Hulu has a nifty feature that enables the user to embed the code for any of their videos and select his own custom start point and end point. We did it for The Male Half’s appearance on last night’s Last Comic Standing episode (see below). He comes in at 1:15:36 of the clip and exits at 1:18:42. (Note: The clip is presented with “limited commercial interruption,” so a two-hour episode cooks down to 1:25:43… which means that The Male Half appears with less than ten minutes to go!)

The clip is 3:06 total– that includes the snippet of interview at the beginning, the footage from the wings and the banter with the judges. The actual chunk of standup is only 1:25! That includes the walk-on portion. The actual set was a bit less than twice that length.

Those wishing to view the entire episode can go here or merely click on the timeline below the video to move forward or backward.

Here’s the order of appearance, with the real order of appearance (from the evening’s taping), followed by the number of spots they were moved– up or down– in parentheses:

Roy Wood, Jr. (3, -2)
Fortune Feimster (4, -2)
Jerry Rocha (2, +1)
Guy Torry (12, -8)
Jacob Sirof (13, -8)
Nikki Glaser (14, -8)
Taylor Williamson (17, -10)
Nick Cobb (15, -7)
Mike Vecchione (11, -2)
Cristela Alonzo (9, +1)
Kurt Metzger (5, +6)
Laurie Kilmartin (6, +6)
Tommy Johnagin (7, +6)
Claudia Cogan (18, -4)
Maronzio Vance (10, +5)
Jason Nash (16, 0)
James Adomian (8, +9)
Carmen Lynch (20, -2)
Brian McKim (1, +18)

Not sure what to make of these figures, but it demonstrates just how much energy is devoted to manipulating the actual event to create drama. Having experienced it (from the standpoints of a performer and an audience member), our brains were scrambled while watching the final edit. And it was quite nerve-wracking when, with only about 12 minutes to go in the broadcast (and only two comics left), The Male Half hadn’t yet appeared. (Indeed, the only reason we weren’t totally freaked is because we spotted The Male Half for a half-second in the opening montage of performers striding to the microphone onstage at the Alex.)

Our anxiety is nothing, however, compared to what must be the despair of those comics who taped at the Alex but didn’t appear in the finished product– Stuckey & Murray and Joe List last week, Tom Shillue and David Cope this week. To go through that stressful evening (Shillue went on 17th, Cope went on dead last at 21st), only to be excised from the final edit must be devastating.

* * * *

But how did the show do in the ratings? According to website TV By The Numbers, “Last Comic Standing was the original broadcast standout on the night, the only show to increase vs. last week. It’s 1.8 rating was up 13 per cent compared to last Monday.” And, while it didn’t win its timeslot, it did get stronger as the night wore on (and as Fox went local at 10 PM), eventually gathering nearly 5 million pairs of eyeballs in the “Live + SD” figure.

That’s viewers who watch live plus those who view it on the same day, time-shifted. It’s a brave new world out there, and Nielsen Co. is accommodating the changes in technology. Here’s their explanation for how they calculate watchers in the era of Tivo and Windows Media Center and Hulu:

Time Shifted Viewing – Program ratings for national sources are produced in three streams of data – Live, Live+Same Day (Live+SD) and Live+7 Day. Time shifted figures account for incremental viewing that takes place with DVRs. Live+Same Day (Live+SD) include viewing during the same broadcast day as the original telecast, with a cut-off of 3:00AM local time when meters transmit daily viewing to Nielsen for processing. Live+7 Day ratings include incremental viewing that takes place during the 7 days following a telecast.

Got that?

We figure LCS has a pretty healthy Live + 7 Day number. We’ve been monitoring Twitter and Facebook and personal emails and we notice that a lot of people are making a point of watching the show– one way or another– and are catching it in various ways in the days/weeks after the episodes originally air. This is a change from even just two years ago, when LCS was last broadcast. Back then, Tivo (described in the trades as a “DVR maker”) had about 3-1/2 million subscribers. Considering that only 1 per cent of Americans use Tivo (and that number is shrinking), they’ve done a masterful job of turning their brand into a commonly used verb. We suspect that a good number of viewers use Hulu and that there are probably surprisingly high numbers of people who use a good ol’ fashioned VCR to bend the TV schedule to their will. Here at SHECKYmagazine HQ, we’ve got a laptop with Windows Vista using a Happauge TV tuner and Window Media Center… like Tivo, but without the intrusive pestering and suggestions. We suspect that a lot of Tivo’s erosion might have something to do with folks getting rid of their landline, which is a prerequisite for using the service (unless you’re one of the microscopic slice of Americans who knows how to muck around with a wireless router… and you believe the Tivo tech people when they tell you that a landline isn’t necessary.)

