For my stand-up routine that I did for English, I used linear storylines recounting stories of odd instances in my life in a way to point out the absurdity of the situation. I have many strange stories from my family that I wanted to tell. For instance, I feel like I have a unique perspective on my childhood since I grew up as an immigrant, and since my mom is more fluent in our native language than I am, I figured I’d use the language barrier for some absurd humor.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I used self-deprecating humor, which I am very fond of, because I have struggled with self-esteem in the past. I struggle to focus due to my ADHD, which drags down my self-esteem, so I used my past struggles of negative self-image from ADHD to build up strange storylines to point fun at my flaws.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It’s much more difficult to come up with jokes than you think, setting up a punchline often involves balancing what you find to be funny and what you assume other people would find funny. It took studying different concepts of comedy to use techniques designed to elicit a laugh. That being said, I’m grateful Mr. Greco provided a “Comedy Toolbox” for us to study, as well as excerpts from a novel detailing how to set up stand-up comedy, it gave me a clearer path to set up my routine.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A primary comedian that greatly inspires me in my work is John Mulaney, which I\u2019m sure will be a frequent name you will be encountering in some other proposals. His style is loud, frank, and sarcastic, but not exactly offensive. He points out the absurdity of situations, like in \u201cHorse Loose in a Hospital\u201d and \u201cDelta Airlines.\u201d In these, he compares the current President to an unlikely, insane situation like a horse running around in a hospital, and he exaggerates the way Airline employees will speak to him when he\u2019s trying to catch a flight. His exaggerism goes hand in hand with his satire, in he will overstate the severity of a situation to point out how ridiculous it is.
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Mulaney often provides anecdotes in his skits, as do many comedians, and in those anecdotes he will employ situational humor with plenty of slapstick in it. He may litter epigrams in his bits of situational humor. He will often give repartees, clever responses to ridiculous situations he encounters to blunders in a situation, another companion to his typical satire bits that he will use if he\u2019s using a real life example for situational humor instead of satire. Mulaney\u2019s jokes are rather drenched in wit with a twinge of slapstick, he uses clever, ironic ways to employ exaggerated physical activities or violence as well as sarcastic, exaggerated extreme voices that needlessly escalate the situation he\u2019s describing. This is especially seen in \u201cThe One Thing You Can\u2019t Replace,\u201d where he goes to a house party in highschool of the son of an unlikeable teacher. He describes outlandish activities that the teenagers in the house do, like break a pool table or defecate on the teacher\u2019s computer desk. He uses caricatured voices when quoting the characters in the skit, like the police officer\u2019s stereotypical accent when he arrests the kids. At times, he will use hyperbole in the bit, in which he will describe the teenagers as \u201ca bunch of drunk, white toddlers,\u201d another example of his wit.
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Sometimes, Mulaney will use self-deprecating humor as well, pointing attention to his thin physique and sometimes effeminate mannerisms. He\u2019s married to a woman, but he often notes how his features will often make people mistaken him for a gay man. In these instances, he puts the punchline on himself, rather than putting the punchline on gay men, . Mulaney often portrays himself as the Non-Hero in the situation, a normal person in a strange instance in which he will reveal an Unspoken Truth over the course of a ridiculous storyline. For example, in his comedy special \u201cNew in Town,\u201d he makes a comment about how eighth graders are unusually mean, using an example in which he, the Non-Hero, encounters a group of eighth graders who make fun of his \u201chigh-waisted, feminine hips,\u201d in which he reacts strongly to in an exaggerated manner.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Another comedian that I take some inspiration to is Eric Andre. Though he also uses some absurdism and slapstick in his skits like Mulaney, what differs in his approach to comedy is that he doesn\u2019t often use linear storylines in his skits at all. Instead, he employs nonsensical, practical jokes with the sole purpose of shocking the audience. While he is quite self-deprecating like Mulaney, Andre doesn\u2019t directly point out his flaws in stories but instead uses a crass, unpredictable persona. His persona is in the limelight of his show, \u201cThe Eric Andre Show,\u201d where he\u2019ll use it in practical jokes he creates to either make the celebrities he interviews uncomfortable or to go out in public and shock and disturb bystanders. This is seen in an episode where he rides on the shoulders of his co-host, Hannibal Buress, while they wear an oversized trench coat to conceal Buress and head out to a public car dealership and pretend to be trying to buy a car, while the dealer is confused and suspicious of them and demands them to unbutton the trench coat. Andre plays dumb and replies that he will not undress in front of him to buy a car, an ironic response.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I find the most inspiration from the absurd humor both comedians employ, the way in which unlikely situations surprise the audience gives me ideas to use absurd responses to common situations to take the audience by surprise. I especially enjoy the slapstick humor, exaggerated actions and voices are a simple way to get the audience to laugh, but of course, they need formula to be able to work. A random action or voice with no build-up will not work in the comedian\u2019s favor, as seen in how Mulaney uses situational humor to build up to an opportunity to use exaggerism.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Andre\u2019s shock humor is something I\u2019d like to draw inspiration, not necessarily in an overtly offensive way, but rather I will apply subtle black humor to stories that typically have a family-friendly feeling to them. For example, I draw to mind an episode in with Andre pretends to be a blind man with sunglasses on with a seeing-eye dog, he\u2019d ask passerbys if they can see his dog and take off his sunglasses to reveal that he has no eyes (with the help of special effects makeup) while he screams for them to describe the dog to him. The responses are usually of surprise and shock, not from a joke that is intentionally offensive but is disturbing in nature. While I don\u2019t necessarily feel that I will try to be intentionally disturbing, the way in which Andre used a typical, family-friendly situation like a blind man with a dog to take the audience by surprise is what I intend to draw inspiration from.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I do want to use linear storylines as Mulaney does as well, recounting stories of odd instances in my life in a way to point out the absurdity of the situation. I have many strange stories from my family that I would like to tell, just like how Mulaney has many strange stories to tell from his childhood. I am considering making myself the Non-Hero of my stories, an ordinary person with strange encounters, like Mulaney does. After all, I have plenty of strange stories that happen in times that were supposed to be normal. In being the Non-Hero, I could also use self-deprecating humor, which I am very fond of. I have struggled with self-esteem in the past, so I can use my past instances of negative self-image to build up strange storylines to point fun at my flaws.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I would like to use caricatured voices as well in my comedy since I will mainly be using storylines in my stand-up. Mulaney\u2019s implementation of caricatured voices is a huge inspiration to me, especially since I consider myself an actor. From my history of performing in theatre, I relate to Mulaney\u2019s personas he uses in his stand-up, so I would like to use some acting in my storylines to aid the punchline.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I might use some slapstick as well since I enjoy the shocking ways Andre uses slapstick to take the audience by surprise. The way in which Andre will sometimes open up his show with him destroying the set on his stage is a form of slapstick that comes to mind, the physical violence he uses to surprise the audience would be something difficult to pull off, but still something I would like to use with good time and effort to research good ways to implement it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Sources:
\nMulaney, John. Kid Gorgeous, Netflix, 1 May 2018.
\nMulaney, John. New in Town, Comedy Central, 28 Jan. 2012.
\nAndre, Eric, et al. \u201cThe Eric Andre Show.\u201d The Eric Andre Show, Adult Swim, 20 Mar. 2012.<\/p>\n\n\n\n