13 ways stand-up comedy ruins you for work

Work is funny, but not ha-ha funny.

On one hand, almost everything good that's ever happened to me at work happened because of stand-up comedy. The bottom line is that after trying to make people laugh onstage, everything else is a cinch.

On the other hand, work rewards a certain kind of person and stand-up comedy rewards a certain kind of person, and it's usually not the same person. When's the last time you saw a Fortune 500 CEO precede an important corporate announcement with a well-timed pratfall?

After I'd written most of this post, I caught this episode of Jerry Seinfeld's "Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee" in which he bounces the same idea off of Joel Hodgson. The discussion:

Seinfeld: "The idea of bosses and employees is just hilarious to us. Why is that so funny?"
Hodgson: "We don't have to do it, right?"
Seinfeld: "It's such a typically human attempt to organize what's unorganizable. We just see the hopelessness of trying to organize human endeavor into a building."

I teach for a living, which means that I can use many of the same techniques that work in stand-up comedy in the classroom. However, when class is out and it's time for meetings and desk work, I have a vague burning in the back of my skull telling me that, in the words of Adam Carolla, I may not be Taco Bell material.

I blame stand-up. Here's why:

1. You get used to saying what's on your mind.

Comedy is about finding the truth. Where "objective journalism" aims for some semblance of the truth and rarely finds it, stand-up comedy always finds the truth, because it's all about what's true to you, balance be damned. The best stand-ups find the places where what's true to them isn't what's true to the audience, and try to bring the audience around to the same viewpoint. The best employees do the opposite.

2. You get used to saying it with colorful language.

As Spencer Tracy says in Inherit the Wind:

“I don’t swear just for the hell of it. Language is a poor enough means of communication. I think we should use all the words we’ve got. Besides, there are damn few words that anybody understands.”

Your boss hasn't read, watched, or heard of Inherit the Wind.

3. You get used to reacting without thinking. 

Ad client: "I hate your creative."
Ad copywriter: "I hate you."

Hilarious stuff in the club - not quite as hilarious in the boardroom.

4. You laugh at things that other people don't find funny.

Comedians find jokes everywhere, even at funerals. So imagine how funny life is at the workplace, where pet peeves grow into full-fledged battles that last longer than most wars. Trouble is, the folks embroiled in these antagonisms rarely see the humor. So the next time Martha blows a gasket when someone steals her stapler, have the decency to laugh behind her back.

5. If you're not talking, you're bored.

Comics have trouble watching other comics onstage because they feel in their heart of hearts they should be up there. At work, the boss always has the floor. To a stand-up comic, this is the equivalent of the comedian who owns the comedy club: he or she gets all of the stage time, even if the jokes are terrible.

6. If someone in a position of authority tells you what to do, your default setting is to do the opposite.

For "the boss/employee" structure to work, everyone has to agree that the boss is the boss and the employees' best course of action is to do what the boss says. In comedy, if someone tells you that a joke is off limits, that's the place your mind constantly goes. The feeling only goes away after you inevitably go there. I give you Kramer and Daniel Tosh.

7. You like attention. 

In comedy, you succeed by getting noticed. At work, you succeed by not getting noticed.

8. You build friendships with the same kind of people as you. 

Familiarity leads to contempt, contempt leads to anger, anger leads to misery, misery loves company.  So, you team up with those people and become more emboldened about the things that bug you. Before you know it, you're firing cannons, shooting pistols, and screaming, "Storm the Bastille!"

9. You become used to immediate gratification. 

• Comedy: You write a joke, you tell it, and you get a laugh. Total time elapsed: one hour. 
• Work: You write an ad, you get the client to approve it, you get legal to approve it, you buy space to run it, and it runs. Total time elapsed: one year.

10. Your body needs rest after just one hour's work.

Build the George Costanza bed under your desk today. 

11. You groan out loud when you hear a cliche.

Yesterday's "happy camper" is today's "awesome sauce." In comedy, you try to say things in a way that "a normal person" would never say them. Since work is full of normal people, you must regularly resist the urge to roll your eyes when someone inevitably goes there and someone else inevitably says, "Don't go there, girlfriend!" 

12. You'd rather deal with the awful truth than fanciful phoniness.

When someone is direct, you know where he or she stands right away. In comedy, you have to be direct or you'll lose your audience's attention. But when you're direct at work, people can actually understand what you're saying, and that can get you in trouble. This is why it's rare to have actual discourse in the workplace without a good helping of passive sentences and vagueries on the side.

13. You know that none of it really matters, because one day you'll be dead.

Doctor: "You only have three days to live."
Patient: "I'm going straight to work, because every day feels like a year." 

My 10 stock answers for "Why don't you have kids?!"

 

There's one. Run!

If you're lucky enough to one day make it to your 40s without having kids, you'll find that there's a certain segment of the population - called "parents" - who will demand an explanation of you.

