I couldn’t believe that one comic who was arguing with the judges. He wasn’t all that funny in reality, but in his mind he killed. When all three had nothing really good to say I knew he wouldn’t make it.
to the best of my recollection, Dat Phan and Ralphie May were on the same season. I thought Ralphie May should have won that season. Afterwards, I figured the producers decided Dat Phan was more “saleable” than Ralphie May.
I am enjoying this year’s season so far.
We finally sat down yesterday and watched four hours worth of the semi-finals.
The judges were worse than usual this year…generally, maybe half of the final group deserve a spot. This year, a whopping two out of ten should be there. Myq Kaplan and Tommy Johnagin are the only ones really good enough to objectively deserve a shot at this. Every one of those other “groups” had someone in it that got shafted.
Just hope that A) Kaplan and Johnagin can keep the level high enough, and B) voters can recognize hack material when they hear it.
I don’t know if it was just me, but I felt most of the comic’s sets tonight were actually a step down from the material that they were using to get into the finals in the first place.
Very poor showings for several of the group (especially the older guy whose schtick is to look around, seemingly confused and bewildered—he fucking BOMBED) and there is clearly an odds-on favorite (IMHO) to win it all, the angry NYC Italian guy who has done well at each stage so far…
In my mind, LCS jumped the shark when Lavell Crawford and his 2 jokes (1: I’m black and also really fat. 2: I’m really fat and also black) came in 2nd.
My two favorite were Rachel Feinstein and Mike DeStefano.