Recently a friend of mine decided to embark on a career in stand up comedy. Now, get ready to
learn more stand-up comedy from a different perspective. Arriving early also provides a chance to make friends with the other comedians because if you decide to make a career out of comedy, you will be seeing these folks multiple times a week. To captivate as a public speaker, you don't have to be funny, but you do want to be dynamic, engaging and be able to hold the audience in the palm of your hand.
The first time you do stand-up can be a strange experience. The idea of this setup is to trick your audience into believing they know where your joke is heading, but then the punchline throws them off and surprises them. Go someplace private, pretend you have a mic, and tell your jokes to your audience." Yeah, I get it, this is stupid, but part of being successful on stage is confidence.
One needs to prepare content for 4 to 5 minutes and is judged by an independent audio meter that records the decibels of laughter and applauds on your jokes. There is no quicker way to get comics or clubs to hate you then to go over time. It also fills in a lot of the unfortunate holes that exist in The Comedians.
He performed his standup on "The Joey Bishop Show," "The Merv Griffin Show" and "The Jackie Gleason Show." In 1969 he made his first of 35 appearances on "The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson." In addition to his gigs on television, he spent his time making the rounds of comedy clubs throughout the country.
Save the joke you think is the funniest for last to end your set on the biggest laugh. One definition of hack is that you the stand-up comedian are thinking about what the audience wants instead of what you think is funny…as opposed to being the artist that comes up with something new.
Skilled stand up comics are ready for ANYTHING — drunk people, loud people, late people, people who are drunk, loud AND late (thanks Dad…), mobile phones, glasses smashing, loud music, loads of laughter, no laughter…it goes on and on. For comedians, just like copywriters, the writing process is really where the magic happens.