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

[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.