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Funny: The Next Generation

8 minute read
Joel Stein

Kids, if you want to be famous, don’t try stand-up comedy. Sure, it worked for Jerry Seinfeld and Drew Carey and, at least for a while, Ellen DeGeneres, but at what cost? Traveling from town to town, standing in front of a brick wall, yelling like a crazy person, delivering the same jokes night after night–what kind of life is that? Being a comic is being in show business only in the way that being a bowler is being in professional sports. And much like a bowler, you will have groupies, but they will look like the Nanny. Within this Comedy Hell there are four circles, and probably a couple of levels and bolgias too, but we don’t have time to get into that. Let’s just say that in the first circle are comics negotiating TV deals; in the second are comics whose agents claim they’re negotiating TV deals; then there are comics playing clubs like the Improv in Los Angeles and Catch a Rising Star in New York City; and at the bottom, comics who play the other clubs, which don’t pay them money. There are no comics who don’t want TV deals, only comics who say they don’t want TV deals because they don’t have TV deals. Onstage this line kills. Trust me.

Everyone at this year’s Just for Laughs festival in Montreal–the comic equivalent of the PBA championships–designed his or her act for the television execs in the audience. The art of telling jokes died with the comedy glut of the ’80s, and in its place has grown not the rarefied, cerebral, arch alternacomedy that Janeane Garofalo, HBO’s Mr. Show and Andy Kaufman-reincarnation Andy Dick have hyped but two much simpler comedic forms: characters and physical gags–the two forms that TV houses most comfortably. Cable has created an endless number of Comedy Central-ready troupes: there are 50 sketch groups in Toronto alone. The cleverest of them, like L.A.’s sketch-comedy and a capella troupe the But Franklies, try to expand the genre. The rest are busy perfecting Limp Boy.

The scene in Montreal in late July included lots of late-night shots of whiskey, 100 comics being ignored by the public while Emmanuel Lewis (TV’s Webster) signed autographs and veteran dork-for-hire comic Kevin Meaney dropped his fake high voice to brag about a development meeting. The business of comedy was summed up by festival standout Mitch Hedberg, who was introduced as a comedian “seen on David Letterman.” He said, “Four million people watch that show, and I don’t know where the hell they are. I believe more people have seen me at the store. Which would be a better introduction: ‘You might have seen this next comedian at the store.’ And people would say, ‘Hell, yes, I have.'” Nevertheless, after Montreal, Hedberg signed a development deal with Fox. Herewith a sampling of comics you’ve never heard of but who very well may be about to be employed by another really bad sitcom.

SEAN CULLEN, 32 Circle of Hell: II Seems like: A sleep-deprived Steve Martin Next Seinfeld? Next buddy of next Seinfeld

Though his character acting is solid, Cullen’s greatest skill is spewing inanities. “I just say whatever will come out and justify it later,” he says. A slow-talking, lovable, heavyset Canadian, he gets away with continually threatening his audience with physical harm. In a song called With the Food of Your Choice, I Will End Your Life Tonight, he gets the audience to suggest foods to be used in disturbingly intricate murder scenarios. As a member of Corky and the Juice Pigs, he performs rock parodies on Fox’s Mad TV. His mumbling Michael Stipe is perfect, and his one-man duet between Neil Diamond and Stephen Hawking of You Don’t Bring Me Flowers may be his best bit. Or at least his most offensive.

MITCH HEDBERG, 30 Circle of Hell: I Seems like: A surfer Steven Wright Next Seinfeld? Yes

While everyone else forced an angle into their act, Hedberg stole the Montreal Festival by standing still and telling jokes. He drawls in a bizarre slacker cadence, delivering lines like “This shirt is dry-clean only. Which means it’s still dirty” and “I think Bigfoot is blurry.” He keeps his eyes closed and his long bangs flopped over his face. “I don’t like to connect with the crowd,” he says. “I find if you look at people’s faces, you see a disappointed face.” In fact, if he goes three or four jokes without a laugh, he starts to shake and falter. “Laughs are like the energy I feed off. I gotta leave on a laugh.” Unlike most comics, the St. Paul, Minn., native likes the road. “I just love hotel rooms. I love not having to get mail because mail is usually depressing.”

