I’ve had numerous co-workers and acquaintances and students and others over the years who’ve tried to get me to to try stand-up. I think I’d bomb at it. In a conversation I’ll make you pee your pants- I’ll start telling a story about an experience or a family member (one of the stories I won’t put into print for reasons of plausible deniability) or most other subjects and it can be perfect- but I don’t have an actual act. I don’t tell jokes, my stories tend to be long and involved, I like “audience participation” (if you can call it that when it’s not technically an audience) and other things I don’t think you’d get on a stage.
Good luck, RickJay–I considered taking that course when I lived in the Toronto area, but never got around to it. I did do some improv, but standup remains something I’d like to try someday. Anyway, I’m sure it will be a blast, and I hope it goes well for you.
“I’m half-Latina, half-lesbian. I like to say this right away because some of you may be new to Marga Gomez and I don’t want to shock any of you when you learn that I’m Latina.”
I would kill or severely injure someone to have the opportunity to do that. Despite intense stage fright, comedy is one of the exceptions to my fear, and one of my fantasy jobs is stand-up comedian. Hell, I even have half an act written.
Still waiting on comedy or improv classes to come to a theater near me…
An example of how well that can work … I was once at Yuk Yuk’s in Toronto. A woman came out to do her act, and among the first things she said was something like, “I know what you’re thinking. A woman comedian, so all we’re going to hear about is periods and tampons and yeast infections. Well, no, I like to think outside the box.”
That got the biggest laugh to that point of the show. And she went on to do a very funny routine about professional hockey. Wish I could remember her name; I’d love to catch another of her shows.
I tried standup a few times at open mic night at the late, lamented Holy City Zoo in SF back in the early 90’s. I’d first tried standup at my high school’s talent show and completely bombed. So I decided after high school I’d try it again, and I did it 4 or 5 times.
It was the most scared I’ve ever been - I say this having done musical open mics, performed in a play in front of hundreds of people at a time, and having been mugged at gunpoint. All that stuff was easy compared to standup. Standing up there with the light shining in my face, sweat dripping down my brow, everyone in the audience expecting me to make them laugh - scared the holy shit outta me. But the first time you get a real laugh out of the audience will be the biggest high you’ll ever have in your life.
I remember my first big laugh very clearly: I had a horribly tasteless bit (which, of course, 20-year-old me thought would be the most brilliant bit in the world) about Ted Kennedy being the perfect Ironman triathlete - if only the bike part was turned into, oh I don’t know, flipping your car off a bridge upside down into a river - crash, swim, run. Which got a couple giggles, and a few groans. But in trying to imitate Ted Kennedy (very badly), I ad-libbed that I sounded like the Pepperidge Farm cookie guy, and I riffed on that unprepared for about 3 minutes, and just killed.
<<The hair on the back of my neck is standing up right now as I’m typing - seriously.>>
I’d say it was one of the best things I’d ever done in my life, that 3 minutes. Right up there with watching the birth of my children, meeting my wife, you name it. I’ll remember it on my deathbed.
Wow - I started typing thinking I was going to mildly suggest that “standup’s worth it, but be prepared to bomb”. But after getting all verklempt reliving my first time, I’ve gotta say: RickJay, (and anyone else who’s considering trying it) you have to do this.
As Rick is probably learning, there’s a LOT to telling a joke successfully. A great joke can bomb if the teller doesn’t have his pacing, timing and delivery down.
To repeat a story I’ve told before, back in 1986, my bachelor party was held at a New York comedy club called the Comedy Cellar. There were 8 comics on that night, 7 of whom were great. The only one that sucked was the last one. He was very nervous and very young (he LOOKED as if he wasn’t old enough to drink at the bar). Of all the comics I saw that night, the ONLY one I was sure had no future was that last comic on the bill.
Chris Rock.
The kicker is, just 3 years later, I saw him on Arsenio Hall’s show telling almost the EXACT same jokes I’d seen him bomb with at my bachelor party… only THIS time, he was killing.
It took Rock years to figure out how to make good material work. SOMETIMES, there’s a very fine line between brilliant and awful.
I once saw Tommy Chun bomb at halftime of a high school basketball(state qtrfinals IIRC) game played at a college arena. I remember thinking this can’t be the best venue. His back was to half the crowd and everyone was getting up to go to the concession stands/bathroom. And then he cussed with all the kids there and got booed off the court. I think people were willin to give him a chance until that point.
Saw him much later on BET’s ComicView and he killed. So know your audience and any agent who books you at halftime of basketball game just wants his 10%.
I do. I did it for about 18 months. Placed 11th in a field of 110 comedians in a citywide competition for charity. I have my Improv performance preserved for all time - I killed.
I couldn’t sustain for a lot of reasons, but the biggest was that I bored myself- after I’d told a joke a few times I stopped being able to sell it. Since I wasn’t anywhere near prolific enough to overcome that, I had to give it up.
I think that’s part of the reason I stopped doing it after doing it here and there for 20 years (1989-2009). I have several jokes in my routine that work, and I like too (note: took me 15 years to find them!) but I never saw the reason why I had to do the same stuff, even if it works and people love it. And I’d find a hard time writing new stuff.
That (combined with a few other things - in full disclosure, comedy club politics was one of the big ones, 2009 was a lot different than 1989, where we were required now to bring people in to watch us or we don’t get a slot) was what made me hang up my Groucho glasses for good.
However, I wouldn’t trade those 20 years for anything, as others here have said, it’s a great feeling, and something I’d recommend to anyone. Have fun, keep working away at it, and have fun (I know I repeated myself).
Good luck and have fun. I am surprised how many people here have stand up experience. I also tried it for a little while. It is quite the rush to be on stage and have people laugh at your jokes. Hell even bombing can be an experience too. I never took a class but my unsolicited advice is to just try to relax and have fun. Don’t stress to hard on an act but definitely practice before going on stage and tape yourself while doing so. That helped me a lot. You only need 15 minutes of material. Once you have that you have an act and once you have that you are golden for at least a little while.
I was on “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire” (I never made the Hot Seat and never answered any questions) the same night as Rudy Reber, a former standup comic who went from 500 grand down to 32 grand because his phone-a-friend steered him wrong.
Contestants are quarantined together all day, so they all get to know each other, and Rudy told some great stories about his days as a struggling comic. One of his stories had to do with being booked at a small club in the early Eighties as opening act for some band he’d never heard of: the Soft White Underbelly.
What he didn’t know was, in those days, when heavy metal band Blue Oyster Cult was at the peak of their popularity, they occasionally played small clubs, as a treat for their hardcore fans, under the alias "The Soft White Underbelly.
How’d you like to try telling jokes in front of a bunch of metalheads who just want to hear “Don’t Fear the Reaper”? Naturally, he bombed, and felt lucky to escape without a beating.
The other thing I recall best about Rudy? We taped very soon after Rick Rockwell and Darva Conger hooked up on “Who Wants to Marry a Millionaire.” Rudy knew Rick from their old standup comic days, and he told us all, “Rick is full of shit. I know him, and there’s no WAY he’s worth a million bucks.” Rudy was ahead of the curve on that one, for sure.
(After all, they’re masters of comedy.)