Modified On March 26, 2008
An article in the Connecticut Post relates the story of a local Stratford, CT, boy, attending GWU, who has earned a spot in a comedy contest being conducted by an online standup comedy clip aggregator.
Travis Helwig doesn’t like jokes. He finds them pedestrian, quaint and often anticlimactic. That’s a little strange, because Helwig, 20, of Stratford, has been interested in performing comedy for much of his life.[…]
Helwig made his school’s standup team, even though he’s not a big fan of the format. That’s because he finds conventional standup– and jokes in general– a bit dull.
“There’s a set-up and a punchline and you know what’s going to happen and it’s never as satisfying as you’d hoped,” he said.
Instead of taking the stage and rattling off one-liners, he developed an act more akin to performance art, adopting the persona of an awkward man terrified to be onstage.
An awkward man, you say?!? Terrified to be onstage?!?
Why… in all the history of standup comedy we can say without hesitation– with absolute certainty– that this has never been done before!
I suggest that we all have a meeting and try to determine if there any– ANY!– reason why any of us– all of us, each and every one of us currently doing standup comedy– should remain in the business of standup! So ingenious, so perfect, so positively unique and exquisitely wonderful is this Helwig’s concept that it would be folly for any of us to continue.
All hail, Travis Helwig! He is our new Comedy Leader! Before him, we are but greasy pieces of dust, unoriginal and slovenly, not worthy of inclusion in the category that includes him!
It is indeed a shattering experience to realize that all of one’s efforts have heretofore been but piddling and pathetic attempts– mere precursors to that which is the splendor of Travis Helwig. But we shall console ourselves with the fact that we will no longer embarrass ourselves with our pedestrian bleating. And we will forever take delight in his actions. (Click on the story to behold his clip.)
But, seriously, folks: Our tiny friend displays that painful combination of hubris and jaw-dropping ignorance. What’s the old saying? If you wanna break the rules, you gotta know the rules. And, if you’re going to pass yourself off as The New Comedy Messiah, you had better come up with something better than “awkward man terrified to be onstage,” something that has been done (and, in nearly all instances, abandonded quickly) by countless open-mikers since the dawn of (funny) man.
It’s disrespectful. It’s embarrassing. And the reporter ate it up.