Comedy 101

[spatch]

This video clip (see it on YouTube before it gets lawyered out of existence) is like a class in comedy. A real object lesson. Ignore the bad audio sync; you can just listen if you want.

First, watch Bill Cosby do one of his more famous routines from "Himself", the routine about the father who teaches his kid football. Watch his delivery. Watch how he takes his time to set the joke up, how he tells it like a story, how he gets you going with the story as it builds and then springs the punchline on you. And then watch his reaction. His acceptance and subtly smug rejoinder at the end. He gets you good.

Immediately after, you'll watch Carlos Mencia. His first mistake? Stealing Cosby's joke. Brazenly stealing a joke from one of the best-known comedians of all time, who used it in one of the best-known comedy albums of all time. It should come as no surprise -- Mencia's a well-known hack, he's ganked routines from George Lopez, Joe Rogan has called him out live onstage, all kinds of stuff -- but it still surprises me, because Mencia steals Cosby's material and does so horribly. You couldn't even justify this as an "homage" to Cosby, because homages don't usually take the original material and butcher all the funny out of it.

Watch Mencia's delivery. Watch how he throws this story out all rapid-fire and angry, how he recites it like a kid who's learned a joke and wants to repeat it to all his relatives. Watch how he takes the story out of slightly-believable territory and into hyperbolic fantasy (Cosby's football kid has his moment of glory at a college game; Mencia's kid has to throw the winning TD at the Super Bowl and win MVP.) It's no longer a compelling story, it's a "Hey watch me tell this joke guys."

Then watch him deliver the punchline. And then his reaction.

Screaming and pounding a chair does not comedic punctuation make.

And neither does a completely needless rejoinder, complete with the rhymes-with-itch word cause it's all edgy and stuff, that explains the joke and then berates the mother. Why the hell do that? No, seriously, why? It brings nothing to the joke other than a burst of anger. Oops, hope you're not offended!

I hadn't really formed an opinion on Carlos Mencia other than I knew the "kids love him" cause he cusses and uses words like "beaner" and has a catchphrase to use on people he thinks are "retarded", and that I didn't care for any of that "I'm edgy! Look!" stuff. But when I saw this video, I realized Mencia isn't really that bad a performer; in fact, he's doing us all a valuable favor by teaching us how not to be a comedian.

Don't despair. I know. Comedy black holes hurt. So for some cheering up, here's Bill Cosby's wonderful Chocolate Cake For Breakfast routine. Note how the real punchline of the routine, the real stinger, comes in the last 30 seconds of the bit, and he doesn't have to milk it for you to get it. Amen.

Comments

[laura47.livejournal.com]

actually your description does not make me want to watch it

[spatch]

That's okay, because it really hurts. I think it made the cat cry. Yeah, he's crying.

[spatch]

No, wait, he was just hollering about some bug he found.

[laura47.livejournal.com]

oh, okay. did he eat it?

[spatch]

I think he did. He is now washing it down with a cool, refreshing drink from the water dish.

FURTHER BULLETINS AS EVENTS WARRANT!

[lediva.livejournal.com]

This just in: derspatchel's cat has better comic timing than Carlos Mencia.

[laura47.livejournal.com]

NNNNNNNOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

[cursethedark.livejournal.com]

Is it sad that I'm pretty sure I know exactly where your icon comes from?

[laura47.livejournal.com]

no, it's awesome!

[cursethedark.livejournal.com]

Well, that's reassuring.

[coffeebeanben.livejournal.com]

There's a split second when you can actually see Mencia thinking about how to add onto the joke. Then he comes up with the NFL bit, the super bowl bit and the MVP bit.

Oh man. Maybe I should go into standup if this is all it takes to pull it off.

[littlegirltoast.livejournal.com]

Okay, I will readily admit that that was awful and a travesty and everything.

But I feel like even worse is this thing I found tangentially... following a couple similar links, I wound up at the page of this sketch alleged-comedy group, "The Next Level Oh Yah!"

Oh no

I have to warn you that far beyond being a how-not-to be funny tutorial, it is very close to being a how-not-to-want-to-breathe-or-live-any-longer tutorial.

