What is point roast?

[up_the_hampipe]

Roasts can be great, but there is a lot of resorting to lazy crappy jokes, also too many non-comedians reading out jokes they're just seeing for the first time, that weighs the whole thing down. It's definitely not aged well as a format either. The Pamela Anderson roast from 2005 looks like a different dimension.

Roast battles seem more popular now, but it's largely with people the audience don't know, so that results in even lazier crappier jokes.

[Enzo]

Didn't Carr participate in a Channel4 roast of Jimmy Savile? I seem to recall it wasn't a full roast with a dais of people, but Savile laid back smugly on a sort of dentist's/psychiatrist chair smoking a cigar while Carr reeled off a load of lines about him and of course finishing it off with what a 'LEDGE' he was. It was bizarre.

That was Jack Dee I'm pretty sure. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g_zx4dp-qbk

[Retinend]

I love roast comedians. Not roast comedians roasting celebrities, but comedians who take part in roast battles to roast one other (even if no one knows them, it's still funny). My favourites are the girl on girl ones, such as...
Maddy Smith and Kim Kongdon: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IyJB-Bn4_Is

Clickbate title, but my favourite of these tournaments is the eponymous "shy girl" in this 3.5 million viewed video, "Shy deadpan girl viciously defeats a big loud guy in a NYC comedy roast battle", Dina Hashem.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IyJB-Bn4_Is

The king of the roast battle scene is Eli Sairs, who is one of the quickest wits I've seen in comedy. His podcast "The Roast Ghost" was the highlight of my week while it was running.
The Roast of Jeffery Epstein (with Maddy Smith): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WQxTLJ4FSzU

[Hand Solo]

That was Jack Dee I'm pretty sure. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g_zx4dp-qbk

Wow, thanks. And was on BBC1 as well. My memory is fucked, got conflated with those piss-poor roasts Carr did on Channel4.

[Poirots BigGarlickyCorpse]

all I know about comedy roasts is that both American Dad and Family Guy lazily used the plot of a character demanding a roast for his birthday and then getting upset at how mean everybody was.

the funniest moment from either roast was Brian starting off with "I'm Professor Comedy -" and Quagmire interrupting him with "NO! BOOOOOO!"

[idunnosomename]

The thing that puts me off is I have a completely irrational hatred of the word dais.

i always think of Jabba's dais. And Rock Me Ama Dais.

[kittens]

I love roast comedians. Not roast comedians roasting celebrities, but comedians who take part in roast battles to roast one other (even if no one knows them, it's still funny). My favourites are the girl on girl ones, such as...
Maddy Smith and Kim Kongdon: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IyJB-Bn4_Is

Clickbate title, but my favourite of these tournaments is the eponymous "shy girl" in this 3.5 million viewed video, "Shy deadpan girl viciously defeats a big loud guy in a NYC comedy roast battle", Dina Hashem.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IyJB-Bn4_Is

The king of the roast battle scene is Eli Sairs, who is one of the quickest wits I've seen in comedy. His podcast "The Roast Ghost" was the highlight of my week while it was running.
The Roast of Jeffery Epstein (with Maddy Smith): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WQxTLJ4FSzU

you meant to put this link second

edit: i have now watched this link and it did make me laugh but also i am struck by how mean it is and how much i would hate to be in that situation. guess that is why i never became a new york city roast comedian.

[Schrodingers Cat]

When Tim Vine was interviewed by Richard Herring at the Slapstick Festival a couple of years ago he shared as one of his picks this clip of a roast by Foster Brooks - someone I'd never heard of before, but he took a very different approach to roasts, choosing to do them in character as a total pisshead (basically a character he had played many times before called 'the lovable lush'. I've watched a load of his roasts since and (whilst they vary a bit in quality) I really like how irrelevant the subject is in his roasts. They're all just basically an excuse to (often) dress in a silly costume and babble nonsense. They're great.
https://youtu.be/hNS77qmCwwI

[touchingcloth]

I put this thread in GB rather than CC originally because I was moved to think about roasts by learning that it's a thing even outside comedy circles in the US - a friend's work was organising a bants roast for one of the bosses. Most people's anecdotes so far have been about professional comics (hardly surprising given my vague OP), but feel free to talk about any experiences you may have with lay roasts, too.

