Stale Stand Up Jokes/Routines

faceman · 07-03-2012 12:40pm #1

What jokes or humour to you feel are stale or ' beneath amateur' in the stand up circuit in Ireland?

I dont know whether its age but I often glaze over when comedians talk about sex unless there is something unique about it. However the dirty they go the less funny I find it.

I also find religious humour as easy target stuff too.

Mickolution · 07-03-2012 1:02pm

Agree on both of those, tbh. Both can be funny or course and I've seen great routines on both subjects, but both are usually very lazy. Doing jokes about sex is just going for shock value at times, whereas religion is just reinforcing your audience's smugness.

Miguel_Sanchez · 07-03-2012 1:48pm

References to rohypnol.

grames_bond · 07-03-2012 4:32pm

The difference between men and women!

Mickolution · 07-03-2012 5:32pm

Talking to the audience. It can be good, but usually it's just lame stereotypes about nationalities or occupations. I do like the take off of it in the last scene of Seinfeld when he's doing a show in prison, though. "Anyone here from block b" "Yes" "I'll talk slower" "I'll cut you" or something like that. Makes it that it's Larry David's voice responding, too.

pappyodaniel · 08-03-2012 4:01pm

When I used live in Sligo, I was a regular visitor to the Model Arts monthly comedy nights. John Colleary was the MC back then and I swear every night his routine was based around the (less than convenient) Dublin-Sligo train service.
The visiting comedians would comment on this also as they usually shared the train with John earlier on in the day heading West from Dublin.

It drove me mad.

faceman · 08-03-2012 4:57pm

Mickolution wrote: »

Talking to the audience. It can be good, but usually it's just lame stereotypes about nationalities or occupations. I do like the take off of it in the last scene of Seinfeld when he's doing a show in prison, though. "Anyone here from block b" "Yes" "I'll talk slower" "I'll cut you" or something like that. Makes it that it's Larry David's voice responding, too.

This is an interesting point, ive seen it done hilariously and not so hilariously but most of the time it falls into the not so hilariously vein, mainly because the comedian tries to rip the pi$$ out of the individual assuming its funny. Also most people are afraid of attention so it can be often very boring.

When i saw Dara O'Brian he spent one half of his show doing audience interaction. I was bored to tears with it. He made up for it though in the second half with his own material which was fantastic but that first half was painful.

Mickolution · 08-03-2012 7:58pm

My problem with it is that it's usually just the same old stuff again. "ohh, you work in computers, you must be a nerd" or "ohh, you're american, i'll talk slower." Really boring stuff. Might be just me, but what I like from a stand-up is a really well honed routine that works really well on it's own merits.

On the Amercan point, I used to hate it a few years back when it was really fashionable to be anti-american and every other comedian was doing awful George Bush jokes. I don't have very strong feelings one way or the other on the topic, but it comedians were just shooting fish in a barrel with it, as with it being fashionable, people would laugh at it despite it being the same old stuff over and over.

Miguel_Sanchez · 08-03-2012 11:11pm

As every comedian knows though, just because people laugh doesn't mean it's funny.

Galvasean · 08-03-2012 11:44pm

Jeff_Lebowski wrote: »

As every comedian knows though, just because people laugh doesn't mean it's funny.

That would explain Dane Cook so. I never understood his popularity.

krudler · 09-03-2012 12:25am

Galvasean wrote: »

That would explain Dane Cook so. I never understood his popularity.

fratboy humour, now I like some of his routines and he has some genuinely funny jokes, but the audience is painful with their constant whooping and screaming, watch his madison square garden show for a perfect example.

female comedians and period/men being crap jokes. yawn, new material please, theres a handful of women who are funny, Tina Fey, Janeane Garofolo (too reliant on I'm a woman and old now jokes though) but too many rely on the same old jokes.

Mickolution · 09-03-2012 2:43am

Jeff_Lebowski wrote: »

As every comedian knows though, just because people laugh doesn't mean it's funny.

True. The amount of awful stuff I've seen get a laugh. I think people just go to shows sometimes determined to find whatever the comedian says funny and just laugh at anything like it's a preset or something. Though it may just be differing tastes.

If there are people like that, they probably enjoy comedy gigs a lot more than me though, so who am I to have a go?

James T Kirk · 11-03-2012 5:20am

The "me and me mates woz 'on the piss'" anecdotes, I find boring, lazy, and incredibly unimaginative.

Exclamation Marc · 18-03-2012 11:50pm

As said previously, jokes on national identity just don't work anymore. Cultures are so much more diverse than years gone by and the stereotypical "jokes" just aren't funny.

Especially when comedians bring up England/Ireland stuff, it's just lazy humour as they're always be idiots in the crowd whooping for pro-Ireland or anti-England regardless of where in Ireland you are.

Crooked Jack · 07-05-2012 3:14pm

You're all talking pompous shite. If something is funny it's funny, regardless of the subject. Look at Dylan Moran, best comedian in the country and he still does loads of men v women stuff. What you have here is a bunch of amateurs who have convinced themselves that the reason they arent more successful is because they're too high brow and people just dont get them. Get over yourselves.

Miguel_Sanchez · 07-05-2012 3:45pm

Crooked Jack wrote: »

What you have here is a bunch of amateurs who have convinced themselves that the reason they arent more successful is because they're too high brow and people just dont get them.

You're reading an awful lot into this thread.

Every subject can be comedy gold in the right hands. However there are always some overdone topics that when you hear a comedian bring them up at an open mic your inner critic immediately thinks, "This is going to be boring."

I'm guilty of it myself but I actively try to stay away from topics that I hear being covered an awful lot for that reason.

nadadine · 08-05-2012 8:12am

I can't stand Irish comedians who only make jokes about Irishness and Irish things that aren't even close to being inherently Irish. It can be great, but when a comedian overdoes it I have to wonder if there's anything else to them.

Same goes for female comedians who only relate to their female audience.

Stale Stand Up Jokes/Routines

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