Joke Stealing
10-06-2010There has been a lot of this floating about in comedy circles the last few days, more discussions than people actually doing it, and I have been reading it with great interest.
It seems that somebody has an uncanny knowledge of jokes going back to the second day after the Big Bang, either that or they know how to use Google. As such a few of my associates on Facebook (let's face it you can call them a 'friend' if you want but associate is safer
) that are comedians have been called on their material.
Not only called on it, called on it in a mean and disgraceful manner.
I have two rules about my own comedy, both material and performance. I don't use the cheat sheet, I figure if I forget my shit on stage I should suffer the wrath of an angry crowd because that way I will learn not to do it again, and I don't rob material. As yet I haven't been accused of it, but I might be just lucky. The ladyfriend will attest that I spend a good deal of time working on my sets when I actually am writing them. I fine tune, I tweak, I shout them at her until she laughs out of panic and fear. All the while making sure that it's mine, nobody else's. One time I had a great cold open, it was fantastic, I liked it myself and I never like my own jokes when I write them. I was going to run with it and all, right up until the moment when I heard it being said on a show on the old telly and I realised that I must have heard it before, forgotten, then thought it was new.
It was dropped faster than a turd in the toilet bowl after a night out.
Rightly so too. Sure it was funny and I could have ran with the risk of nobody in the crowd having ever seen the show on t.v., but I would have known.
I've been doing this for a little over two years now, maybe even three, and while I don't do nearly as many gigs as I should compared to some folk (McBride you put me to shame) I have been to a sizeable number around Dublin. I remember seeing one act in particular steal, outright, a joke from another comedian. I won't go into the full details, but honestly there was no way this was a "two guys have the same idea for a joke" accident, it was word for word prop for prop the same joke.
I frowned on that sort of thing. Frowned hard.
But these poor victims have been publicly called on it, on Facebook (let's face it on the Internet) for all to see. No quarter given, no helpful personal message that would draw it to the person's attention. Nope, big ball of fire overhear, look what's going on. Subtle as a sledgehammer.
I've often said if I ever caught an act stealing my jokes (ha) I would interrupt him before he finished his set and call him on it. But to be honest I think I would take him off to the side after he had finished and point it out, not denounce him in front of people. Comedy is hard enough without being destroyed before the public.
The entire debacle that is occurring at the moment online smells to me like an act that got caught himself and has now decided to take everyone down with him. Not content to hold up his hand and admit that he has stolen material (believe me if you read some of the stuff he has done more than lift a few jokes, entire sets could be more accurate) he wants to take down everyone as well. No matter how far, how thin, a link he can make.
Sour grapes, table five.*
*Yes I am fully aware that that is similar to "Saucer of milk, table one". Just incase somebody tries to be funny. Heaven forbid.
Blue_jester