When they do, sit back, smile, and use one of my stock lines:

1. I chose freedom.

2. I believe the position of whining bald baby has already been filled in my household.

3. I'm afraid they'd play with my toys.

4. I'm like Tarzan; with one yell, all of my genetic material comes back to help me fight the evil doers.

5. Can't afford to, thanks to all of the education taxes I pay for yours.

6. I can't hear you with this condom pulled over my head.

7. In order to have kids, you must have at some point had sex.

8. I do not want anything that Celine Dion wants.

9. Doesn't the world already have enough snot?

10. I'm waiting until I'm 80 to have them - no one expects you to change a dirty diaper when you're wearing one.

Ten great moments in Bill Carter's book, The War For Late Night

Carter talks Leno on The View.

Daddy, what did you do in the late-night wars?

I just finished devouring Bill Carter's new book, The War For Late Night, which I did in one sitting (Vanity Fair has an excerpt here). Burp.

As a fan of Carter's TV column in the New York Times, and his books the Late Shift and Desperate Networks, I couldn't wait to read about the behind-the-scenes shenanigans of the big O'Brien versus Leno Battle of 2010, and the book doesn't disappoint.

Ten great moments in Carter's The War For Late Night

There's no question that Carter's got sources and an ear for anecdotes and quotes, as proven by these 10, great moments in a book full of 'em:

1. Conan's retort

When Conan finds out that NBC wants him to move the Tonight Show Back an hour, he's mostly quiet, but finally says to the executives, "What does Jay Leno have on you?"

He repeats the comment at a later meeting, and can't help but think that the executives' reaction looks like "sympathy" as taught in "corporate school."

2. Dave's state of mind

Most of Letterman's staff think he needs mental help; however, they agree that if he were actually to get it, the comedy would suffer.

3. Dave's diet

Letterman drinks "enough strong cups of coffee to stimulate the economy" and eats a "chocolate tower" of Hershey Bars before hitting the stage every night.

4. Kimmel strikes back

When Jimmy Kimmel is booked on Leno's "10 at 10," he reads it as "that little fucker Jay intending to neutralize him on the show."

After the interview, he "had the feel of winning a 10-round fight. His haranguing of Jay on Jay's show had been, in his estimation, the best thing that had ever happened to his own show."



5. Jay's shoes

Jay only wears $14.99 Payless shoes, which he "buys by the crate." The USP: they're impervious to oil and gas.

6. The other late-night villains

The DVR and YouTube are the big villains in the book; late-night TV continues to fade, as viewers watch their favorite shows on playback, which they usually do late at night. YouTube is "the icing on the horrible cake."

NBC executive Jeff Gaspin suggests that "within five years, NBC might not necessarily even be programming a Tonight Show, or anything else for that matter, in what the networks label the late-night daypart."

7. Conan's joke

Although Conan appeared to quit his job with his famous "People of Earth" memo, the point of no return for NBC comes when he tells the joke, "Kids: you can do anything you want in life. Unless Jay Leno wants to do it too."

8. The Super Bowl ad

The famous Dave, Jay, and Oprah Super Bowl ad had another invitee: Conan O'Brien. "No fucking way I'm doing that," Conan said. "It's not a joke to me - it's real."



9. Seinfeld and Michaels' advice to Conan

Jerry Seinfeld and Lorne Michaels are among the few to question O'Brien leaving the Tonight Show.

Seinfeld on Conan: "All of this, "I won't sit by and watch the institution damaged." What institution? Ripping off the public? We tell jokes and they give us millions! Who's going to take over the Late Show? Nobody! It's Dave! When Dave's done, that's the end of that!"

"Here's big point number two in show business," Seinfeld continues, "Hang around! Just stay there, just be there. The old cliche, "95 per cent is just showing up." You never leave!"

Lorne Michaels recalls some advice he once got from former NBC exec Irwin Segelstein: "Our job is to lie, cheat and steal and your job is to do the show."

10. Where there's a hit, there should be a writ

The moral of the book: have good lawyers write up good contracts.

• Conan's contract didn't specify at what time the Tonight Show would run (though lawyers said it would be a problem if NBC moved it to 4 p.m.).

• Jay's contract had an unprecedented "pay and play" rider, which meant that he could sue if NBC took him off the air.

Ten things that crossed my mind at this weekend's two, big comedy shows

Got fried? Gottfried!

Roe v. Wade. Joe v. Volcano. Gottfried v. MacDonald.

Not since Leno and Seinfeld played Winnipeg on the same night in the early 80s has the city seen a greater battle of comedy giants: in this corner, Gilbert Gottfried at Rumor's Comedy Club, in the other, Norm MacDonald at the Burton Cummings Theatre.

Saw 'em both. Laughed. Cried. Had 10 thoughts:

1. Funny.

2. Psst: if you like hilarious stand-up comedy, check out Red River College's CreCommedy Nights at the King's Head on Monday, Oct. 18 and 25 - Creative Communications, Comedy Writing students performing stand-up comedy for the first time. And admission is just $5!

3. Jewish heritage + genie + sex act = hilarity.

4. Planet of the Apes, Alive, and Children of a Lesser God references? Why, it's like Gottfried hasn't performed comedy for 20 years! Err...

