1399: The Hardest Job in the World

[Junkenstein]

Originally Posted by Lord of the Cock Rings

I assume that's based on cd's. have you seen either one live?

ah no, you wont trick me into the "you have to see the guy live to grasp his inherent brilliancy" thing. if every joke Jesse does in both his cd's makes me giggle at best where i laugh hard at every bit Pat does, i HIGHLY doubt that seeing them live will change my opinion completely.

Unless they do 99% of visual based humour, which i doubt.

[lews_therin]

People laugh at Larry the Cable guy too, but that doesn't mean he's funnier than jesse or pat. Perhaps the two of your have different tastes when it comes to comedy.

[Junkenstein]

the first Larry the Cable guy cd was stupid but not as stupid as everyone says.

if we wanna talk about shitty comedy, we can name actually shitty comedians, like Aziz Ansari, Robin Williams....

[myq]

Listened! Fully equipped to respond! Except that I am on my phone and not computer so I will be brief for now.

1) Jesse never said standup was harder than being a soldier. And Tom Hanks was making the point that doing comedy was harder than HIS job of acting. He also would likely say that being a soldier was harder than his job of acting. I don't know if he'd pit comedians against soldiers, because he is nice.

2) Tom Hanks thinks acting is easier than comedy for him, because he is experienced in it and talented at it. I think comedy is easier than acting for ME.

3) Jesse is right that most people are bad when they start doing standup. Most successful professionals agree. It can be observed. Standup is pretty much the only art form that requires an audience, compared to something like music, which can be practiced in private. That is the main reason why standup takes more work PUBLICLY to get good, because the work generally takes place in public. (Maybe if someone grew up in a big family where learning to be funny got a kid more attention, that could account for someone having some kind of practice in advance of the stage.)

4) There are naturally talented people, in every art. Chemda never learned to sing. Chappelle might have been hilarious from age 14, by some acccounts I have heard. It is POSSIBLE for some people to be great very quickly. Jesse points out that people would be better served seeing a 30-year comedy vet's hour over Nick Cannon's. But what about a 30-year hack? Or just someone who has done it fine for a while but might not be as naturally funny as Nick?

5) I disagree that standup is like sports. Michael Jordan was the best ballplayer. Who is the best comedian? Stanhope? CK? Oswalt? Rock? Seinfeld? Regan? Chappelle? Attell? There is no objective measure. Once you are great, you are great. And you are an individual.

6) Most people need to practice to get great at most things. Some people can be naturally good, but the best person who is natural AND works will very likely be the best. If you could measure objectively. Which I said you can't.

7) Can more people act well than do standup well? Probably more people could do passable acting than passable standup. Disagreement? But great acting is also hard, I imagine. There is disagreement even among great actors... Harrison Ford has said it is a craft, anyone can learn. Pacino has said it is an art, not everyone can. It, like standup, probably has elements of both.

8) How many numbers will I get to before deciding that I was wrong to say I am going to be brief? (You can thank/blame very bad traffic. 2mph max. Mostly zero. I am safe.)

9) So, is the measure of difficulty how much time/effort it takes a regular person to get good? Or what it takes for a talented person to get great?

10) Ten! We did it. Let's go, traffic! That's enough for now.

[Junkenstein]

This is a bit off topic but i should stop reading Doug Stanhope's late interviews about comedy. I get that's part of his personality and he's earned to be that way but reading him waxing over how comedy is pointless, hateful thing and how he would love to be out of it and have no audience at all is a bit disheartening at times.

[Junkenstein]

trust me, one feels way better that way. Grey is for pussies.

[skeetshart69]

OK. So Myq basically rocked the question, but I'll add that both Jesse and Chemda's points can be seen in the great "Talking Funny" Jervais special (YouTube link to part 1 of 4). Jervais is a total ween throughout and kind of shows his stand-up ineptitude, while Seinfeld describes how he was good from the very beginning of his career.

[myq]

Originally Posted by skeetshart69

OK. So Myq basically rocked the question...

Aww.
That's nice.
In exchange for saying a nice thing, here is slightly more (or at least rephrased) rocking...

I believe that the best standup comics, whatever measure one can make of that, will by and large have the most experience under their belts.

I believe that prodigies can exist in any art form, standup included, but that in standup especially, being a prodigy is even rarer than in most other performing arts, if not only because the sense of humor generally doesn't develop until post-single digit ages, at least (whereas Mozart was demonstrating genius at 4 or 5, I hear, and there are many examples of dancers, musicians, singers, and such being naturals at that age as well).

Studies have shown that most kids don't even really fully understand sarcasm until their brains are more developed, that some of the mechanisms necessary for comedy just aren't there yet.

I'm not saying there couldn't be a hilarious 4-year-old, but I think a 4-year-old genius is less likely to be a genius at standup than any of those other arts. (This is on topic, right? Jesse is mad at people who do standup when they're 4?)

That said, if someone is a natural at being funny, but they've never done standup specifically, it's certainly possible for them to be better out of the gate than someone who's less of a natural (unnaturally funny? that sounds even better). And depending HOW natural they are, and what kind of upbringing they had (lots of kids, needed to be hilarious to stand out to parents? listened to lots of standup comedy? did improv or sketch or some other kind of comedy? was a writer of comedy of some kind?), that could certainly inform how good they are off the bat.

But even with all that, that person would not be as good as they could be with 20+ years of experience under their belt (most likely/in general/who knows).

For the most part, doing it makes you better at doing it.
(Not that there aren't people who have been doing it for a long time that aren't as good as some other people who have just started... time and work put in certainly isn't the ONLY thing necessary to become great. But it is one of the things generally necessary to become the greatest.)

[Bucho]

Myq is an hilarious, useful, brilliant, intriguing and intelligent gentleman.

An hilariouseful, brilliantriguing intelligentleman.

BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!!!

[myq]

Originally Posted by Bucho

Myq is an hilarious, useful, brilliant, intriguing and intelligent gentleman.

An hilariouseful, brilliantriguing intelligentleman.

BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!!!

At first, I didn't see the "M" at the end there, and thought that you were giving yourself an extremely thorough (and undeserved) booing. (I especially like "intelligentleman.")

Grappreciatituded!