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Yesterday, for some reason, I watched the entire two-hour season premiere of Last Comic Standing on Hulu in dribs and drabs throughout the day. I just wanted to make sure I let people know that, in case I somehow forget to include it in my suicide note. Here is the thing about Last Comic Standing: it is filled almost exclusively with extremely talented comedians, and it is ostensibly a celebration of stand up comedy, but as someone who enjoys both of those things (genuine talent and jokes) I find this show to be impossibly depressing. There is a sad and disheartening Komedy Kulture in America that treats it as a subpar mild entertainment designated for the drunken tourist with nothing better to do. Somehow, the fact that everyone tells inane jokes around the Pizza Hut table on Saturday evenings means that there is no art to the crafting of a joke, much less the telling of it in public. This guy knows what I’m talking about, and so does this guy. And somehow, Last Comic Standing, a show that should counteract this collective misconception, actually works impossibly hard to perpetuate it by sucking all of the humor out of every single second of every single performance, and portraying comedy as the epitomy of desperation. The tone is so bloodless and unfunny that even the comedians themselves seem to hate comedy. BOOOO! GET OFF THE STAGE, THIS SHOW!
But here comes 30-year-old graphic designer, Doogie Horner, who took to the America’s Got Talent stage to perform some jokes, despite having been told ahead of time that 40 comedians had already been booed off the stage. And at first, that is exactly what happens to this young man. Until something else happens:
Well done, sir. You are fighting the good fight for the rest of us.
I do love how the British judge claims that the reason the audience booed him was because he wasn’t funny, which would be a totally reasonable argument, and comedy is subjective, and we are all entitled to our opinions in this world in which we are entitled to almost nothing else, except that the audience booed him before he’d gotten three words of his first joke out of his mouth. So, you know, SHUT UP, British judge. Of course, I also love how Howie Mandel goes into some unasked-for, condescending speech about how hard comedy is, which I guess he must know first hand, which would explain why he gave comedy up years ago to work full time on his soul patch. So, you know, SHUT UP, Howie Mandel.
But mostly I love Doogie Horner for turning that audience ON ITS FACE. I am not entirely sure that winning a standing ovation by frustratedly telling people that you are going to fight them because those people are such robotic assholes that they instinctively boo someone the moment they try to do something with their lives besides accept free tickets to a Thursday afternoon taping of a reality TV program that is basically a Junior High Talent Show, is the victorious proof that stand up comedy is valuable and requires exceptional skill, but we are definitely losing this battle every single day, so we take our victories where we can.
Comedy: 1
Anti-Comedy: 1,000,000,000,000
Turning it around! (Thanks for the tip, Max.)
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Glad to see that people are turning away from stand-up comedy as their main source of chuckles, and are instead getting their laughs from 117 year old pop culture bloggers, who spend their time detracting attention from talented stand-up comedy and letting their porridge get cold.
Nobody puts Doogie in a Horner
They put him in a Howser?
Is it bad that I accidentally saw this, and the first thought in my mind when Howie Mandel started trying to act like he knows anything was “I bet Gabe is going to get pretty riled up about this”?
Chalk one up for the Graphic Designers. Graphic Designers!
We’re bespectacled and sometimes pretentious, but we’re hard workers. Graphic Designers!
*raises a fist in agreeing triumph*…at work…instead of retouching photos.
Let’s hijack this comment section into a discussion about CS5, you guys.
#graphicdesignersgonewild
I haven’t even seen it in action yet. The branding for it was INTERESTING, maybe.
I’m pretty comfortable with Cs4 to be totally honest. #whocaresgum
CS5 = too soon
At least we still have…
I don’t know about it being too soon. The CS suites are pretty much made to skip versions. The CS3 investors should be shelling out the money right now.
I’m still back and forth. new layers in InDesign is pretty awesome, but this:
Not so much.
What are we buying here? Office 2010?
RIIIGHT?