5. Why, these comedians seek or intend to amuse and afford light mirth and laughter for their efforts!

6. Memo to myself: save your "dying children" jokes for the big finish.



7. Stand-up comedy really is just like rock and roll, minus the music, money, and women.

8. Comparing two, white, male, middle-aged comics with receding hairlines is really like comparing apples and oranges.

9. These two sure can tell jokes while remaining in a vertical position. If only we had a name for that.

10. Laughter really is the best medicine. Unless, of course, you're actually sick or dying.

Norm!

Always an emcee, never a bridesmaid

Beck and Beck. Emcee not shown.

Never wanted to be no best man.

I was born an emcee and I'll probably die an emcee.

The tools of my trade are but a mic and the ability to ignore everyone and everything around me - I believe it's called "being self-centered" - the better to tell jokes in the eye of a hurricane of nerves and egos, better known as a "wedding."

I've been an emcee at no fewer than 15 weddings, which I must point out that, as an unmarried, non-religious person, I'm against in principle. But if you can't beat them, you might as well make fun of them, right? Right!

This weekend, I emceed Jason and Chantal Beck's wedding, so huge, notable, and "royal" that it warranted a half-page article by Lindor Reynolds in the Winnipeg Free Press. I wrote about the article a few days ago right here.

It was great fun.

As I stood up at the podium in the empty reception hall, rehearsing my material as I waited for the guests to arrive, memories from all of the weddings I've emceed came rushing back into my mind, mainly because emceeing every wedding is like being Bill Murray in Groundhog Day: same nerves, same pressures, same Jedi master toasts to the groom.

"Size matters not!"

How to emcee a wedding

As I always say in the first Comedy Writing class of the year, once you do stand-up, emceeing a wedding is child's play.

It's sort of true: the crowd at a reception is friendly, ready to party, and dying to have a laugh after a usually long and unfunny church service. Beck's was the exception - a fun church service, punctuated by the thunder outside (God's wrath, no doubt):

Lassie! You found us!

1. Set the tone. Be energetic, engaged, and funny.

Your first job as emcee is to set the tone of the evening.

To do this, you have to ignore what everyone around you has told you to do and just go for it: tell some jokes right off the top, even before you introduce yourself.

If you're boring or too laid back, people will start dreading the rest of the evening. If you're funny, they'll get into the party mode much more quickly.

Most brides and grooms first select you to be emcee because you're "funny" and they want you to tell jokes and make people laugh.

As you get closer to the wedding, they'll say, "Well there are some things we don't want you to talk about."

The day before the wedding, they'll say, "No jokes!"

Ignore all of it - these are normal bride and groom nerves. By the time they're at the reception, they're so happy to be married, they'll forget all about the instructions they've given you - and that "incident" they didn't want you to talk about.

Of course, if there has been an "incident," you won't talk about it, because you're classy.

So, say "welcome," and get right to the jokes.

Most people have been to so many bad wedding receptions, this is your big chance to show them that you're going to do things differently.

I opened Jason's wedding with this:

"Tonight we're here to celebrate the marriage of Jason Beck to his one true love: Sidney Crosby.

"Playing the role of Sidney tonight: Chantal Beck!

"Have you seen Jason’s wedding ring? You’ve gotta see it before the end of the night. Jason has little Pittsburgh Penguins' logos all over his wedding ring. It's very romantic: one for every member of the team he’s slept with.

"Every time a bell rings, a Penguin gets his wings!"

Alluding to sex is OK...but don't be gross, specific to the bride and groom, or talk about yucky bodily functions. People are eating, ya know.

2. Introduce yourself after the first joke

Hint about what craziness is to come while you do it:

"I’m Kenton Larsen – I’m going to be your genial host and emcee for the evening. I’ve known Jason since he was a kid, so I have lots of dirt on him involving sordid tales of Yoda statues and stuffed-penguin molestations. We’ll get to that in just a second..."

3. Just like stand up, say what everybody else is thinking

"How many Bon Jovi fans have we got here tonight? Playing the stadium the same night as Jason and Chantal’s wedding. On behalf of all of the Bon Jovi fans in the room, I’d just like to say: Jason and Chantal: you give love a bad name."

Another example:

"Tonight we celebrate Jason and Chantal’s big decision to do the exact same thing they’ve been doing for the last 13 years. Living in the same house together. Eating the same food. Sleeping in the same bed. For this I rented a tux? I want my money back!"

4. Mock the groom, celebrate the bride

Show the bride and other speakers early that she's off limits: celebrate her patience and kindness for marrying such a dolt.

Brides are nervous creatures at their best, so this rule is for your own good. How good would it be to send the bride running out of the reception in tears? Not very!

"A little tribute to Chantal for putting up with Jason's shit for so long: the Yodas, Devo fan club, stand-up comedy, the sore knees...all of that crap. Chantal: you're lovely, smart, and talented. As far as I can tell, the only thing Jason has ever done for you is see Beverley Hills Chihuahua in the theatre.

"Chantal: it’s not too late to call it off! You haven’t slept with him yet, have you? Don't!"

