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Stand-up cliches you want to fuck off

Started by olliebean, April 16, 2018, 10:15:40 PM

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olliebean

I'm not thinking about hack material, so much as common performance tropes and tics that make you wince. For example: when telling a story from life, specifying "This is true." I don't care if it's true, I know it's a performance. I only care if it's entertaining. If you make a point of saying "This is true" about one particular story, it interrupts my suspension of disbelief, and for every other story you tell that isn't an obvious and unashamed flight of fancy, the thought "Yeah, but that probably didn't actually happen like that" is going to get in the way of my enjoyment.

Another one is "What else was I going to tell you?" as a strategy to fill time whilst trying to remember the next bit. Loads of stand-ups use this, and it's because they were taught to do it in the City Lit course that most wannabe stand-ups did before Amused Moose cornered the market, or have picked it up from other acts who learned it in that course. Having done that course myself, I'm hyper-aware of it and it annoys the hell out of me.

Any others?

up_the_hampipe

Quote from: olliebean on April 16, 2018, 10:15:40 PM
I'm not thinking about hack material, so much as common performance tropes and tics that make you wince. For example: when telling a story from life, specifying "This is true." I don't care if it's true, I know it's a performance. I only care if it's entertaining. If you make a point of saying "This is true" about one particular story, it interrupts my suspension of disbelief, and for every other story you tell that isn't an obvious and unashamed flight of fancy, the thought "Yeah, but that probably didn't actually happen like that" is going to get in the way of my enjoyment.

Yeah, but sometimes establishing the truth of the situation is necessary to the comedy. When we watch stand-ups tell stories, we assume they're exaggerating or completely making it up. Some stories are just funny on their own, others need the knowledge of complete truth for it to be funny. For example, I watched Greg Davies' new stand-up last night, and a lot of his bits work with his emphasis that they are completely true, or that he's quoting someone in the story verbatim.

BeardFaceMan

Stand up comedians acting horrified at the awful things they are saying,  or even worse, giving a running commentary about how outrageous the things they are saying are. I find Jim Gaffigan unwatchable because of his high pitched 'I can't believe I just said that' voice,  and David Baddiel used to do the putting his hand over the mic thing and whispering things like 'I cant believe what hes saying'. Fuck right off with that shit.


Rolf Lundgren

Comedians telling me how funny their mum/dad/sibling/mate is. If they were any good they'd be on stage instead of you.

olliebean

Quote from: up_the_hampipe on April 16, 2018, 10:22:51 PM
Yeah, but sometimes establishing the truth of the situation is necessary to the comedy. When we watch stand-ups tell stories, we assume they're exaggerating or completely making it up. Some stories are just funny on their own, others need the knowledge of complete truth for it to be funny. For example, I watched Greg Davies' new stand-up last night, and a lot of his bits work with his emphasis that they are completely true, or that he's quoting someone in the story verbatim.

Actually it was Greg Davies that prompted me to think of it. He's good enough that I got past it fairly easily, but I didn't think either of the stories (I think there were two) that he attached it to would have been any less funny if he hadn't made a point of saying it. The context was an overall collection of believable, if sometimes extraordinary, anecdotes that were presented as truth, and marking out one or two as needing to be particularly labelled as such intrinsically casts doubt on the veracity of the rest.

Ron Superior

"That deserved a much bigger laugh".  That seems to have become a pretty common thing to say recently and it can fuck right off.

Callbacks in general have just become such a cheap laugh where they don't need to be particularly funny or relevant, but just doing a callback to anything previously said will just ellicit a laugh from easily impressed pricks.

zomgmouse

Quote from: Rolf Lundgren on April 16, 2018, 11:32:23 PM
Comedians telling me how funny their mum/dad/sibling/mate is. If they were any good they'd be on stage instead of you.

