Tag: Critiques

I barked Saturday night and pulled in 14 people to the two shows that I did. Both shows were so packed and sold out, that I had to run my camera from the control room. When that door is closed, you can’t hear the laughter as much.

0m38s I stumbled over some words and had to repeat them. “Clap only if you’re here with the person you hooked up with…” is awkward to say. I have yet to think of a better way to convey the point without adding words. 

0m44s If two people clap, I shouldn’t say “exactly no one” but should say “see, almost no one.” It’s best not to make it seem that I don’t consider some people to be people… 

1m36s If people clap, there’s no need to say “you got social networking sites like myspace and facebook” 

2m12s No need to say “then I’ll stop asking people” as I think I’m the only one who noticed I started three straight bits with a question. 

2m23s Use grammar: “They’ll put him to a pet spa”, god I hate myself sometimes.

3m56s Pause for a second longer after “this or tennis” 

4m41s My new “myspace” line has been getting a mix of laughs and “oooo’s” so I’m trying to think of a follow up line. As of Feb 20 (the day I’m writing this post), I think I’m going to try “Man, they didn’t tell me this was a child molesters convention” or “wow, I hope you’re all registered pursuant to Megan’s Law.” 

4m55s Don’t move until they start to get the joke. It shows a lack of confidence. 

4m57s The show was so packed they set up a table on the side of the stage and put two more people there. I decided to high five them, cause high fives are awesome (and my joke didn’t get a great response, so I mighta panicked a little). 

5m27s I said the word “actually” with the wrong tonality and ruined the punch line.

5m43s Pause for an extra second while holding the shot glass and try to force the laugh 

6m09s By reacting to an audience member saying “oh shit” the rest of the audience lost their way a little and my fan base punch line didn’t hit very well. 

6m24s I got more time than I planned so I wound up closing with a joke I don’t usually close with. 

6m43s Ta-ta-ta taaa, bad grammar strikes again! What the hell is a “stripper-subway pole” 

6m44s If I’m gonna grind on the pole, I should grind on it for a while. 

7m00s Try a call back to the crazy sound. 

Overall: Not counting the few stumbles over my words, I got good laughs and the crowd had fun. I didn’t feel great when I came off stage, but when I listened to the voice recording, I felt much better.

This was the most packed I’ve ever seen this mic. I was 18^th out of 18 comics and the crowd went from 20 people to 6 very tired people who wanted to go home. I tried to do my best but they didn’t really want to hear more comedy that night (not everyone was good). So I resorted to doing as much crowd work as possible to keep them engaged. 

0m38s I love that the camera is right by someone closing out their bar tab. 

0m53s Two girls were whispering to each other. That’s 1/3 of the audience, so I had to talk about it. 

1m29s I screwed up my second and third punch lines in the facebook joke. 

1m58s New rule: Don’t ask a second question until you make fun of their answer for the first question. 

3m26s I love how “laugh it up” when nobody is laughing causes big laughs. 

6m01s I messed up the placement of the line “I don’t mean to give the game away.” 

6m26s My head shouldn’t be tilted to such a low angle. I can get my eyes up into my head without that much downward tilt. It looks try hard. 

6m30s Pause two more seconds after “fan base” even if I’m running my time. 

Overall: I thought I did worse than I did before I watched this video. I got some laughs, and they didn’t completely zone out. And I practiced some crowd work. Lesson in all of this, don’t show up so late to a sign up.

This was an open mic and I decided to work on a character that I created long before I started doing stand up. 

“Boris” or “Rasputin” was born in October of 2003 when I decided to dress as a Russian Hockey player for Halloween. I speak fluent Russian, so I started going up to girls and speaking Russian, they’d be confused, and then my friend would come by in a minute, “translate” that I say “hi” and that I’m a foreign exchange student and then I’d break into broken English. 

0m35s I was trying to make it ambiguous between “blonde people” and “blind people” but put too much emphasis on it. 

0m54s Any words you don’t understand are Russian. I usually just continue saying the same line I’d usually say, but in Russian instead of English. 

1m03s I can’t have an “or” between my first and second example, as that messes up the flow for the third example. 

1m29s Say “L – U – V” with pauses between letters. 

1m38s I looked down after the punch line, I hate when I do this. 

2m24s Dance dirtier and for longer. 