5. Get down to business

Bathrooms, smoking rules, the head table, tinkling of glasses, blah, blah, blah. Lay out the rules and stick to them. Announce that things are coming up in advance, so people can pee and smoke without missing anything.

6. Stick to the schedule

Write a schedule with the bride and groom in advance of the reception. Assume it will start late.

If things start going longer than expected, the emcee's jokes are the first to get cut. Don't hog the mic at the expense of the other speakers.

No one got to hear this gem. Because it's not as funny as the rest of my "hilarious" gags, it was the first to go:

"I met Jason in Grade one – he was standing in line outside Royal School holding a stuffed sea serpent with Batman riding on its back. I was reminded of this lately when I ran into Jason at the Pancake House, where he was standing in line, holding a stuffed sea serpent with Batman riding on its back."

Between speakers, tell one-line personal anecdotes to keep things moving along.

"I've traveled to Minneapolis to see concerts with Jason many times. From the outside, Jason may seem like an eccentric guy, but behind closed doors – he also snores like a bastard."

7. Be friendly and courteous to everyone who wants you to do stuff. Then do what makes the most sense.

Being an emcee is like being a ringleader. You have competing interests, all vying for your attention and wanting you to do stuff on their behalf.

• The most common is the bride and groom and wedding party asking you to point out people in the audience - easy to accommodate, within reason. You don't want it to turn into a Vegas revue: "Ladies and gentlemen, the great Joey Bishop!"

When you get to announcing out of town guests, make fun of it and do it quickly:

"It's everyone's favorite part of the wedding: out of town guests! "We came all the way from Milwaukee. They'd better applaud us, or I'm going to the presentation bowl and taking back my $5."

• You'll also get friends and family who want you to tell their joke. Never do it: most of the jokes are lame, stolen, or overly sexual, which is why they don't want to do it themselves. Tell them you'll bring them up to do it. Most say, "Uhhh, no thank you."

• The social hall will sometimes treat the emcee like you're a wedding planner. "Where does the cake go?" Don't get involved. Just say, "The bride and groom are over there" or "Wherever you usually put it."

Is he climbing up or down?

• One thing I've learned about weddings: everyone has special needs, and no more than people doing the toast to the bride or groom. It makes sense: they're nervous, they wrote the speech the night before, they've never spoken publicly before. Like this young man:
  

Weddings on Trial with Trevor Boris.

Don't make these speakers more nervous. Give them a five-minute warning before you bring them up, and be really kind and encouraging in your intro.

"You don't need to be a comedian to get up here. You can also just be a nice person, which this next person is..."

If the speaker is a professional comedian, you've got more leeway:

"Please welcome the Doctor Evil to my Mini Me. The Thing to my Mr. Fantastic. The Uncle Fester to my Pugsly: Big Daddy Tazz!"

8. Remember that the bride and groom are the stars

They are the world, and we are but players in their drama. Tonight, you celebrate your love for them.

9. You're going to make mistakes. Don't sweat 'em.

My mistakes:

• I referred to my friend "Garth" by the name "Greg" for no apparent reason.

• I bungled the last name of one of the bridesmaids.
  

• I forgot to bring up three people who wanted to say something. Sorry!

• I might've said the F-word once. It was all in fun! Heh, heh, heh...

10. How to measure success.

The groom looks like this:

My favorite comic-book author and Letterman guest dies at 70

Dave and Harvey crash Live at Five with Roker and Cafferty.

It was a bad week for Cleveland: LeBron James moved to the heat and the Heat, and native son George Steinbrenner went to that big Yankee Stadium in the sky.

But, even worse, my favorite Cleveland underground comic writer, Letterman guest, and curmudgeon - Harvey Pekar - died from cancer at age 70.

American Splendor

In 1976, Pekar started writing comic books based on his life and job as a file clerk at the Cleveland VA Medical Center.

Pekar's American Splendor comics - the title is ironic! - are about working-class Cleveland and Pekar's mundane, regular-guy life: his paranoia, anger at the world, and himself.

I bought Pekar's comics as they came out at (the now-closed) Schinders in Minneapolis - one more reason to drive to the big city! - but for most people, the collection American Splendor: the Life and Times of Harvey Pekar is a good place to find out what's so great about the guy.


Pekar's graphic novel, Our Cancer Year, is his best self-contained work, chronicling his harrowing and depressing battle with cancer. To this day, I'm haunted by the panel where Pekar drops the groceries in the snow and can't pick them up - the sheer helplessness of it all.

For all of his self-disparagement, Pekar had a lot of success, the pinnacle of which was the great, Sundance-winning film American Splendor, starring Paul Giamatti as our anti-hero:


"Every American city is depressing in its own way."

Pekar also showed up in two of my all-time favorite Canadian documentaries, ridiculously unavailable online, the video store, or maybe anywhere - Vinyl and I, Curmudgeon. Pekar was an avid collector of jazz records and grumpy, which explains his appearance in both.

The Letterman years

Pekar first came to my attention in the 80s in his handful of appearances on Late Night with David Letterman, which are notable for Pekar's subversive rants - altogether missing from late-night talk shows today.