Perhaps the classiest response/reaction to the airing comes from Guy Torry, who posted the following as his Facebook status:

I make NO excuses, “Last Comic Standing”, NOT my finest hour. For my fans who know how I get down, sorry if I let you down, for those who I may have lost, thanks for the support. What doesn’t kill you makes you funnier! Keep supporting LCS!

Torry valiantly attempted to turn his brief Alex set into a mini-HBO special. He placed the mike stand far away, he staked out vast swaths of the stage and swept the crowd, top to bottom, side to side. But it just didn’t work. He didn’t connect. And, of course, he knew it wasn’t working. Yet, he still had to stand up there and endure the critique from the judges. Some folks take it, some folks get somewhat defensive. Torry went on defense. And the producers chose to put the spectacle in the fourth slot in the lineup.

It says a lot about Torry that he makes no excuses and that he urges all to “keep supporting LCS.” It is entirely in keeping with what appears to be his normal modus operandi. He could have toned down his larger than life persona, he could have altered his delivery and his material and shoehorned it into the tiny time allotment. He did none of those things. And so, it is entirely understandable that he wouldn’t merely lay low after Monday’s airing or trash the show.

And, yes, Jacob Sirof did follow him in “real life.” His opening “Well, that was awkward,” was the best (and, perhaps the only) thing he could have done to break the tension. And it demonstrates the value of paying attention to the act that goes on just before you do.

As we mentioned in an earlier post, the evening was a long one– six hours plus– for both performers and the folks in the crowd. (Fortunately, The Female Half was accompanied by John DiCrosta, David Smith and Adam Gropman— two-thirds of which got some primetime facetime… we might try to freeze frame it and see if Gropman’s mug made it onto the broadcast.)

Some people say the show is “rigged” or “fixed.” This is a rather harsh assessment and one that betrays a certain ignorance or naiveté when it comes to the reality of reality TV. To be sure, the show is “cast,” but who is shocked or outraged by this fact?

Before the taping of the second semifinal show even started, we strongly suspected that The Male Half was screwed by virtue of the previous evening’s pick of Jonathan Thymius and that Mike Vechhione was screwed when the judges chose Mike DeStefano. We also calculated that Roy Wood, Jr. was a shoo-in once Kyle Grooms was passed over. (Also figuring that either Maronzio Vance or Guy Torry might possibly be in the running for a second “comic of color” spot… and that, once Torry flamed out, it was probably going to go to Vance.) And, as there was only one female comic chosen on Night One, we were certain that at least one female comic would get through to the finals from Night Two… and that Laurie Kilmartin was the favorite. That left two “White Male Spots” up for grabs on Night Two– and twelve White Males battling it out for them. (And, since The Male Half and Vecchione were cancelled out by Thymius and DeStefano respectively, it was really only ten who were in contention.) Johnagin and Adomian were handed the seventh and eighth spots in the evening’s lineup respectively– sweet spots, no matter how long the lineup is– so it was theirs to lose. And they came through. Putting Metzger fifth may have meant that he was “on the bubble,” and that, were either Johnagin or Adomian to flame out, he would take one of their spots. The Male Half, in a conversation with the Female Half, prior to boarding the shuttles to the theater predicted that, a show containing that many comics would cause spots 15 through 18 to be “death spots.” As it turns out, he was right. The crowd was tired, rammy and anxious. Those comics who went up during that stretch had to work a lot harder than those who came before or after.

Which is not to say that the folks who reached the finals didn’t deserve it or didn’t rise to the occasion. But the scenario was rather skillfully concocted to achieve one of several desired outcomes. And those who advanced did so by most certainly rising to the occasion. Just because some of the choices may have been predictable does not indicate anything close to rigging or fixing. And it doesn’t take away from the accomplishments of those who landed in the top ten. There are only so many spots. So it is understandable that great care must be taken to exercise a minimum of control over the makeup of the comics who occupy them and that a great amount of consideration must be accorded to demographics. (Let’s face it: They could have just picked names out of a hat. But no set of ten would have made everyone happy. And there has to be some manipulation by the producers.)

It was 72 hours of extreme stress, a diabolically varied schedule with physical and mental hurdles along the way and tremendous highs and lows. Anyone who gets through it without turning into a gibbering idiot can be proud of the achievement.

Stay tuned for the Male Half’s first-person account of the ordeal.