Comedy: Stand-Up, Improv, Sketch, Podcasts • Page 815

I have no idea who she is but if she called him gay that’s lame. I just hate actual hecklers so they should be yelled at.

 

If the dude were just heckling her set, yeah fuck him. I still think she comes out looking like a dork for yelling like that. But for her to initiate crowdwork, make a lame joke to an audience member, have him quip something that got a pop and then to yell like that? Stinks on ice

 

Natalie's whole shtick is crowd work.

 

The text message read as so fake to me

 

Makes a lot of sense why you don't get the context if she called them gay first. Fuck that.

 

Normalize going to improv shows and everyone being nice to eachother.

 

how about clubs learn to handle out of line audience members and the comics don't have to?

 

hecklers sucks but comics that "destroy" hecklers and turn it into content are worse

 

don't look at Natalie's Instagram feed then haha. she doesn't "destroy" hecklers a lot. but i feel like every clip i've ever seen of hers, it's her doing crowd working and sometimes giving little jabs if they don't respond in the way she wants.

 

There are maybe 3 comics that are good at crowd work. The rest should stop it.

 

My friend and I went to the Comedy Store a couple years ago and Jeff Ross came out and roasted everyone in the front row, which included us. He called me "gay Harry Potter" because I was wearing glasses, and then he called my friend Voldemort because he's bald. Jeff Ross... THE BEST TO EVER DO IT!

 

That’s the problem. Standup is a person wrestling control over a crowd using comedy as much as it is a performer performing comedy. Anytime that power struggle is removed from the equation, purists bemoan that it’s not real standup or that it’s soft or that it’s corny, etc. There is a pride in playing tough rooms and winning over tough crowds and people look down on easy rooms, crowds where people are nice and want the comic to succeed too much, or performance styles that more closely resemble theater where an audience is encouraged to be less interactive and more deferential towards the performer. It ends up being an environment where both performers and audiences will cross boundaries and the other side will push back and you, the audience member, watch that unfold in the middle of a comedy show.

 

Posting crowd work has been the trendy thing to do the past few years (more views, more discourse etc.) but I think it creates more trouble than it's probably worth. It has the potential to create the expectation of crowd work being necessary or mandatory for any comedy show (which is 100% not true). It also opens up the door for dumb dumbs to interpret the rise of crowd work content as "I am seeing X comedian next week, hopefully I can heckle them and be shared on their social media" as some sort of weird "gotcha" or "content-worthy" moment.

 

I think the only big association with LoS that Cuomo had is she dated Luis Gomez and congrats for not being involved with him any longer than anyone should. The LoS fans seem to hate her, but what else is new for female comedians.

I get why people post crowd work. They don't want to give their sets away for free. I think Gianmarco Soresi (a comedian that's great at crowdwork) talked at length about the problems it caused him when he used to post his jokes on his socials. He had a great story on Blocked Party about unhinged fan seeing them and making requests at his show.

 

On his Hot Ones ep, Staavy talks about people DMing before shows asking how they can "make sure they get roasted"




Also, I don't think that crowd work and owning hecklers are synonymous.

 

The best owning of a heckler was when that guy chucked a full can of beer at a female comedian, got kicked out and she chugged the beer. Otherwise, I can go without it.

I don’t mind crowd work videos in the sense that I get an idea what kind of standup the comedian is. If they’re good on their feet and actually clever, it says something to me about them and I’m more likely to listen to their material. That said, I learned all I needed to know about Matt Rife through one of his crowdwork videos that popped up on IG reels.

 

I went to see John Mulaney once, at a small club, and I overheard the guy sitting in front of me that he was on a first date with the girl next to him, and it was her first standup show she'd ever been to. So he was mansplaining everything, and he was telling her how Mulaney is his favorite comedian blah blah blah, as he was chugging drinks before the opener even started. The opener finally came out, and the dude immediately started loudly responding to every single thing the comic was saying. Shit like "YUP!" and "OH SHIT NOOOO!" (no one else was doing this.) And then he passed out at the table right before Mulaney came out, and the dude slept through his whole show, and the girl just sat there with her arms folded the whole time. I never saw her laugh.

That's when I decided that you should NEVER go on a first date to a comedy show, because you never know how the other person is going to act. But I also thought maybe that was a genius move. Go on a first date to see a comedian you don't like, and see how the other person acts. If they are a heckler type, NO SECOND DATE.

 

I remember the first time I actually casually dated, in my mid-20s, and I was astonished to learn that a lot of people simply can’t keep their shit together and be polite and sociable for 45 minutes. It was a huge confidence boost as someone who spent my early 20s insecure about my own social abilities. By simply being nice and friendly for a short date, it was like I became an upper echelon premium dater and within a few months I met my wife who is way cooler than I will ever be (unfortunately, for her tho).

 

I saw Todd Glass once and he kicked someone out for being an asshole and trying to ruin the show.

 

I saw Kill Tony like 7 years ago and a lady got kicked out for yelling at Tony telling him he was offensive and a hack. She was right.

 

Conan’s latest podcast episode, this one with Kevin Nealon, is one hour of absolute nonsense - laughing the entire time

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/conan-obrien-needs-a-friend/id1438054347?i=1000687238579

 

dookie stain blaine will be the name of my firstborn