This one got Pekar banned from Late Night "for life." In the pre-September 11 world, Pekar made Letterman pray out loud for "a terrorist:"



The life ban didn't last long: Pekar appeared on Letterman's Late Show twice after his Late Night outburst, again accusing Letterman of being a shill for the man and having contempt for his audience.

Pekar told the LA Times:

"On some of the shows, I was doing a deliberate self-parody, and now there's a lot of people that think I'm some sort of maniac, you know? I'd rather be liked than thought of as a crazy man, but with Letterman, I've been in a situation where you either lay down and let him insult you or you do something about it. Most people keep their mouth shut and let him dump on them. I don't wanna do that."

Comic books, talk shows, and Cleveland will never be the same:

Dear Leno'Brien: thanks for the memories!

Conan's pain is late-night TV's gain.

It doesn't matter whether you're on Team Coco, Big-Jawed Jay, or Carson Daly - just kidding, there's no such team! - for the first time in recent memory, late night matters again.

No more can talk-show guests simply tell stories about Robin Williams being "quite a prankster on the set," or say, "I have no idea what we're about to see" when they set up a clip. No, now they actually have to weigh in on their allegiance in the late-night wars, take a side, and have the courage of their convictions to defend it.

Sadly, it looks like things are beginning to wind down, though we can look forward to Conan's last show tomorrow night, the renewed Leno versus Letterman feud when Leno returns to the Tonight Show, and the return of Conan when he lands at another network and launches a new show (minus the masturbating bear).

And the great, national pastime will become a ratings watch, as we spend our time wishing, hoping, and praying that Leno has a major crash and burn, proving that NBC was wrong yet again.

As the dust clears, here are the winners and losers as I see them:

I. Winners:

• Jimmy Kimmel

One of the greatest things I've ever seen on TV is Jimmy Kimmel slamming Leno on his own show, to the apparent horror of Leno and his audience.

And that was the day after Kimmel did the first part of his show as Leno himself, a scathing impression it was, complete with chin, lisp, and witless banter, Leno-style.

I didn't know that Kimmel had it in him, but he does, and now I'll watch his show forever.

• Conan O'Brien

Before this whole mess, the general consensus among Conan fans was that his Tonight Show was pretty weak, and nowhere near the brilliance of his work on Late Night - a show on which I interned as a researcher in 1994.

I worked on Conan's show with Maggie Wright, daughter of then NBC President Robert Wright. Every day, she had another bad-news story about Conan's chances as host: "They've offered Late Night to Greg Kinnear," she told me one day.

Had Kinnear actually taken up NBC on the offer, Conan would've lost Late Night 15 years ago, and that would've been that.

But now, Conan's become a modern-day folk hero: the nice guy screwed over by "the man," solidifying Team Coco's brand loyalty and ensuring that he has a dedicated fan base for all time. Way to screw the pooch, NBC.

• David Letterman

Revenge is a dish best served cold, and Letterman has served it up to Leno night after night after night, culminating in the above clip, where he mocks Leno's fake high fives with the audience, and accuses him of stealing his material, Howard Stern's material, and Howard Stern's announcer.

Letterman was in Conan's position 15 years ago, so he can relate - but, even better, Letterman is a performer who is funniest when he's angry, as Sarah Palin, John McCain, and now Leno know only too well.

Over the past two weeks, Letterman's sermons from the desk have grown more and more biting. On a recent show, he reminded his audience that Leno once hid in a closet to listen in on an NBC conference call. Later in the show, Kiefer Sutherland showed up in a dress, and made a joke about coming out of the closet "with Jay Leno."

• Craig Ferguson

Just as funny as always! Sorry, Jay, this man - not you - has the funniest monologue on TV.


II. Losers:

• Jay Leno

Only Jay would practice damage control by trying to position himself as a victim, which he's done with depressing regularity and ineptitude.

In the above clip, he reaches the lowest of the low, asking people not to blame Conan O'Brien. Uh...I don't think anyone was blaming Conan.

In the wake of the scandal, Conan's ratings have skyrocketed as Jay's brand has sunk to greater depths with each passing day. Now everyone can't wait for Jay to fail at the Tonight Show, which - let's hope - he will do as quickly as possible.

Get ready for a rocky return to the Tonight Show, complete with syrupy speech and waterworks from the guy who's used to people loving him and can't seem to understand why they've stopped.

• Carson Daly

No one's ever really thought about Daly before this mess, and now they're only doing it to point out how no one cares about him one way or another.

His lack of impact on anything and anyone was parodied on last week's SNL and Letterman helpfully pointed out that the difference between not having a show and having Carson Daly's show is negligible at best:



Runner up for irrelevance: Jimmy Fallon, whoever that is.

• NBC

The network that once had the Cosby Show, Seinfeld, Cheers, Friends, and invented must-see TV is now a sad shell of its former self.

NBC Universal CEO Jeff Zucker has become a household name for all the wrong reasons and NBC Universal Chairman of Sports (no kidding!) Dick Ebersol took the network from low-class to no-class, slamming Conan and Letterman at once as "chicken-hearted and gutless to blame a guy you couldn't beat in the ratings."