2m52s I started trying to do a little improv work based on what I thought the character would say. 

3m04s Translated that means “I don’t know what I wanna talk about.” 

3m24s I shouldn’t have laughed there as that screwed up the laughter momentum. 

3m41s I came up with the VCR instruction manual on the spot. 

3m48s I wish I came up with some follow up jokes about that. 

Overall: I did a much better job of staying in character this time than the last time I tried doing a character here. I also had a couple of good improvised lines. That was actually my best joke in the set.

This is me at a 3 person bringer. There were about 30-40 people in the audience, 3 of whom actually knew me. And two of them had seen my stand up in the very beginning. I hate myself for not checking the camera setting before hand to ensure optimal lighting.

0m37s Change from “You get to” to “We get to that midnight kiss” 

0m44s Note for future reference, pick out a person in a large group to say “you know what I’m talking about” whenever possible, as the rest of the group will usually laugh at the guy. Also try to pick out a guy as it makes my joke make more sense. 

1m33s Don’t say “but it’s messed up” anymore. 

2m39s My amazon dot com voice needs work as it doesn’t sound consistent from set to set, and the laughs vary as well. 

4m25s When I wrote that, I didn’t consider “some people don’t realize there’s some photos you don’t put there” to be a punch line. That either shows how little I know or how great of a crowd it was. 

5m05s My voice was off for “It. Costs. Money.” because I got a little interrupted and this led to random laughter. I should’ve gone back a few words, to get my outraged voice back. 

6m52s I didn’t pause long enough between “that takes” and “tubes”. 

7m23s I love how this punch line either causes crickets to chirp (silence) or kills. 

7m39s I learned to wait after “that means that you are.” As that takes people a few seconds to get it. 

7m43s I came up with that on the spot and will be using it from now on. “I didn’t mean to give the game away, I’m sorry.” 

8m17s For every set where “girl lets you take her out to dinner” didn’t get big laughs, “I didn’t even get any snuggle head” doesn’t get big laughs either. I should adjust on the spot and know to skip that if this occurs (assuming I’m getting good laughs in general). 

8m38s That’s by far the best reaction that line has ever gotten. I think my notes on holding the face in previous critiques finally paid off. 

9m02s I should start ending good sets by saying “Check out BigBenComedy dot com and have a good night. Thanks” so that my website name doesn’t get drowned out. 

Overall: This was one of my best, if not my best, set overall. The fallopian tubes and the website name were the two weakest jokes, so I either need to strengthen them, deliver it a little better or get rid of them. This audience was dying at a lot of other things so they’re trustworthy in judging what works and what doesn’t (unless they laugh at everything).

This is another set at the place where I bark. There were 8-10 people in the audience and they were spread out. The talking you’ll hear in the background is from the bar outside the room. It wasn’t as bad a last time though.

0m40s I should just say “People love their dogs. They send them to a pet spa…” instead of mentioning how “It’s a messed up kind of love.” That needs to come later. 

0m57s After “gets grandma”, try changing the line to “We really love our dogs, just not enough to keep their reproductive organs. That’s messed up. It’s like if I were to ask him…” 

1m17s I think he said “I like sweaters. You have a very nice one on.” 

1m25s It’s never a good set when my admitting I’m bombing gets the biggest laugh. 

1m38s Step forward when saying “Puppies for Yuppies.” Here, I took half a step backwards and leaned back. 

2m20s Make it “because our standards drop the closer we get to that midnight kiss” instead of “the closer you get” 

2m23s There was a 14 year old boy in the front row that I pointed to. 

3m32s Stop using the “hearing aid” part of the joke right after the deaf part. 

3m50s The sweater guy from above almost died laughing at this line. I wish they made everyone sit up front so that the laughs would get contagious. 

4m00s The sweater guy’s girlfriend said something or other so I had to react. 

4m50s Don’t step back and reach for the mic when first introducing “The Snuggle Slut.” This needs to be more theatrical.

Overall: This was clearly not my best work. I’m starting to find that I need a critical mass of about 15 people in order to get the huge laughs. This isn’t me making an excuse as I’ve seen pros kill a room of 4 or 6 people. I either need to pretend there are more people in the room, or change something about my delivery when there’s less people. Maybe I should walk around the stage more and look at a different group of people after each joke, winning over one table at a time.