[kittens]

touchingcloth wants us all to 'roast' him

[Pauline Walnuts]

I gave up watching that US Roast Battle series because they're completely shit, they miss the point entirely and think it's just about being as offensive as possible. So you just get jokes that reference rape, cancer, sexual assault, race etc, which have nothing to do with the person they are battling. Awful, tedious, edge-lord stuff.

You said rape twice.

[touchingcloth]

touchingcloth wants us all to 'roast' him

Hope you've packed your oven mitts, cos things bout to get roasty.

[BeardFaceMan]

You said rape twice.

Because rape is the only kind of sexual assault?

[idunnosomename]

touchingcloth wants us all to 'roast' him

[Captain Crunch]

I don't know if you'd class this as a 'roast' but pah – Jack Klompus' speech:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mXI_6SOotww

[Sebastian Cobb]

You said rape twice.

[lankyguy95]

This is how you do roasts. Both on the same evening with Johnny Carson.

Groucho Marx https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gs4ECUBdeM0
Don Rickles https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MAlLX0pReFY

No shock obscenities, no competition as to who can say the worst thing. They're just being funny and witty, in their own ways, with charm and grace. The end of the Rickles one feels really genuine.

[C_Larence]

That's reminded me of Columbo's (yes that Columbo) roast of Frank Sinatra.
https://youtu.be/3_UN2S8SasY

I'm pretty sure that's Orson Welles who he walks past at 1:57

[jobotic]

Roasts interest me less than I can say, I don't know why I read this thread . So gld i did though, been pissing myself at that Norm McDonald one, without knowing who the hell anyone is apart from him.

The timing. "He has a face.. like a flower yeah a cauliflower". So wonderfully wrong.

[dissolute ocelot]

Imagine going to a wedding where there were 10 best men.

The Jimmy Carr Roast Battle is dispiriting because half the contestants seem to have no idea what they're doing and just make absurdist jokes. If I can't see a comedian cry, there's no way I'm watching Jimmy Carr. Especially if Jonathan Ross is there.

Having said all that, Martha Stewart is always delightful.

[Retinend]

Confinement episode of Eli Sairs's "The Roast Ghost" just uploaded:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5zNinbfzFUo

[Retinend]

double good news: Dina Hashem has started a podcast https://open.spotify.com/show/6n7wDSeFxJHCjB1dP3gxLC

(edit it's nothing to do with roasting though, so sorry for the derail)

[Annie Labuntur]

This is how you do roasts. Both on the same evening with Johnny Carson.

Groucho Marx https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gs4ECUBdeM0
Don Rickles https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MAlLX0pReFY

No shock obscenities, no competition as to who can say the worst thing. They're just being funny and witty, in their own ways, with charm and grace. The end of the Rickles one feels really genuine.

I've enjoyed a lot of the old trad roasts - Foster Brooks and Rickles were usually good value - but sometimes the bonhomie seems to be laced with undercurrents of malice and the laughter seems false. Milton Berle definitely seemed to be respected more than loved, and comes across as an unpleasant bully in comedian's clothing. A different time of course but the jokes towards black people on the dais aren't much fun. They were contemporaries and friends but it's still uncomfortable to watch.

[easytarget]

In America, they've taken the roast format to prisons and have some gobshite called Jeff Ross over to berate the inmates.

[Retinend]

Confinement episode of Eli Sairs's "The Roast Ghost" just uploaded:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5zNinbfzFUo

on a roll(ing stone): roast of Bob Dylan just released
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oVxjENJAf84