# What happened to the standup comedy duo?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-happened-to-the-standup-comedy-duo/720639>\
**Category:** Cafe Society\
**Created:** [May 23, 2015, 7:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-happened-to-the-standup-comedy-duo/720639 "2015-05-23T07:46:31Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 2

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**Author:** ![DZedNConfused](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dzednconfused/32/15991_2.png) [@DZedNConfused](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DZedNConfused)\
**Post date:** [June 8, 2015, 10:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-happened-to-the-standup-comedy-duo/720639/21 "2015-06-08T22:09:25Z")

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It’s always seemed to me like a duo worked better in the medium of radio, where there wasn’t a live audience so they could bounce jokes off each other without having to worry about how they looked to the audience.

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**Author:** ![Tamerlane](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tamerlane/32/7602_2.png) [@Tamerlane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tamerlane)\
**Post date:** [June 8, 2015, 11:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-happened-to-the-standup-comedy-duo/720639/22 "2015-06-08T23:58:41Z")

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> [@RivkahChaya](#):
>
> A single stand-up comedian is cheaper than a duo, so it’s probably harder for a duo to get work unless they are in high demand, and unless they can get work, they won’t be in demand. They’d have to somehow be able to perform for a while at the same pay that a single person makes to be marketable.

One of Murphy-St. Paul ( Sue Murphy, Dan St. Paul - can’t remember which one was commenting ) said this point was a particular killer. Duos were often offered the same pay as single acts, not to mention male-female pairings as with the above were often assumed ( wrongly ) to be couples, causing occasional tiresomely touchy issues. During the heyday of standup in and around the 1980’s when comedy clubs were everywhere and pay was good, this was barely tolerable. But once the stand-up bubble popped it became kinda unsustainable economically for workaday comedians.

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**Author:** ![rsa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/839c29/32.png) [@rsa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rsa)\
**Post date:** [June 9, 2015, 5:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-happened-to-the-standup-comedy-duo/720639/23 "2015-06-09T05:59:58Z")

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Jeff Dunham and his various partners do pretty well.

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