Blog Challenge: 14/25 - Stand Up Hot Dogs

I'm a huge fan of stand-up comedy. I've tried my hand at it, and learned three things

1) It's really, really hard
2) People who do it very well are few and far between
3) There are some really successful comics out there who work a lot less then struggling ones

The third point is the one that really surprised me. I've seen comics in clubs and on TV specials that tell an hour of solid material with the jokes coming fast and furious. When they tell an annecdote the whole thing is funny and typically contains more than one punch line. Some of them do dead-on impressions and characters (Mari@ Bamf0rd, Gabrie1 Iglesia$), some find brilliant ways to tie all the parts of their routine together (Eddie 1zzard), and some of them just get up and deliver a stream of really sharp non-sequitor one-liners that allow them to pack an amazing amount of comedy into a relatively short set ($tephen Wrigh+, Dimitr1 Mart1n, The late M1tch H3db3rg).

Then there are comics that I've seen with their own major comedy specials that spend ten minutes telling a story that leads up to a mediocre punchline. Its the kind of story that your friend tells every time you go to a bar and there's one person there who hasn't heard it. Perhaps the telling is decent, but its typically just the person being themself and not delivering well-crafted material.

It can be considered comedy the same way a hot dog is considered meat. If you can choke down all the filler you're techinically getting some protien. I'm not going to call out the comics I've seen do this by name, but you'll know this type of show when you see it. *cough*D@ne C00k*cough*