# Stand-up comics who perform drunk or high?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stand-up-comics-who-perform-drunk-or-high/234220>\
**Category:** In My Humble Opinion\
**Created:** [March 14, 2004, 10:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stand-up-comics-who-perform-drunk-or-high/234220 "2004-03-14T10:41:46Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 2

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Gatopescado](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gatopescado/32/5711_2.png) [@Gatopescado](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gatopescado)\
**Post date:** [March 15, 2004, 6:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stand-up-comics-who-perform-drunk-or-high/234220/21 "2004-03-15T18:29:10Z")

</div>

I went to see Mitch Hedberg with Lewis Black and Dave Attell when they came to my neck of the woods. I think Mitch is a hoot, but he seemed to be on speed, which kind of ruins his whole routine. The thing that makes him funny to me is his deliberate timing of the material. On speed, it all ran together and lost its impact. Kind of disappointing. Also, they were charging $4 for a bottle of beer. :mad:

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![bittersweet](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/c57346/32.png) [@bittersweet](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bittersweet)\
**Post date:** [March 15, 2004, 10:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stand-up-comics-who-perform-drunk-or-high/234220/22 "2004-03-15T22:56:35Z")

</div>

> [@Tentacle Monster](#):
>
> …but I saw Scott Thompson on Conan. Apparently, he drinks two martinis a show and does two shows a night.

This is a bit of an aside, but still mostly relevant. Did anyone see the show Conan did the night after he and his wife had their baby? He was drinking the congratulatory gifts his guests had brought him, while taping. Before the show was over, he was no doubt plastered. That one was particularly funny…Mr. O’Brien never fails to amuse me.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Cervaise](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cervaise/32/16693_2.png) [@Cervaise](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cervaise)\
**Post date:** [March 15, 2004, 11:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stand-up-comics-who-perform-drunk-or-high/234220/23 "2004-03-15T23:05:46Z")

</div>

Wow, another Mitch Hedburg sighting! 🙂

My wife and I saw him a couple of years ago, and he was pounding down shot after shot of vodka from the club’s bar. His material was funny (as it always is), but he was so drunk his handling of transitional rhythms — waiting exactly the right amount of time between one joke and the next one, to maximize laughs — was pretty off. By the end of the set, his pacing had started to drag badly.

I don’t know what he drank while he was waiting through the warmup acts, but he had probably four or five shots in the 45 minutes he was on. :eek:

[Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stand-up-comics-who-perform-drunk-or-high/234220.md?page=1)