The approximate conversation when recently telling friends I would be seeing Roundabout Theatre’s production of Waiting for Godot on Broadway:
“It’s going to be great. Nathan Lane, John Goodman, and Bill Irwin”.
“Wow, Nathan Lane and John Goodman, that’s awesome!”
“They’re cool. But I’m totally going for Bill Irwin.”
“Yeah, I don’t know who that is.”
“Hmm. I don’t think we should be friends anymore.”
…Read more of Gushing for Godot
Comedy can pop up where you least expect it. You can be consuming some form of non-comedic entertainment, and suddenly get gobsmacked by a goldmine of funny right under your nose. Many American fans of House have experienced this when learning of Hugh Laurie’s comedic roots.
My biggest comedy-discovery shock came a decade ago, when I was flipping channels and came across… wait for it… figure skating.
Putting Stephen Colbert in a venue that only holds 450 people is a pretty sure way to guarantee a sold-out New Yorker Festival show. Not only were the tickets snapped up within an hour of the on-sale time, but droves of people waited a few hours at the Festival’s headquarters the day before the show to score one of 40 additional tickets. And the last ditch standby line? That began 4 hours before the show. (That wasn’t any of my concern, thankfully, as I waited at the front of the ticketholders line.)
Welcome.
Last Sunday night, the hosts of the 60th Annual Emmy Awards bombed.
There’s no shame in bombing, in and of itself. If you don’t bomb, you aren’t taking risks. You aren’t doing anything unique. You aren’t pushing boundaries.
A bomb is only truly painful to watch when it comes from lack of preparation, lack of talent, and a lack of self-awareness. That’s what we had on our hands while watching this year’s Emmys, as five reality-show hosts awkwardly maneuvered their ways through the thinnest of comedic material.
Those of us at home were able to hit “mute” or turn our focus elsewhere while the forced banter was playing out. The folks stuck in their seats at the Nokia Theater, though, were subjected to every terrible moment.
A friend of mine was fortunate to be a winner that night. I was thrilled to see him go up and accept his hardware, and almost just as thrilled to know he was headed backstage to the press room to be rewarded with a brief respite from the atrocity continuing in the theater. From his perspective, the show was horrible. “Imagine how the folks who didn’t win must feel,” he said after.
Well, we know how one of those folks feels. Nominee Denis Leary called the proceedings “offensive”. It’s a remarkably accurate word.
In an interview on the Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson, he said:
“I was offended as a comedian. … I’m so sick and tired of people saying, ‘You just write funny lines and put anybody up there.’ No, to be funny is actually a job and it takes required training.”
Those of us who spend large parts of our lives around comedy take this fact for granted. Of course it’s hard. Of course it takes work. Of course not just anyone can do it.
But the public needs to be told this. It looks like the industry needed a reminder too. And they got it.
As a lifelong supporter of comedy, it’s been my personal mandate to present comedy as a serious artform. As a journalist I covered comedy for print (remember print??), and for three years hosted my own radio show about comedy. After this, I turned to performing on a semi-regular basis, and confirmed what I already knew: this shit is hard.
Comedians themselves are typically reluctant to wax poetic on the merits of what they do, and often dismiss their profession as being a convenient alternative to a “real” job. The truth is, punching up a script is tougher work than punching a timeclock. And comedy serves an invaluable function in society, which is too often taken for granted.
Whether covering standup, writing, film, clown, improv… this blog will, first and foremost, treat comedy as something to be respected.
Sharilyn Johnson is a full-time television writer, part-time blogger, and sometimes comic.