Roger Ebert aspired to be a standup?

by Brian McKim & Traci Skene on April 23rd, 2009

Or so he says in his column from April 11. It’s an interesting set of observations about standup, but mainly about jokes and how to tell them. Along the way, Ebert shares stories and advice from such luminaries as Lou Jacobi and Buddy Hackett.

Buddy was a student of the science of comedy. His favorite Las Vegas stage was at the Sahara. “I was offered twice the dough to move to a certain hotel,” he told me, “but nothing doing. Comics who work that room always flop. There’s a physical reason for that. The stage is above the eye lines of too much of the audience. At the Sahara, the seats are banked and most of the audience is looking down at the stage. Everybody in the business knows: Up for singers, down for comics. The people want to idealize a singer. They want to feel superior to a comic. You’re trying to make them laugh. They can’t laugh at someone they’re looking up to.”

Read it. It’s fun. It’s informative.

Thanks, Paul Ogata, for sending us to it.

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