I just can't imagine wrapping one of these and feeling like it might be fun to show it to somebody. Check out Gay Guy Beatdown for maximum lack of jokes!

[cursethedark.livejournal.com]

Who do I kill for this: me or you?

[semer.livejournal.com]

Yes.

[spatch]

Golly, with a name like "Gay Guy Beatdown", how can it not be funny?

The answer: VERY EASILY.

Man, this is some serious comedy anthrax here.

[littlegirltoast.livejournal.com]

It's almost like... surreally awful. I haven't seen deliveries this stilted since grade 10 drama class. I mean seriously even grade 11 drama class had moved up past these apparent grown-ups.

There are just NO JOKES! They don't have any JOKES! If they did they wouldn't be funny, but they DON'T! How do you make a comedy sketch and forget to even try to make anyone laugh?

[semer.livejournal.com]

Oh sweet FSM, Chocolate Cake for Breakfast... that routine was seriously a potent staple of my childhood. I don't know if I've seen it that many times; in fact, it's been repeated so much in my house that watching it again just now actually yielded some surprises - little bits forgotten here and there, slight differences in timing.

That was a bizarre and wonderful experience. Bless you, Huncle Spatch.

[scout1222.livejournal.com]

We did the same thing in my household. And watching the football clip reminds me how much I love that entire performance. Like I need to own it love it.

[muffyjo]

OMG, thank you. I've been thinking about that routine lately! (Chocolate cake). You have made my day!

[gismonda.livejournal.com]

Spatch is great! He posts about chocolate cake!

[olethrosdc.livejournal.com]

Very interesting difference.

[grumqa.livejournal.com]

You have to be careful with eggs.

[spatch]

gets me every time.

[tansu.livejournal.com]

me too

[fancycwabs.livejournal.com]

I think he stole the screaming and pounding on the chair from Sam Kinison.

Of course, if you want something that's so clearly not funny that I never ever want to see them ever, check out the Memphis Freak Engine, who turn something that's funny when it happens to cartoon characters into Hostel.

[campion7.livejournal.com]

A great comedian just has to tell a story to get people laughing.

A buffoon has to scream and howl and swear to get people even interested, let alone to laugh. (Okay, maybe Robin Williams is the exception to that.)

That's what makes Cosby one of the best.

[muse0fire.livejournal.com]

Agreed - Robin Williams Live at the Met still gets me ROTFLMAO.

[spatch]

There are some comedians who've done very well with the manic and the jumping and the n'hey. Mencia seems torn between which comic he wants to be: "White people drive like this, Latinos drive like this" comic, the "Here's the punchline, now AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGH!! LET ME BEAT THE MICROPHONE AGAINST MY HEAD, THEN FLOP TO THE GROUND AND WRIGGLE AROUND LIKE DANE COOK!" comic, or the joke-stealing comic. Perhaps he chooses the third option because he's not so hot with the other two.

One of the theories I heard is that Mencia may not be realizing he's ganking material; he hears a joke and it gets into his head and, after time, he's somehow convinced he thought it up. Not to roast any sacred cows, but Robin Williams is actually rather notorious for this. I could understand that -- I mean, once he gets riffing and the stuff is flying out of his head at the speed of light, he may not have the internal mechanism in place to make spot checks ("Is this mine? Did I hear it from someone else?")

But that theory only works with small jokes, one-liners, riffs, that kind of thing. It's kind of hard to believe that someone could unconsciously start into a routine stolen wholesale from another comedian. The football joke isn't even one of those Generic Universal Jokes that you can take and twist around to suit your needs; it's a Cosby original.

It's like that episode of The Cosby Show where Theo buys the expensive shirt with Cliff's credit card so Cliff has to take it back, but Theo really wants that shirt, so Denise makes him one but one sleeve is longer than the other and the collar's all messed up and he looks goofy, but then all his friends think it's cool and I write a run-on sentence twenty-plus years later about it. Mencia's taken Cosby's shirt, sewed up his own, makes him look terrible, but there's a crowd who thinks he's cool. Go fig.

[signsoflife.livejournal.com]

I've also heard that Williams was pretty quick with the apology and the checkbook when called on repeating other comedians' jokes.

