The Big Bumper Thread of Stand-up Comedy

[xoxoxoBruce]

Of course you could, you're a professional sound fondler, but the danger of a tape like that going viral is too great. You don't need the additional pressure of millions of clamoring fans, the entertainment press, and an envious Kim Jong-un.

[lumberjim]

You're awesome, Faye.

[footfootfoot]

CF's new user title:

Professional Sound Fondler

[regular.joe]

Here is some good stuff. Tim and I really seem to be on the same sheet of music on lot of stuff.

[BigV]

My biography, set to music.

**awesome**

[footfootfoot]

Minchin is great.

[DanaC]

Not really standup - but the contestants are mostly standups.

It's a spin off from 8 out of 10 Cats. There was a comedy mash up on Channel 4 a few years ago and theymashed up Cats with a long running very staid little afternoon quiz show called Countdown. It then became a semi regular special and then a regular series.

Countdown is a gentle words and numbers game. Nothing happens in Countdown except people make the biggest word they can out of the random letters, or reac the figure using the numbers given - to the famous coount down clock. Other than the odd bad pun it is as staid as chintz. 8 out of 10 Cats Does Countdown is a more raucous and rude version.

Carr hosts, and the two Cats team captains remain the same. They have the regular countdown features - maths rounds, word rounds, dictionary corner etc. The maths expert and the lexicographer from the daytime countdown show, do the cats version as well.

I should point out for the boys who like girls who like maths - the mathematician is hot.

I should also point out that at some point in every show Joe Wilkinson shows up and does some mad shit.

probably nsfw

[Clodfobble]

AWESOME. I greatly enjoyed this program, and shall consume more of it.

Though I admit, it was hard to try to think of words when I also wanted to watch Jimmy Carr be funny during the countdowns. And the Joe Wilkinson bit was... very weird. Maybe he'll endear himself and I'll get used to it, but it seemed really out of place.

[DanaC]

I think that's kind of the point with Wilkinson.

During the first (iirc) mashup, he was unofficially assisting. Then he showed up in the next set claiming to have been fired from the show. He does something totally different each week, but always with his half brother Fabio in there somewhere.

Glad you like anyway i think there have been six series, but not all of them were full series.

[Clodfobble]

This month begins the annual "Funniest Person in Austin" contest. It's a surprisingly big deal, as the finals are attended by representatives from Comedy Central, 3 Arts, Conan/Kimmel/Fallon, and several big festivals, and the winner is not-totally-guaranteed-but-tacitly-assumed to be given a spot in the New Faces portion of the huge Just for Laughs Festival in Montreal. Plus, the booker for SXSW Comedy is said to attend every night, even the preliminary rounds.

You can see where I'm going with this.

The preliminary rounds are the most brutal: 16-17 performers each night, of which only three will advance to the semifinals. At the discretion of the judges, a fourth person from each night may go into a "comeback" round, with their sets posted on the website and the one with the most votes getting a wildcard spot straight into the finals. But even someone who advances normally only gets to perform 3 times at most.

My preliminary is May 5th, the very last one before the semifinals start. Looking at the lineups it's clear that they have seeded the brackets deliberately, with the bigger names in town spread out evenly across all the nights. On my night, I would say there is one shoo-in and three others (besides me, of course ) who are genuine contenders. The rest I've either seen at open mics or found videos of, and I'm not worried--or else they have no internet presence at all, which probably means they aren't a concern but then again many might assume the same about me. (I temporarily took down the previous clip I posted, because it's not my best stuff and if I do happen to end up in the comeback round I don't want it losing me votes.)

Do I have a chance at getting to the finals? I honestly don't know. The thing is, I know the set I've put together is hilarious. I by no means have a special's worth of great stuff, but I know that my best six minutes is objectively fantastic. But my style is also very different from most of the regulars. The scene here is a whole lot of "lean casually against the mic stand and tell self-deprecating one-liners," and I am far more theatrical and energetic. I yell a lot. Maybe that makes me stand out in a good way, or maybe that makes me too weird to be chosen by judges who are comfortably settled into the smirky scene.

Here, for example, is last year's winner:



This guy, on the other hand, is the most dynamic finalist video I could find out of all of them, and I'm still more frantic than he is by a long shot. (And of course this guy didn't place during his year.)



Aaanyway. I want this. Bad. My ego will be satisfied if I at least make it to the semi-finals (I mean honestly, any-fucking-body can sign up for this and that includes the local schizophrenic homeless dude who sings nonsense over a 12-inch toy keyboard, so I should at least move beyond that level,) and most of the big name folks do come to those shows as well. Some very talented people in this city have never made it to the finals, but they got spots at festivals and launched a career just because the right people saw them at the semi-finals. But I'd be lying if I didn't say that part of me thinks I'm good enough to win. Maybe that's delusional, but I've seen a ton of finalist sets at this point, and I think it's at least possible.

We shall see on May 5th, I suppose.

[xoxoxoBruce]

Good luck.

[Undertoad]

~~ This is awesome! ~~

[glatt]

Fantastic!

Just make sure to remind me when to vote.

[Undertoad]

Awesome like I'm speechless, but here are the words: what a great thing to do and what a great thing to aspire to. I wanted to say about your previous bit, what a fine thing it is, merely to have crafted that very solid and successful four minutes. Now you say it wasn't your best stuff? Kick solid ass.

[Clodfobble]

The intro from the last bit is the intro to this set too, although it's been tweaked a little. But yeah, my final four minutes for this? It's a story that absolutely killed at the small open mic I took it to, and I've improved it a lot since then. I'm super confident about it.