This one definitely gets me. Especially if the punchline is just something that person said, without some kind of elaboration. That's the kicker - if there's some kind of commentary or if what someone said leads to a larger bit then I can get behind it, but if it's just repeating verbatim a funny thing you saw or read or heard, you really need to work more.

Similarly, consistently repeating sad or harrowing experiences without much else just reminds me of Rupert Pupkin.

Quote from: Rolf Lundgren on April 16, 2018, 11:32:23 PM
Comedians telling me how funny their mum/dad/sibling/mate is. If they were any good they'd be on stage instead of you.

Not necessarily, as the person concerned maybe doesn't realise they're funny, or that some find them funny anyway, and at any rate, might not be interested in pursuing a career in comedy.

Sexton Brackets Drugbust

The hyperbole of the compère is a tricky one, as I get that their job is to generate a good atmosphere and energy in the room and make the audience feel they're witnessing a truly one-off event, but I hate the whole, "Oh my God, you just pulled literally the best face ever!" or, "That is an amazing laugh," and, "I ask audiences that question a lot, and that is genuinely the weirdest answer I've ever got."

PlasticTom

#10
Unearned applause breaks. When a comedian purposefully waits for applause, which the audience gradually joins in with.

This guy Tony Deyo does it a lot. He was quite entertaining on an early Tuesdays With Stories episode so I checked out a TV spot he did. Very weak material, very happy with his own jokes, lots of long gaps left, in which the audience feel that they have to do something. The one at 4:25 is especially egregious

https://youtu.be/RM1YLPxbIXo

The callback at the end is sure to annoy others in this thread, too

There's a good Joe List half hour on Netflix at the moment, but he really overuses the callbacks too. There's one every five minutes or so. Do they make the audience feel clever for spotting them? Never quite got the appeal of a callback

phantom_power

Quote from: up_the_hampipe on April 16, 2018, 10:22:51 PM
Yeah, but sometimes establishing the truth of the situation is necessary to the comedy. When we watch stand-ups tell stories, we assume they're exaggerating or completely making it up. Some stories are just funny on their own, others need the knowledge of complete truth for it to be funny. For example, I watched Greg Davies' new stand-up last night, and a lot of his bits work with his emphasis that they are completely true, or that he's quoting someone in the story verbatim.

Whenever a comedian says this I always think they are lying. Often the story they then go on to tell is so ridiculous they are clearly lying

Depressed Beyond Tables

Quote from: PlasticTom on April 17, 2018, 08:24:30 AM
Unearned applause breaks. When a comedian purposefully waits for applause, which the audience gradually joins in with.

This guy Tony Deo does it a lot. He was quite entertaining on an early Tuesdays With Stories episode so I checked out a TV spot he did. Very weak material, very happy with his own jokes, lots of long gaps left in which the audience feel that they have to do something. The one at 4:25 is especially egregious

https://youtu.be/RM1YLPxbIXo

The callback at the end is sure to annoy others in this thread, too

There's a good Joe List half hour on Netflix at the moment, but he really overuses the callbacks too. There's one every five minutes or so. Do they make the audience feel clever for spotting them? Never quite got the appeal of a callback

Christ he is seriously in full talkshow host mode. It looked like when he put his right hand in his pocket he would eventually pull out a gun and shoot the place up.

Neville Chamberlain

I hate stand-ups who pace back and forth across the stage so watching them is like watching a game of bloody tennis.

holyzombiejesus

Might warrant a separate thread but I really hate the wacky publicity photos that so many comedians have. I guess it's tricky because if your'e in a band, your photo is there to make you look cool or interesting, an author's will try and make them look intelligent or enigmatic whatever but a comedian has to look 'funny'. This often means looking to the side, especially if you are woman. A pub I often drink in does a comedy night and they have the posters above the urinals. I'm so often tempted to just aim a couple of feet higher.




ersatz99

I don't like headset mics and awkward hands.

Brundle-Fly

British comedians who wish they were American.

Fambo Number Mive

"I'm from X. Anyone from X in tonight?"