[spatch]

You're right. Robin Williams does admit his gaffe when it's pointed out, and makes restitution accordingly, which is another reason why it's highly likely he does do it unconsciously, and knows it -- but still can't help himself.

Mencia's response to Joe Rogan's accusations (and corroboration) was simply "You're a whiny bitch who's jealous of me."

[littlegirltoast.livejournal.com]

Yo whatever one's take on Williams' merit is, I don't think you'll get very far arguing that he isn't a buffoon. He may or may not be a very expert buffoon, but that's definitely what he is.

[muse0fire.livejournal.com]

Actually the difference between Cosby and Mencia makes me think about the fact that the art of real comedy story telling seems to be getting lost. Is Garrison Keillor the only one who sort of does that now?

It also mirrors what's wrong with most sitcoms these days* - they aim for the quick and easy punchline after every other line, instead of telling stories that have also involve funny lines, and that lend themselves to humor (like Cheers, M*A*S*H, Taxi, etc.)** It's a deeper humor, and I think it's actually being found more often in dramas these days (anything written by Joss Whedon) than in sitcoms.

*and you kids get offa my lawn
**damn I'm old

[littlegirltoast.livejournal.com]

David Cross tells stories. They aren't always funny, but I think that's kind of reminiscent of Bill Cosby, too - people don't tend to remember the vast ocean of duds that Bill's gems are swimming in. He's had a long career on stage and the best years of it have been distilled into probably a couple records' worth of classics. His propensity for meandering improv resulted in a lot of klunkers, though. I'm sure a lot of them aren't preserved in any fashion, but even if you go to Bill Cosby Is A Very Funny Fellow, Right, which was a greatest hits itself, there's the bit Hoof & Mouth. It's terrible! He's audibly spinning it out and it has no punchline and if he didn't know by the end of it that it was a non-starter, then he paid too much attention to the generous audience.

I think that also mirrors what's always been wrong with sitcoms - everything that's still wrong with them now. We just excise the chaff from our memories and take home DVD sets of the ones that we thought were pretty darn clever. And okay as far as I know no-one has made a pretty darn clever one since Sports Night and that was a checkered affair at best anyway, but I don't think that what sucks about the sitcoms on now hasn't always been what sucked about sitcoms.

I think it's strange to call humour that's more incidental and less intrinsic to the action "deeper". It's just more restrained. Staying quiet to appear deep is the oldest trick in the book, but it's not like when CJ cracks up and says "I just remembered something funny about the deficit!" in The West Wing it's a joke that really makes you think or expresses something profound... it's just a genuinely hilarious moment that isn't wedged in between a zillion crappy jokes about how fat people sure do love to eat and men are very stupid.

[infinitehotel.livejournal.com]

A friend of mine used to do stand-up around Boston, and to hear him tell it, Mencia's kind of humor is what gets you gigs for the first couple of years. The crew that shows up at Dick's or the Aku-Aku doesn't want Cosby, they barely want Kinnison. They just want to hear the word "fuck". A lot. Everything I've seen from Mencia reminds me of the guys I used to have to watch warm up the crowd before my friend went on.

[sanspoof.livejournal.com]

Here's also Lenlow's little remix, and his longer version.
I'd've lunk to his site, but those songs aren't up anymore. Dunno why.

[dcart.livejournal.com]

I really hate Carlos Mencia. He's in the same category with Toby Keith, in my book, of people who just make the world a worse place by packaging all of the mainstream prejudices as "entertainment".

[spatch]

During the video where Joe Rogan calls Mencia out live on stage, he mentions a joke about how "California wants to kick all the illegal Mexicans out and then put up a big wall to keep them out ... but who would build the wall?"

Mencia ganked this joke from Ari Shaffir when Ari was opening for him. Mencia denied it vehemently; his defense when Rogan called him out was "Ari couldn't have come up with that joke, he's a Jewish comedian, he tells Jewish jokes!"

Pure class.

[moneypenny.livejournal.com]

Thank you for setting off an embarrassingly long stint of procrastination at work today where I watched every YouTube clip and loaded every website relative to the Mencia plagiarism thing. I never, ever thought I would spend this much time thinking about Joe Rogan at all, much less in a positive light.

