But in a good way.

Brian Regan, Demetri Martin, Nick Swardson, Dane Cook, Mitch Hedberg, Lewis Black, Kathy Griffin— these comics are featured heavily on Comedy Central. They are also among the comics cited as favorites by a group of youths that gathered recently for our most recent standup comedy seminar.

Two weeks ago, we held that seminar down the pike at the Ritz Theater in nearby Haddon Township, NJ. It was open to the Ritz’ Junior Program participants, so the half-dozen kids who took advantage of the offer were high-schoolers. These were obviously not your average teenagers– they are, after all, members of a theater group and they signed up for a seminar on standup– but it is interesting to note what their preferences are when it comes to standup. And it is worth noting that they were somewhat knowledgeable about the state of standup comedy in the year 2008.

Considering that none were old enough to drink,, we weren’t surprised to find that none had seen standup live. (Actually, two of them had seen live standup comedy on two very recent occasions– They were present for the Oct. 24 Dena Blizzard/Mike Vecchione show and the Traci Skene/Brian McKim show two weeks earlier, both part of the theater’s “Ritz Comedy Club” program.) But, their comedy tastes are driven mostly by Comedy Central.

We thought back to our early days and which comics we were familiar with and how. We concluded that, prior to cable, American kids got their standup predominantly through The Tonight Show, The Merv Griffin Show or other talk shows. Or, depending on how old you are, you got it through Ed Sullivan and the various variety shows and specials that dotted the television schedule back then. When cable came along and late-night television exploded, there were more talks shows that featured the occasional comic. HBO, Showtime, MTV and Comedy Central offered heaping amounts of standup.

There’s been somewhat of a shakeout. Comedy Central stands out as the most influential among the adolescents.

For adults, it is influential to be sure. But the oldsters get their comedy from a wider variety of outlets– Movies, DVD rentals, DVD sales, CD sales, live in the clubs, XM, Sirius and various local and syndicated radio shows that regularly feature comedians, either recorded, via phoners or live in-studio.

What about YouTube? YouTube’s influence is overblown. There is precious little well-recorded, well-presented live standup on YouTube. Television still rules because of the quality and quantity of the programming and the convenience.

Comedy Central is doing the lion’s share of the “training” of a whole new generation (or three) of standup fans. And the young ones we encountered had somewhat varied tastes and surprisingly sophisticated appreciation of the craft.

Here’s a quote from a San Francisco Examiner article on Patton Oswalt:

Oswalt, who tours with comedians from The City, says, “The young scene that is coming up now is pretty fantastic.” The scene includes Brent Weinbach, who will warm up the crowd at Friday’s show.

These days, Oswalt is enjoying audiences across the country, which he says are growing and becoming increasingly aware about comedy in general.

“The crowds are a lot better,” he says “They are better educated about comedy and they are real connoisseurs, so it’s fun.”