Funny Money: $25/show or $100 Million/Year from Netflix?
Comedy Coach predicts the near-future!
(Mill Valley, California, 12-7-2018)
by Jim Richardson, comedy coach and
co-writer.
Updated: 7-27-2019, 8-4-2019.
This web page is getting to be potential examples for my Post Graduate
School,
Monthly meetings featuring new lecture/demonstrations:
http://stand-upcomedyworkshop.com/IntermediateAndAdvancedCourseTitles.html#Lesson35
In the mid-1990's, I produced over 1,000 professional comedy shows throughout
northern California. A competitor of mine had a string of one-nighter
comedy nights scattered throughout the state on a weekly basis. Suddenly,
he got greedy and decided to cut the opening act/MC's salary from $50/show
down to $25 a
night. Most strange.
Those were the days when a good headliner could expect to make $1,000-1,500/week
at a full time comedy club.
"Full Time" could mean just one show on Friday and Saturday night,
two or three
shows on Friday and/or Saturday nights.
This, plus single shows on Sundays, Tuesdays,
Wednesdays and/or Thursdays.
Mondays were usually "dark" (closed) nights, except
for special occasions.
Sunday or Tuesday could be open mic nights,
Wednesday or Thursdays might be
showcase nights where professional comics might try out new material and
open
mic graduates could be auditioning for paid weekend slots.
This structure
was initially designed to develop new local talent
but has now largely been
replaced by better-drawing mid-week professional shows.
That left time during the day for professional (paid) comics to supplement
their $50-75K/year comedy income
with paid radio and TV commercials, print work,
book writing, etc.
The plum jobs were daytime or evening performances at corporate
gigs (national conventions, etc.) for $2,500 or more/show.
Kevin
Pollak was then a San Francisco Bay Area comic who confided in me, "Jim,
we call those gigs 'funny
money'."
In
addition to his 145 TV and film credits, Kevin hosted 400 episodes of
his podcast "Kevin
Pollak's Chat Show" (March 22, 2009 -
March 2, 2019), that featured show business success stories told by famous folks.
Note: After watching these videos on You Tube, you can return to this
index page by clicking your web browser's Back Button.
One of the best of Kevin's podcasts was episode
178 featuring the voice-master Jon Lovitz (two hours,19 minutes):
Alert: the first 30 minutes is a bit slow as these two buddies set up numerous
call-back jokes that pay off over the last hour and fifty minutes.
Therefore, you might want to start with
Lovitz's first appearance on "The
Tonight Show starring Johnny Carson" 3-8-1985:
Jon Lovitz's bio:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jon_Lovitz
Lovitz's 113 TV and film credits:
https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0001484/?ref_=nv_sr_1?ref_=nv_sr_1
My main interest
was finding the time to watch all these Netflix comedy specials,
then make
notes on bits that were good examples of comedy techniques.
Since comics
should open their acts with strong material and finish with their strongest
bits,
it seemed logical to cull this herd by first watching just their
opening and closing five minutes.
Imagine my surprise at how many acts had
neither an opening bit capable
of hooking audience interest
nor a finish capable of generating long
and loud exit applause.
I stopped with the ten-minute failed culling
experiment.
Now, to be academically accurate, I'd have to watch the entire
hour of each act.
This, in hopes of finding something to recommend for
my students and clients
to study to become better comics.
Worse, some household name comics were being paid $10,000,000 each
for one to six hour-long shows that they hadn't even written yet.
Let
alone tried out before at least 150 audiences to fix up the weaker bits
by "punching
it up or cutting it out."
Frankly, too many comics appeared to
have run up against impossible self-imposed deadlines, and opted to "just
phone it in."
Perhaps
not the worse offender, but certainly bad enough to provide an unneeded
poor example
was Chris Rock's "Tamborine" about
the break up of his marriage.
This, from the once ingenious premise
routine writer in the pantheon
of great African American comics:
Bill
Cosby-Richard
Pryor-Eddie
Murphy-Chris
Rock-Steve
Harvey?
Pathetic.
So, I tried to imagine how this all went so very wrong
with so many comics making
essentially the same mistakes.
My educated guess is that when playing
comedy clubs or larger venues,
comics might think that they have nothing
to prove
once the audience has forked over their admission investment, and taken
their seat.
Hell, it probably took them forever before the show
just to find a place to park
their car.
That audience was not going anywhere.
What makes this different
on Netflix?
If you are not funny in the first 10 seconds,
all the viewer has
do is click a link to try another comedy act.
Or do what they always came to do on Netflix:
watch flicks!
First, the bad news. Then, the good news.
Bad news:
Computers hosting web pages with video can easily be programmed to find out
exactly how many minutes and seconds before the user switches to another video.
These "metrics" are
a trade secret that Netflix does not share with comics when they
go to re-negotiate their contracts.
We've already seen how many original series Netflix has given the axe.
Why should stand-up comedy "stars" be treated any differently?
Point being, this market potential is being sullied by the comics themselves.
Now, for the good news:
Stand-up comedy shows are a whole lot cheaper to produce than motion
pictures.
So, with all these heads about to roll,
there is still lots of room for up-and-coming
comics
to take over this bloated industry.
Given what happened to 2018's crop of arrogant comics grabbing at
Netflix
funny-money,
I don't suggest you try this major career move all on your own
during 2019.
But I do have a plan to get your act Netflix-ready in the next 6-12
months.
Jim Richardson, comedy coach & co-writer
I can work with you locally in the San Francisco Bay Area.
Or long distance from anywhere in the world via video conferencing.