[spatch]

I've never been too much of a Joe Rogan fan myself (well, he was pretty funny in Newsradio) but I gotta admit the guy's got integrity, or at least some serious stones, for calling Carlos Mencia out in public at the expense of his career. He's been banned from the Comedy Store, his agent's dropped him, and boy oh boy do the Mencia fans have it in for him.

But, as he says, at least he's not a comedian who steals jokes from others.

[moneypenny.livejournal.com]

OHMYGOD SPATCH, INFLUENTIAL FELLOW BOSTONIAN THAT I DON'T EVEN KNOW. So what I didn't say earlier was that the depths of my procrastination reached the truly pathetic level of sending a letter of support to Joe Rogan. Below, please find the entire content of the e-mail, including the absence of "Dear Mr. Rogan" or even "sup Joe." Note that I changed my first name to another first name starting with E because my e-mail address includes my first initial and distinctive last name, and in case it ended up being made public and Google-able, I didn't want potential employers to find out that I'd written to him.

It's easy to snap judge you as the bad guy in this tiff off the bat, because everybody hates Fear Factor. I'm sure you know it's a shitty show and you didn't want to do it anyway, but you must recognize that people will be like "Fuck this guy, Fear Factor sucks." Fortunately, Carlos Mencia is douching it up sufficiently that he will easily become the ready bad guy you will probably turn yourself into a hero for the cause, and everybody will forget about Fear Factor. He's seriously not even that funny so I think the smart money will go your way. I'm hoping this will do a lot for your standup career too, both because you're awesomer than I gave you credit for and because it will help render Fear Factor irrelevant to pop culture.

This is a douchey e-mail, and sorry to harp on you for doing Fear Factor when you're just trying to make a living, but I'm hung over and probably have to break up with my boyfriend and I'm in the sort of shitty mood where I yelled at a negligent parent on public transportation today, so I thought I would share my cynicism with you, formalizing my rock-bottom position by writing unsolicited mail to a celebrity about a matter that has nothing to do with me. Best of luck and may Carlos Mencia have to eat all those nasty tapeworm parasites that people have to swim in on Fear Factor.

I love justice but hate Fear Factor,
Erin

[Note for anyone I know who reads this and is surprised: I don't know if I'm actually breaking up with my boyfriend and certainly neither of us want to, but as grad school circumstances will force me to live in a different city from him next year it's looking possible so I whipped that worst-case scenario by my good buddy Joe.]

I certainly did not expect to receive a reply from Joe Rogan this evening, a few hours after writing this salutation-less diatribe. But that's what I came home to in my Gmail inbox, and it's so important to note for posterity that I had to risk abject humiliation and publicize this ridiculous gesture of mine.
Hahaha, I hate fear factor too. I just enjoyed the money.

This so called "douchey" email is my favorite one that I've received all day.
Negligent parents deserve to be yelled at.
Rock the fuck on, sister.

Joe

Thank you, Spatch. Thank you for EVERYTHING.

Yours,
Emily

[moneypenny.livejournal.com]

God, the GRAMMAR in that e-mail I sent to Joe. The typos. It hurts my eyes.

[spatch]

Coming in late here, but that's just fucking awesome. Internet brushes-with-fame are wonderful, are they not? Especially when Rogan admits to hating Fear Factor too. Brilliant.

I'm glad you had such an awesome connection there.

[nolly.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the reminder that there are good solo comendians (Cosby), and there's been good comedy since Abbott and Costello (who remain the peak of comic achievment for me, but the list of funny is a bit longer now, and is always subject to change).

[invisibelle.livejournal.com]

I've never quite decided how I feel about dissecting comedy. Stealing a joke is bad, and his timing sucks, the screaming and banging are dumb... but "that bitch never played catch with you" still has a slight twinge of funny to me, especially with the ever-so-slight accent.

Still, despite having some distaste for Cosby as a person, his jokes are pretty amazing. I think of the chocolate cake routine every time I eat chocolate cake. heh.

[fancycwabs.livejournal.com]

Cosby should totally sue Viacom for a billion dollars.