6 Responses

1. bert haas says:

   February 16, 2012 at 10:50 am

   Audiences are no better or worse than before. Comedians need to look in the mirror and examine their own tendency to go for the lowest-common-denominator jokes and easiest (often dirtiest) material. And not just standups. Consider the rash of profanity offered nightly on Comedy Central and prime-time television. Pandering to the audience lowers the public’s standards and results in a loutish audience.

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   • Brian McKim & Traci Skene says:

     February 16, 2012 at 2:40 pm

     Actually, Attell is not talking about the quality of the audiences, but the size. You’ll notice his name is a link… which leads to the entire interview… which contains the above quote. Attell doesn’t lament the loutishness of the audiences, but the fact that there is so much competition for the consumer’s attention.

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     • bert haas says:

       February 17, 2012 at 11:48 am

       I apologize for not realizing the quote was a link but I still must disagree with Dave. In Chicago we are seeing a renaissance of standup with at least two new A rooms opening this year (Up, Zanies) and more one nighters than I can remember.
       Granted there are a lot more entertainment options than, say 20 years ago, but there are also more people seeking more entertainment.
       Long term, the key is always to maintain quality.

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       • Brian McKim & Traci Skene says:

         February 17, 2012 at 12:39 pm

         We hear anecdotal evidence that contradicts Attell. (Your comment, for instance.) But we aren’t hearing enough to make him wrong. It is heartening to hear of Chicago’s upswing. We hope the new rooms flourish.

2. Duug says:

   February 16, 2012 at 6:02 pm

   haha bert really jumped the gun there. Anyway, I guess the internet is making alot more shut-ins. What about a live streaming standup show? You pay 2 bucks and watch the show live from your home. Theres no way thats an original idea right?

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   • Brian McKim & Traci Skene says:

     February 16, 2012 at 6:23 pm

     Standup comedy “grew up” in the pre-WWW era. As such, it had several things going for it, not the least of which was its novelty. As it matured, the novelty wore off somewhat (and its original live audience matured as well) and, for pretty much the first time, it had to actually spend serious money and use creativity to get people through the door. (There was some money spent from ’79 to ’92… and there was some wicked creativity in marketing and advertising and promotion. But the folks who wielded those bucks and creativity don’t seem to be around in substantial numbers any more.)

     The internet isn’t making shut-ins. But many of the folks who offer live standup comedy utterly fail to differentiate their product from all the others out there. We’re biased, of course, but we’ve always maintained that the biggest selling point of live standup is that it’s… live… and it’s standup. The best way to see standup is sitting, with a cocktail, not more than fifty feet from the stage. It’s something that doesn’t even occur to some people until the lights go down and a comedian appears onstage, bathed in light, not fifty feet away.

     It’s not easy to get that across, but, with all the new technology that’s available today (along with social media), it’s a heckuva lot easier than it was in 1992.

     And it’s the reason we go apeshit when someone says, “Thanks for supporting live comedy!” Arrrgghh! Stop it with the “support” thing. We are not a charity. We are an arm of “Big Entertainment” now. We are “legitimate.”

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