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Seinfeld's slump

Discussion in 'Anything goes' started by Smasher_Sloan, Feb 16, 2013.

  1. Inky_Wretch

    Inky_Wretch Well-Known Member

    From that profile a few weeks ago (in the New Yorker? Or NYT Magazine?), Seinfeld made it clear he does do unannounced club gigs to work on material.
     
  2. BitterYoungMatador2

    BitterYoungMatador2 Well-Known Member

    Comedians pretty much have to in order to get a fair barometer of whether or not a bit works. If you're in a room of sycophants or Vegas tourists you hav no idea.
     
  3. Mizzougrad96

    Mizzougrad96 Active Member

    There's a big difference between an open mic and places where top comics go to work out their stuff... Open mic is when almost anybody can go up. I've seen Colin Quinn, Louis C.K., Jim Norton, Artie Lange, Jon Stewart, Nick DiPaolo etc... at places like The Comedy Cellar during the week. where they're working on the act that they will take on the road. Often they're up there with notebooks and sometimes they'll even stop and cross something off, or say something like "Doesn't work?"

    On some of the podcasts, they talk about what happens when mid-level comics are working out material and someone "really big" comes in and sometimes will spend 45 minutes to an hour working on material.

    Rock has talked about it, he's said that he doesn't feel right working on material when people are paying big money for a ticket to see him. It's better to show up unannounced and do it. Chappelle has been doing that for awhile in the Bay Area. The set that Daniel Tosh did that got him into trouble was during a set where he just popped in to work on material.
     
  4. Mizzougrad96

    Mizzougrad96 Active Member

    He does this in that movie "Comedian"

    My point was that while most comedians look at six minutes on Letterman as their career break, as it was for guys like Ray Romano and Jeff Ross, someone like Seinfeld might approach it like he's working out material.
     
  5. dooley_womack1

    dooley_womack1 Well-Known Member

    Sometimes, it's like other areas of life; you can lose your fastball with age. George Carlin sucked out loud his last few years.
     
  6. Mizzougrad96

    Mizzougrad96 Active Member

    Carlin was inconsistent late in life. I saw him three times during his last two years of his life and twice he was every bit as good as he ever was... One of the shows, he was still funny, but seemed a little uninterested.
     
  7. mpcincal

    mpcincal Well-Known Member

    I loved Carlin as much as anyone, but I have to agree with Dooley a little bit. I got a couple of Carlin's most recent albums and didn't really care for them. I've always said to people that a stand-up performance doesn't work for me if there's as much applause from the crowd during the act as there are laughs (i.e. comedian makes some political or social statement and the audience agreeingly applauds, making the comic seem more like he's preaching than trying to be funny). I heard a lot of that in Carlin's act in his final few years.

    Also, though Carlin's abrasiveness was endearing during his prime, later it got to the point where he was that bitter old guy who would complain about everything and make you wish he would just STFU. I actually heard a little bit of that in Seinfeld's Letterman gig the other night.
     
  8. Mizzougrad96

    Mizzougrad96 Active Member

    The thing I loved most about seeing Carlin in concert was when he would come out as part of the encore and just list a couple hundred terms for jerking off or having sex and he would just stand there and go for 20 minutes or so... I don't think those were ever on any of his albums. I had a poster in college that listed all of them, I think there were six or seven thousand words on the poster... I can't find a picture of it on the Internet, although, I'm sure there's one out there...
     
  9. Versatile

    Versatile Active Member

    George Carlin's material has aged so terribly. That doesn't sound funny at all.
     
  10. BitterYoungMatador2

    BitterYoungMatador2 Well-Known Member

    Re: Carlin.

    Life is Worth Losing was complete shit, and I think even he admitted that in a mealy-mouthed way at points.

    Its Bad For Ya' felt like a farewell, as if he knew it was gonna' be his last album. He talked about turning 70, getting old, crossing dead people out of your address books and then talked about the importance of questioning things. You could feel him saying, "this is all I got left, guys. You're on your own."
     
  11. TwoGloves

    TwoGloves Well-Known Member

    Saw Carlin twice in Vegas. Both times he read his entire show from a script. Said he was working on getting it down pat for his next HBO special. Fine. But don't charge me full fucking price while you rehearse. And he wasn't that funny either.
     
  12. Guy_Incognito

    Guy_Incognito Well-Known Member

    You went a second time? Shame on you.
     
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