• The Daily Show

So, let's say the biggest story in late night ever happened and Jon Stewart only mentioned it on his show once. That would be, like, totally lame, right?

Time was, we'd get "comedy" on the Daily Show. Now we get Stewart mugging at the camera and shouting in lieu of "punchlines."

I think Stephen Colbert is just the man to replace him. Wait a sec...do I smell a new late-night feud?

Let's sit back, relax, and watch the fireworks, shall we?

Remember Marshall, the apostle of hustle, on Boxing Day

One of my favorite clips from Mr. Show, the Marshall of sketch-comedy shows.

Feel a little guilty going purchase-crazy on Boxing Day? Well, what if I told you that the meek could inherit something a whole lot better than the Earth!?

'Tis the day to remember the overlooked 13th apostle, Marshall - the apostle of hustle, and top pitchman in Galilee, as he's seen here on the second episode of Mr. Show, one of the best and equally overlooked sketch-comedy shows of all time.

Update!

How could I have forgotten Elvis Costello's great tribute to Boxing Day? TKO!

Thanks to Kevin to reminding me with this post.

It's Garry Shandling's DVD review: the post-modern precursor to Seinfeld

Garry or Gilligan? Choose wisely.

This is the review to It's Garry Shandling's Show. How do you like it so far?

There are lots of great things about feeling sick and miserable, but one of the best is the embarrassment of time that allows you to watch the entire 16-disc, 72-episode series of a TV series, guilt free.

So, it was with great delight that I've felt bad for the past few weeks, so I could dig into the entire series of It's Garry Shandling's Show, the most inventive, funny, weird, and post-modern sitcom of all time.

The show stars Shandling as himself, a neurotic, hair-obsessed stand-up comic, whose life is a sitcom he inherits when he buys a new condo.

In the first episode, Shandling moves into the space that, we're told, used to belong to Vanna White. It comes fully furnished with sets and cameras, allowing Shandling to wander between sets, look in on other scenes, and talk to the studio audience - just like Oprah and Phil!

This was 1986, so that would be "Phil Donahue," not "Dr. Phil."

The Jerry/Garry comparison

Shandling deserves a lot of credit for predicting the demise of the standard sitcom format over 20 years ago, and aiming to destroy all of the hack sitcom conventions that, years later, were and are still being embraced by Friends and Two and a Half Men.

Even more startling is the degree to which Shandling's show begat Seinfeld. Simply put, Seinfeld owes the success of his own post-modern sitcom and its whole "show within a show" conceit to Garry Shandling:

• Seinfeld's Newman = Shandling's Leonard Smith;

• Seinfeld's on-screen mother bears an uncanny resemblance - in terms of look and character - to Shandling's on-screen mom;

• Seinfeld's platonic friend Elaine = Shandling's platonic friend Nancy;

• Seinfeld's opening monologue in a club = Shandling's opening monologue in his living room.

• Seinfeld was a show that said it was about nothing = Shandling's show really was about nothing.

Sure, Seinfeld deserves credit for bringing the form to the masses ("intelligence borrows, genius steals"), and for his year-after-year consistency and endurance, but Shandling is the innovator.

The funniest, catchiest, post-modernist theme song ever

Among the recurring gags is Shandling's introduction of the insanely catchy (and equally post-modern) theme song sung by Bill Lynch, and what Shandling does during the 41 seconds the song plays.

In some episodes, Shandling sits uncomfortably and looks at the camera, in others he brings in guest stars to sing the theme (the Turtles! A Japanese lounge singer! Tom Petty and Doc Severinson!), and in this one, he shows off his great taste in literature, which includes a book by Gavin McLeod, which I have to find as soon as possible:



At its best, Shandling's show works on multiple levels, drawing us into the storyline and cracking us up with its inventive solutions to the characters' sitcom-inspired problems.

In one episode, Garry's young friend, Grant, gets beat up at school. Grant gets blamed by the principal for causing the fracas until an elderly It's Garry Shandling's Show audience member walks out of the audience and onto the set and tells the principal that she's seen everything, because she's been watching the show.

At its worst, the show sometimes gets away from itself by changing its own rules as it goes along and pushing the boundaries of funny into outright odd.

In one closing scene, for instance, castmember "lookalikes" parade through Shandling's living room and meet off camera in his bathroom, where we hear them say hello to each other. It plays like a scene from Luis Bunuel's the Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie or David Lynch's Mulholland Drive, coming off as more "bizarre" than "funny."

(There are smart people who say the show is about "the sacrificial role of the performer in society" and a throwback to Beckett, Sartre, and Buddhism; probably true, though probably not the best way to promote the show.)

The show does wear thin toward the end of the third season and within the fourth, when it introduces a recurring girlfriend, features too many "to be continued" episodes - something that was parodied in an earlier season - and brings back Red Buttons to do the same stand-up act that we've seen him perform on an earlier episode.

Reruns within a new show: now that's post-modernism that a network exec can believe in!