Steven

Quote from: BeardFaceMan on April 16, 2018, 10:39:55 PM
Stand up comedians acting horrified at the awful things they are saying,  or even worse, giving a running commentary about how outrageous the things they are saying are. I find Jim Gaffigan unwatchable because of his high pitched 'I can't believe I just said that' voice,  and David Baddiel used to do the putting his hand over the mic thing and whispering things like 'I cant believe what hes saying'. Fuck right off with that shit.

You'd love this guy.

neveragain

"I know what you're thinking. X has let himself go."

Subverted I suppose by Stewart Lee.

Depressed Beyond Tables

Q: 'What do you do for a living?'

A: 'I've a better idea. Why don't I shoot you in the face?'

BeardFaceMan

Quote from: Steven on April 17, 2018, 12:32:45 PM
You'd love this guy.

Fuck me thats bad. Thats something else I hate, he seems to unable to speak without making himself laugh, Sara Pascoe and Lauren Lapkus do this a lot and it's really annoying but that guy has taken it to the extreme, that was terrible. This is more the kind of thing I was talking about though - https://youtu.be/V8HpHYu354Q?t=1783

It's more the comedian doing the voice of the audience that I dislike, especially if that voice is outrage. Fuck off mate, if the audience were outraged at your naughtiness they wouldn't be fucking laughing.

up_the_hampipe

Quote from: Depressed Beyond Tables on April 17, 2018, 01:11:48 PM
Q: 'What do you do for a living?'

A: 'I've a better idea. Why don't I shoot you in the face?'

That reminds me, I hate it when audience members try to be funny.

Fambo Number Mive

I hate the whole "have a go at the front row of the audience". It's so cringe and tedious, and sometimes that can fill 10 mins of a standup set.


Cuellar

From the audience: heckling
From the performer: making a virtue of how badly you've been heckled, making a virtue of 'destroying' hecklers.

Why does it have to be so combative? To hear people like Simon Munnery brag about how tough they are cos they almost got beaten up in an Edinburgh club, or all that fucking Malcolm Hardee 'wow you have to be sooo tough to do comedy there!!' type shit.

Pointless machismo from people who pretend to be above it.

DrGreggles

Quote from: Fambo Number Mive on April 17, 2018, 02:44:41 PM
I hate the whole "have a go at the front row of the audience". It's so cringe and tedious, and sometimes that can fill 10 mins of a standup set.

Which is why they do it.

SteveDave

Greg Davies laughing at his own act got a bit much for me. Especially when it wasn't all that.

the

Quote from: Cuellar on April 17, 2018, 02:49:39 PMheckling [...] Why does it have to be so combative?

Because a heckler is undermining you as a performer. They're distracting from your gags, the way they unfold and are timed, and are giving the rest of the audience a focal point other than you.

The performer must tackle them head-on to avoid having their act undermined. The way to do this is to be funnier than the heckler and wrestle control and focus back to the performer.

To ignore it is to fail in your role as the focal point / funniest person in the room. And it just damages your act.

rasta-spouse

There's a thing lately where a comic will make a joke and say something like, "that's a much cleverer joke than you gave it credit for", or "that's my favourite joke in my set". And the thing is the actual joke wasn't great. Sometimes they won't even say anything and they'll just pause for a few seconds and give a smug smile. It bothers me, but what recourse do I have?

Cuellar

Quote from: the on April 17, 2018, 03:02:31 PM
Because a heckler is undermining you as a performer. They're distracting from your gags, the way they unfold and are timed, and are giving the rest of the audience a focal point other than you.

The performer must tackle them head-on to avoid having their act undermined. The way to do this is to be funnier than the heckler and wrestle control and focus back to the performer.

To ignore it is to fail in your role as the focal point / funniest person in the room. And it just damages your act.

Yeah, but that would be academic if people didn't heckle. So I want heckling to fuck off, on the part of the audience.