Good help is available with 35 Beginning, Intermediate and Advanced
3-hour workshops:
http://stand-upcomedyworkshop.com/IntermediateAndAdvancedCourseTitles.html
Plus, 150 hours of coaching and co-writing services:
http://www.stand-upcomedyworkshop.com/coach.html
Student and client endorsements:
http://stand-upcomedyworkshop.com/endorsements.html
Discounts of up to 33.33% when you invest in my entire
six-month program:
http://www.stand-upcomedyworkshop.com/IntermediateAndAdvancedCourseTitles.html#your
Investment
Let me now throw caution to the winds.
Yes: some of the stand-up comedy shows on Netflix are in fact, very good.
I will just use laugh
pattern to score them objectively:
Bio.: Jim
Jefferies.
Netflix's comedy hour: "This
is Me Now" (July 13, 2018), one hour, 10 minutes.
Great opening character and career reveals but a bit chatty sans big laughs.
He gets off to a slow start the first few minutes with some titters
until
he gets a couple of solid laughs.
Then, about 6 minutes in, he gets a great laugh.
If you are not familiar with the math here, please read up on laugh pattern:
The
Producer's "Audition Requirement" Letter
http://www.stand-upcomedyworkshop.com/audition/auditionLetter.html
Then, hit your browser's Back Button to return to this page.
"The
Jim Jefferies Show" (June 6, 2017 – present),
Comedy Central, Tuesdays.
Bio.: Anthony
Jeselnik
Netflix's comedy hour: "Thoughts
and Prayers" (2015), 59 minutes.
(plus: Jeselnik is interviewed
on "Larry
King NOW")
Total class act. Three minutes into his Netflix show, Jeselnik is getting
Big and Great Laughs
left and right.
Six minutes in, he is already working the crowd, and killing.
Master of what I call the Yes/No basic
joke format,
he repeatedly dares the crowd to guess where he is going
from each set up to get to his surprise punch line.
Brash, daring and all around just plain fine.
For his explanation of his workflow, watch the King interview.
Jeselnik's next comedy hour "Fire
in the Maternity Ward" (2019), 1
hour and four minutes, isn't bad.
"Anthony
Jeselnik on Performing Stand-Up at a Prison"
But then, his guest appearance on "Jimmy Kimmel Live" (6/18/2019)
10 minutes, 35 seconds, tops it all.
This,
after he begins innocently enough waxing
sentimental on his recent Father's Day gift to his 70-year old dad.
Natch, this sweet story is just a false lead to reduce audience expectations
until at 2 minutes, 30 seconds into his panel slot, he switches to his San
Quentin Prison performance.
All is forgiven as he delightfully taunts us once again into guessing where the
punch
word for each great joke will crash through the tepid boundaries of national
(his final punch word) "television."
Bill
Burr is
one to watch develop his writing to match his already dynamic character
attitude and movements.
His 2008 DVD "Why Do I Do This" begins in a NYC subway:
Talk about a Cadillac walk!
And he's from the humble Boston suburbs!
Extras on his DVD show him chatting with us out of character.
This helps us appreciate the work he has done to create his comedy persona.
An early podcast "Uninformed XM" 2002 The Drum Battle Episode
is included but doesn't go anywhere.
"Inside the Hacktors Studio" is an interview on his background and early years
in both the Boston and NYC comedy scenes.
"The New York Clubs" has him giving an odd day time tour inside comedy clubs
without stage lighting:
Gotham Comedy Club, Dangerfield's and Caroline's.
"That Philly Thing" Opie & Anthony
Traveling Virus Tour shows Burr managing to stay on stage while the audience
tries to boo him off. Doesn't work very well.
But note how he handles his opening words for "Why
Do I Do This" (2008) only available
via Netflix on DVD.
Remember: this is 11 years ago.
So, he's still prone to watch what other acts
do wrong, and imitate those errors:
he meets positive entrance applause with a series of heartfelt but banal repeating "Thank
you, thank you, thank you."
But by 2017, he knows better, and instead immediately establishes his character
by talking back at the audience
while they are still applauding with maximum enthusiasm,
ending it with, "Let's wait to see if I'm funny first!"
What else is he
doing so much better?
Watch his Netflix hour Walk
Your Way Out (2017), one hour & 17 minutes,
and his many guest panels on major talk shows
easily found on youtube.com
What is Jim saying?
Treating entrance applause as a set up line
for your first joke is a good idea which can
start
revealing your character.
Let me give you a better example.
As much as I like "The Late Show with Stephen Colbert,"
our host
has a terrible habit of greeting all guests
with the same lame line, "Nice to
have you here on the show."
Guests fall into saying almost identical words like, "It's nice to be
here."
Boring!
Not ol' Hugh
Grant who says the same words but his arch delivery changes their
meaning. (6-27-2018)
Then, he astutely proceeds to roast the theatre, the NY audience, Colbert,
etc.
When the host tries again to make nice, Hugh waves him off.
Eventually, Grant grants the host's request, and makes nice by admitting he's
been kidding.
But not until after opening his guest slot by immediately "getting
out of the chute fast!"
I only hesitate to
recommend the above comedy shows
as I still need to view more of each
comic's work available online
just in case there are even better examples.
So far, so good.
Stay tuned to this web page.
Considering all the above industry news,
2019 can shape up into a very
good year
for the smarter stand-up comics.
For you, I have already plotted this out
with a series of weekly goals to meet.
As they told me in computer class,
"keep up with your homework deadlines,
or
you'll never catch up!"
8-)
Questions?
Ask away:
Jim
415-877-4424
jim@stand-upcomedyworkshop.com
Jim Richardson
Comedy Coach & Co-Writer
ORGANIZED COMEDY
P.O. Box 992
Mill Valley, CA 94942-0992 USA