They look like empty books or something. I am so tired of this “Everything needs to look like a 3-d jolly rancher” style in design.
Gradients and drops shadows, a good design, it does not make.
How did I miss this! Hooray designers!
Isn’t this guy the lead singer for The Eels? Either that or it’s A Serious Man with a beard….
Upvoted for Eels reference! Too busy to make a gif but here’s a video. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CNtlGwYJCUQ&feature=related
When he said he was really famous, I thought he was going to pull his beard off and reveal David Arquette punking the crap out of us.
It’s Eels, not The Eels PAH!
#pedantgum
I’m not just gonna insult you guys in South Carolina, I’m gonna insult you guys in Michigan, and North Dakota, and South Dakota, and then I’m gonna insult you guys in Washington D.C. and take back America’s Got Talent! YYYYYYEEEEEEAAAAAAHHHHH!!!!!
http://tinypic.com/r/2hyawkg/6
I apologize for that bucketful of fail.
It’s a good thing you didn’t perform this bit on America’s Got Talent.
BYAAH!
This guy knows too. Todd Levin, taking one for the team.
Howie Mandel handing out comedy advice is like Larry Craig writing a book on good excuses.
Piers Morgan is all yours, keep him.
NO NO NO NO NO NO NO. He is a huge lorry,* take him the hell back.
*by “lorry” I (of course) mean “cunt.”
Actually, I heard that Piers was returning to England with his new wife.
It’s a no from me.
Oh if only. Maybe he could take everyone at the top of HuffPo’s “entertainment” page and live in a big polyamorous compound on the Isle of Man. I would also allow Jeremy Clarkson.
His only reason for going on to perform was that his bus ticket was for later in the evening. Confidence.
More like fighting a war against a razor! Amirite? You guys? Why are you booing me?
I liked his beard.
Matisyahu was really funny, you guys.
This is the most shameful thing to happen to a bearded man in a theatre since linc….
Too soon, Duncan!
Too soon.
Groupthink!!!
I like that Sharon Osbourne is the one who gets it kinda sorta
If only everyone in Britain weren’t perpetually pregnant; this could’ve gone so well.
umm.. I’m not pregnant.
and, what?
i honestly thought for a second that was joaquin phoenix and we were going to be subjected to another asinine social experiment but then he put together a complete and coherent sentence.
How come no one ever talks about Joaquin Phoenix being River Phoenix’s brother. Joaquin Phoenix is like Stephen Baldwin if Alec Baldwin would of died before he got to make Beetlejuice,
It still makes us kind of sad to talk about River Phoenix. Such potential.
I would Pay Money to see Doogie Horner.
Howie Mandel quit comedy to focus on his magnum opus:
howie mandel is the salvador dali of of macaroni art.
haha, that crowd is basically every stereotype of an angry confused mob The Simpsons have every done. Probably the highlight of America’s Got Talent ever.
also nice last sentence jackass (me talking to myself after posting this)
I was saying boo-urns.
WE’RE HERE! WE’RE QUEER! WE DON’T WANT ANYMORE BEARS!
Don Rickles is on the phone he wants his crown back, Doogie.
I also watched the premiere and after the initial screening, the best are put into a showcase where they perform a short set. NBC then chooses the best joke from each set and airs them for us to LOL at. So for one particular female comedienne, they chose to run her telling Jim Gaffigan’s “Lifetime Television For Women” basically verbatim, and it got huge laughs and got her through to the next round round. How does NBC miss something like this? They are a major television network running a competition where this kind of thing is sure to happen! Don’t they have screeners for this kind of thing??? Nick Madson would be proud.
I don’t know how to isolate bits but it’s at 1:11:45.
http://www.hulu.com/watch/154697/last-comic-standing-episode-1
and here is Jim Gaffigan’s bit:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bUKwPeUiwVk
For real, though. That crowd is packed to the brim with assholes.
