Mitcz.com : Official blog of Rev. Mitcz, the demented devilish comedian from Hollywood, CA.

I might not do a lot of comedy performances, I’ll grant you that. I just don’t have the time necessary to go out and troll for gigs. However, I find the time to catch comedy acts about as often as I can. I see a lot of common themes in comedy, especially amongst the local circuit. As one who’s studied comedy almost his entire life, I’m gonna help you poor souls out that are lost in the world of funny by highlighting things that are no longer funny. If your set contains any of these things, it’s time to start rewriting.


The following things are no longer funny…

1. Almost anything you ever did as a child
2. Your parents. Seriously – we’ve all got “whacky” parents who “don’t get it”
3. Your weird cultural combination. I don’t care if you’re an english, irish, jewish mexican and I’m fully aware that you think mixing those things together means you can make jokes about being an uptight drunk who steals things and keeps a close watch on his money. Still doesn’t make it funny to anyone but you – cause we can’t relate.
4. Dentist/Doctor humor. Bill Cosby did the best Dentist performance ever, so leave it alone.
5. Airplane humor. I know you can’t wait to tell your latest zinger about the in-flight magazines, the pre-flight safety presentation, or maybe that “icky” airplane food, but we’ve all heard about 1,000 other comedians tell that same joke.
6. Your plan for the war in Iraq. Here’s the formula – replace “tactile military warfare” with something zany like “hey, I think we should hurl bananas at those camel fuckers” and you get…. instant, topical comedy, right? Wrong.
7. Your Jack Nicholson impression.
8. Your Jerry Seinfeld impression.
9. Your Michael Jackson impression.
10. Any impression that requires a set up like “what if (insert random celebrity here) did (insert scenario they’d never be in)? I think it’d go something like this…”. While you might think Cristopher Walken shopping for vegetables is absolute hilarity, the rest of us are wondering why one of Hollywood’s finest actors is yelling in the produce aisle.
11. Rita Rudner
12. Improv comedy troupes. I know people who have never done comedy in their life love to say “that’s gotta be difficult to just come out and be funny on a whim like that”. Meanwhile, those of us who actually write comedy know that doing improv is the easiest, lowest common denominator of comedy and that’s why there’s so many fuckin’ improv comedy troupes. Write some fucking material, or get up there by yourself and be funny on a whim. A group of jackasses acting out “funny scenarios” that are picked by an audience of non-comedians is painfully easy and you’re too self-absorbed (and often talentless) to admit it.
13. Jokes about how not-funny Carrot Top is. I’m sure he’s crying all the way to the bank.
14. Clinton jokes. They may have been fuckin’ hilarious 6 years ago, but now they’re just pathetic. Yeah, yeah, he fucked an intern. Big fuck. Not funny anymore.
15. Your Job. If you work in porn as a fluffer, then I wanna hear all about it. Otherwise.. shut the fuck up. I’ve actually heard open mic comedians talk about their day job as a plumber. What makes you think I find that funny? More likely, I’ll just think you’re pathetic and no one wants to feel sorry for a comedian.
16. Toilet humor. Hi, welcome to 3rd grade, I’ll be your pimply-faced friend grossing out the girls with poop jokes. Unless you’re George Carlin, your toilet humor is immature, ill-prepared, and lame.
17. Gross and offensive for the sake of being gross and offensive. ANYONE can tell detailed “jokes” about tampons, scatalogical play, anal sex and bloodshed – that’s not why that shit sells. What makes offensive and gross comedy sell is that you’re getting the audience to laugh about what they’d normally find offensive. Making it offensive without so much as a loose plot to string it all together is about as difficult as making jokes about air travel
18. Anything that involves you having to sing. If you were any good at singing, you wouldn’t be doing comedy. However, if you think “this joke just doesn’t work without suddenly busting out into a singing impression” – then maybe just stick to the singing cause you certainly aren’t cut out for comedy. It’s uncomfortable. Try watching yourself do that on video sometime and you’ll see why.
19. Anecdotal tales about you and your friends, and how you did something funny. I know, we just “had to be there”. We weren’t. That moment is gone, but I’m sure your friends remember the hilarity. Keep it off the stage, please.
20. Any humor that attempts to make you sound “cool”. Everyone knows any comedian worth their shit has always been the pimply-faced nerd that everyone picked on. If you weren’t that kid, then you don’t know shit about sacrificing your enjoyment of a situation so others may laugh. You weren’t cool then, you’re not cool now, and no one’s buying your bullshit story about how cool you are.
21. Basing your comedy act on your look/culture/race/stereotype. That’s a cheap cop-out. If I see a fat guy take the stage, I think “oh good.. another 7 minutes of fat jokes” or a black guy “oh good, another 7 minutes of ‘white guys do this’ and ‘black guys do this’ jokes”. Prove me wrong, and you win. Spend the majority of your set pandering to your stereotype and you’re as original as the last fat/black/gay/jewish/italian guy who told fat/black/gay/jewish/italian jokes.
22. We all know George Bush is an idiot. No matter how you phrase it, you’re not breaking any new ground. Patton Oswalt and Lewis Black have the market cornered on Bush jokes so you no longer need to bother, and they’re much funnier than you’ll ever be.
23. Women take too long in the bathroom. Yeah, we know.
24. Sports-related humor. Remember that whole thing about needing to have been the kid who got picked on when they were children? Yeah, jocks have never been that kid.

Now, go forth and attempt to be funny.

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