But really, these are minor complaints given the strength of the early seasons and the overall generosity of the DVD box set, which comes out to less than $2 an episode, and even less when you consider the 36-page booklet, hilarious episode commentaries, and interviews with former cast members (including Shandling himself).

Internet precursor

The show is worth watching as an historical document alone, and for the many moments in which Shandling predicts the advent of reality TV and the Internet with these innovations:

• Audience interaction and voting;

• A live episode (in which he incorrectly calls the presidential race for Bush Sr.'s opponent, just like Tom Brokaw, Dan Rather, and Peter Jennings would do with Bush Jr.'s opponent years later);

• An abundance of guest stars (including Gilda Radner's last TV appearance);

• An episode about TV product placements (Garry's mother keeps appearing in his living room to pitch her pet store until Shandling gets her to stop...by buying her paid ad time);

• A recurring, self-conscious, and continuing critique of the show as it goes along ("This episode really sucks..."). An old-school version of Twitter if I ever saw one.

It's Garry Shandling's Show is easy viewing: good-natured, entertaining, and funny. And, at 72 episodes, take it from me: it makes being sick and miserable your best option.

Comedy Writing students rock the house, the mic, and the improv

McRobb (left) and MacKenzie.

It's fun to hang out after school and make stuff up.

Big thanks to CreComm grads and ImproVision members George McRobb and Alan MacKenzie for a rip-roaring improv seminar after school today (and for my annual reminder of how terrible I am at it - thanks for confirming it, Emily. Ha!).

An equally big thanks to the always awesome second-year Comedy Writing students for having the fortitude to show up well after normal "going home time" and bringing the house down, whether it was Janet beating up Jarrett:

Joel giving Kalen a "helping hand:"

Or Thor rockin' his two turntables and a microphone before freezing at a crucial moment in his Michael Jackson impression:

Thanks for the memories, the laffs, and the images that will never stop haunting my dreams.

Update:

Alan and George will be performing in these shows in the near future:

Alan in Paper Jack, Facebook link here. George in See Alice, Facebook link here.

Improve your improv with ImproVision

Shout out an occupation. Shout out a location. Shout out something funny for me to say.

ImproVision members, Fringe Fest veterans, and CreComm grads Alan MacKenzie and George McRobb come to Red River College's downtown campus next Wednesday, Nov. 25 at 5 p.m. to host an improv seminar at the Great-West Life Lecture Theatre.

The seminar is ostensibly for students in my second-year Comedy Writing class, but if you're not in that class and would still like to come to watch or participate, here's your big chance to not only do it, but to marvel at how terrible I am at improv. Honestly, be prepared for many a pratfall and "wah, wah, wah."

Afterward, we retire to the King's Head "to forget."

Live From New York: it's my favorite book about comedy!

I've never much cared for Saturday Night Live.

There, I said it.

Sure, there have been exceptions, like the four seasons featuring Eddie Murphy - "SNL's Elvis," as Chris Rock calls him.

But for a Canadian growing up on SCTV, Monty Python, and Kids in the Hall, SNL never quite seemed to be all there: one-joke premises beaten into the ground week after week, actors trying too hard to be cool instead of funny, sketches that ended when the applause sign came on, not when they reached a satisfying emotional climax, and so on.

So, it comes as a surprise to even me that my favorite, time-tested book about comedy is Tom Shales and James Andrew Miller's Live From New York: An Uncensored History of SNL. I've read it once a year since it came out in '02, and continue to get stuff out of it that I forgot or missed the first five or six times 'round.

Keeping exposition to a minimum, Shales and Miller let the players speak for themselves, and the result is the best comedy primer out there. It also dishes a lot of insider dirt. As Amazon.com talkbacker John S. Harris says, "This is better than an E! True Hollywood Story any day."

The first thing that you notice when you pick up the book is that it's damn heavy. The sheer volume of quotations that Shales and Miller have compiled is truly worthy of the "exhaustive oral history" moniker; the book is jam-packed with insider information and juicy gossip, and - best of all - it's not just a celebration of the show.

Take these quotes from the book:

"I think it was just such a miserable experience that I have sort of blacked out a lot. That whole year, I was just embarrassed," says Chris Elliott of his year-long experience on the show.

"It was a Maalox moment every five minutes. I had irritable bowel syndrome every day. My drinking just got out of hand. I would credit SNL with being very instrumental to some bad habits that certainly increased. I wanted to quit after the first week," says Janeane Garofalo in a typical SNL-bashing quote.

I quote Elliott and Garafalo not only because I like 'em as funny people, but because they both never really made it on SNL, despite already being successful comics beforehand. Also because I was working at 30 Rock at the same time they were SNL castmembers, and I was miserable much of the time too.

When things were slow, I'd take the elevator up to the SNL floor to wander around and see what was going on, and - more importantly - make free, long-distance phone calls on any unmanned phones I'd come across.

In my travels, I'd occasionally get a glimpse of one of the SNL stars in the hallway (I saw Adam Sandler once and, um, NBC anchor Tom Brokaw), look at the photographs of the SNL alumni hanging in the hallway, and pose for photos in the SNL studio when no one was looking:

I'm shooting here!

