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

[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.