Pierce Morgan man, that guy is just the worst of the worst, I mean his career is basically built on the fact that he know’s he’s an olympic level dick which is kind of fair enough but also shut up sir.
This video made my day, it’s heartwarming really.
Does anyone have Daniel Songer’s phone number?
“America’s Got Talent” and apparently that talent is relentlessly demonstrating their baseless hatred of people with actual talent.
Wait a second, hold on. What the fuck is with that crowd? First they boo a guy for merely announcing his act, then they boo him during the entire act, not even listening to his jokes, and THEN they CHEER for him when he makes it to the next round?
Those robots need to be rewired.
“Someone tell us whether we should like this or not…we are to dumb to figure it out for ourselves.”
-The Audience
“i hated it at first, but then someone told me how good it was, so i love it now.”
-the entire population of the u.s.a. (myself included)
I bought a CD the other day, and then my little brother threw away the celophane wrapper with the sticker on it telling me what song I’m supposed to like. I don’t know if I’m supposed to like “Crash the Car” or “My girlfriend’s Momma”. How am I supposed to talk about this album with my friends now?!
In America, I call the British judge an “asshole.”
OK, but he’s a graphic designer. Maybe he thought he was on “Last Comic Sans-ing”
no graphic designer would ever associate himself with Comic Sans.
That would definitely explain the boooing.
This is the best thread. Font jokes!
http://www.achewood.com/index.php?date=07052007
WE should all just talk about how amazing Kris Sowersby’s new typeface is….Founders Grotesk.
http://klim.co.nz/founders_samples.php
Totally the best you guys…it’s classic but also contemporary! Because ART.
Don’t hate TOO much on the inventor of Comic Sans. He made it for Microsoft 15 years ago and apparently told the Wall Street Journal that “people who love it don’t know anything about typography.”
Fair enough…but seriously, there is a metaphor involving Hitler, Stalin, or other genocidal CRAZIES that applies to this…but I just drank a full McDonald’s Ice coffee and my heart hurts….sooo.
In the end He created a monster and he is responsible for it showing up all over our visual world and he should at least feel bad and take us all out to Dinner.
Papyrus totally sux, amirite, guys?
Forgive the self-promotion (booo), but here 15 haiku about typefaces I wrote: (1) (2). “Enjoy”?
It’s like if Franklin went on an extended ski adventure in Switzerland…Cool and refreshing!
high point of my day: “which would explain why he gave comedy up years ago to work full time on his soul patch.”
Booing is the downvoting of the real world.
Well, the world finally got what it wanted: a Jewish Susan Boyle.
I like how none of the judges are from the USA. Mandel is Canadian, and Sharon Osborne and Piers “Morgan” Moron are both Brits.
I don’t get it, is this like the Apollo for boring white people?
It’s a good thing Horner passed on, or he would’ve gone home and Photoshopped Piers Morgan into a large pile of shit. Now it’s just going to be a sizeable, but modest pile of shit.
I have seen Doogie perform comedy a couple of times in Philly and he’s a totally legit laff maker.
Keep fucking that eagle, Doogie.
Beautiful.
Bill Burr did a similar thing for over ten minutes when he was on the Opie and Anthony Virus tour in Camden/Philly. The your was so notorious for acts being booed off that it was ulimately cancelled.
http://www.google.com/m/url?cd=1&ct=res&ei=sBMQTOCsOo2dlgeSloq-Aw&oi=video_result&q=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3D0S4nSzE4N-o&resnum=1&sa=X&ved=0CA4QtwIwAA&usg=AFQjCNG2Nt-OfreyBR3iVA9mspdq6XaGRw
WTF is this show? Is this real? Or did reality just get punk’d? Back to my cave.
I miss the true comedy legends:
RIP Daniel Songer.
+1 x 1 million
having never seen this show (no electricity in my tent), i am going to assume doogie is the funniest comic they have ever had.
in fact, you could combine all of the joke power of the audience into a voltron-joke and it would not defeat the doogie.
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