While I may never have much cared for SNL, there's no denying that old-school, live-TV-excitement vibe that radiates from Studio 8H, even when the show isn't in production.

Lorne Michaels: all-powerful, inscrutable, Canadian!

I always just assumed that everyone at SNL was having a party and getting paid for it while I wasn't.

In fact, it may be only show creator Lorne Michaels who is livin' the life of Champagne wishes and caviar dreams, on the back of everyone else's misery. The book casts Michaels as an all-powerful father figure to the castmembers, loved by some, feared by many, and inscrutable to all.

"Lorne and I stopped speaking. It was during the second year," says former castmember Jane Curtin. "Lorne doesn't deal with issues, so I thought, well, this is pointless, I'm not going to talk to him anymore."

"Lorne a snob? Sure he's a snob," says writer Tom Davis. "He's a starfucker of the highest order. But you have to get past it."

Michaels himself is interviewed extensively in the book, but - unlike Citizen Kane - there's no Rosebud, so at the end of the book, we don't necessarily feel like we understand Michaels more than we did at the beginning. Which is the point.

Whether Michaels aims to be inscrutable or it just happens by accident is anyone's guess. However, it may be telling that it's a Michaels impression that Mike Meyers is doing when he plays "Dr. Evil" in the Austin Powers movies - which Meyers has been accused of stealing from castmember Dana Carvey.

Bill Murray offers the most amusing take on Michaels raison d'etre:

"Part of it's because he's an alien, you know - a Canadian. They have sort of like British echoes they have to fulfill. They have to go to Wimbledon and they have to do stuff like that we Americans don't really feel anything about."

Waiting for Murphy

The big star of the book is, ironically, the one notable person who didn't agree to be interviewed: SNL's biggest star, Eddie Murphy. As a result, the book at times becomes a bit like "Waiting For Godot" with Murphy in the title role.

Shales has said that it's still his dream to interview Murphy for an upcoming edition of the book, but it doesn't look good, as Chris Rock says in the book:

"(Murphy) won't talk to anybody about the show. He's done with it. He's not bitter about it, he loves it. He totally credits the show.

"I don't want to speak for him, but I think he does get pissed when they make fun of him, only because the show would have gotten canceled if he hadn't been there. There would be no show.

"(John) Belushi didn't have a movie as big as Trading Places, and that's not even Eddie's biggest movie. Blues Brothers is not as big as 48 Hours. It's not. Animal House had a cultural impact, but Belushi's not the star of Animal House, he's the breakout guy. It was still an ensemble; he was the best of the ensemble. Eddie Murphy's a star, man."

The interesting thing about Murphy's success is that it's all attributable to his own hard work: at age 18, he gets an audition on the show only after pestering an SNL talent coordinator from a pay phone. He kills at his audition, but only becomes a "featured player" on the show, because then-producer Jean Doumanian likes another actor, Robert Townshend, better.

Murphy gets relegated to the sidelines for a season, but gets his big break when a show comes up 15 minutes short and he's asked to fill the time with the piece he did for his audition. The piece kills, and he becomes the biggest star in SNL history, with all the trappings of fame: million-dollar cheques, an entourage, and sadly, death threats.



The villain: Chevy Chase

A book is only as good as its villain, and this book has a good one in Chevy Chase, the first season's biggest star. Although he comes off as a thoughtful, regretful guy in his interviews, he appears to be universally despised by anyone who has ever worked with him.

After leaving SNL after the first season to become a movie star, Chase comes back in the second season to host the show, and Bill Murray punches him in the face moments before the show goes to air.

"I was probably a little too full of myself," says Chase. "Maybe I'd been somewhat of an asshole."

"I don't know Bill Murray, but he's screaming, you know, foaming at the mouth, "Fucking Chevy," and in anger he says, "Medium talent!" says director John Landis, who witnessed the bust-up.

"When you become famous, you've got like a year or two where you act like a real asshole. You can't help yourself. It happens to everybody. You've got like two years to pull it together - or it's permanent," says Bill Murray.

The chapters dealing with the deaths of John Belushi, Gilda Radner, Chris Farley, and Phil Hartman are worthy reminiscences of some of SNL's most talented cast members (maybe Billy Joel was right), and it's nice to see the book give weight to cast members who never made much of their time on the show, like Chris Rock, Chris Elliott, Anthony Michael Hall, Jim Belushi, and Julia Louis-Dreyfus.

What the book really gets right is what I hope Judd Apatow's new "Funny People" movie gets right: what it's like to be a comic working in a high-stress environment with other stand-up comics, all desperate to make a name for themselves.

It's laughs sometimes, but it's mostly competition, gossip, backstabbing, jealousy, and sour grapes. Great comedy - and books - are made of these.

If you like this book, you might also be interested in Jay Mohr's "Gasping for Airtime: Two Years in the Trenches at Saturday Night Live" in which he reveals running home during the show after he has a panic attack, and being so desperate to appear on the show that he plagiarizes another comic's act.