UPRIGHT CITIZENS BRIGADE, 26-33 Circle of Hell: I Seems like: A Beastie Boys video Next Seinfeld? They’re looking to kill the next Seinfeld, not be him

This quartet gained exposure in New York City less for its club shows than for its stunts: creating a supremely dumb sport, printing up sports cards and playing it outside the Today show set; and going to the post office dressed as the sketch of the Unabomber. The four (unlike most troupes, theirs includes a woman) met in Chicago, where they did time at Second City, developing their punk paranoia. “We all had fun doing the theater thing,” says UCBer Matt Besser, “but throughout the seven years, the overriding goal was to get this thing on TV.” Starting Aug. 19, their TV show will follow South Park on Comedy Central.

LEE EVANS, 34 Circle of Hell: I Seems like: Jerry Lewis on speed Next Seinfeld? Better yet, the next Jim Carrey

Lee Evans works harder than anyone who isn’t employed by UPS. He sweats so much during his spastic show of pause-free buffoonery that he has to throw his suits away after five performances. Though his bigger-than-Jim-Carrey muggings are funny and his scatological jokes are fine, the audience appreciates the ex-boxer’s earnest, humble hard work as much as the laughs. “I used to come off really cool, and people would yell, ‘Get off!’ And I thought it would be better to move around a lot,” he explains. “The philosophy is, a moving target is hard to hit.” Evans has had hit TV specials in England where he sells out arenas of 5,000 people. He has yet to hit it big here, but his parts in Mouse Hunt and There’s Something About Mary prove that his simple comedy can translate to the U.S. As if that were a question.

MO’NIQUE, 30 Circle of Hell: II Seems like: A heavy Joan Rivers Next Seinfeld? If Seinfeld can exist on the WB

Drawing on the proud comedic tradition of fat people making fun of themselves, Mo’Nique enters the stage yelling, “Y’all give it up for my fat ass!” For some reason, from that moment on, the audience is on her side. “Once you fall in love with Mo’Nique,” she explains later, “I can say anything.” That includes energetic rants against Victoria’s Secret’s refusal to carry size 22. Though her material isn’t brilliant, the former full-size model has a persona that’s perfect for TV. And, conveniently enough, she’s already closed up her comedy club in Baltimore, Md., to move to L.A.

ELIZABETH BECKWITH, 23 Circle of Hell: III Seems like: Jenna Elfman, if Jenna Elfman were funny Next Seinfeld: Next Elaine

In an industry swamped with angry men and penis jokes, recent college grad Beckwith’s material is a tough sell. In a seven-minute set, she’ll maybe get through three long jokes, but the traveling is interesting. In one bit, she dismisses big-screen TVs, arguing that the joy of television is having tiny people entertain you. “I think there should be openings for food and water so that it’s as if you could actually feed the tiny people. ‘Hello, tiny people! It is time for supper! Feast! Feast!'” But while she wanders to that punch line, she takes some rest stops to chat with her hand, as if it were a puppet. “You’ll notice it,” she says, “because I very cleverly turn to the side.” The hand says, “Shut up! Tell your joke!”

THE NEW BOZENA, 28-33 Circle of Hell: II Seems like: Salvador Dali, the clown Next Seinfeld: No

Three minimalist clowns expressing existential discomfort doesn’t sound like a funny pitch. That’s because it has the word clowns in it. But watching these three guys try to impress a casting director by head-butting a ham through a paper target, or a female audience member by singing, dancing and yelling “Look at me!” is the brainiest physical comedy in a long time. Their performance skills are Cirque du Soleil quality (one of them, Michael Dahlen, is a member of the surreal mime troupe the Blue Man Group), and even they hope to bring their slacker vaudeville to TV. When clowns are having meetings with MTV and Castle Rock, you know TV has killed the stand-up star.

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