How Jim Gaffigan won over a crowd of hipsters
John Roy talks Gaffigan, "Hot Pockets," and how to be transgressive while staying clean.
In Jim Gaffigan’s Most Popular Joke Is a Stand-up Master Class, comic John Roy talks about seeing Jim Gaffigan perform in 2013 at the Upright Citizens Brigade in Los Angeles “for a hundred skinny 20-something hipsters.” He won the crowd over by anticipating how they would feel about him and beating ‘em to the punch.
He was older than anyone else on the bill by ten years, and he was wearing a bright canary-yellow T-shirt one might charitably describe as a little too tight. I was worried the audience might reject a mainstream dad-comic known for working “clean,” but Gaffigan was ready. The first words out of his mouth were an impression of a skeptical audience member reacting to his entrance. “Look at that shirt,” he whispered, earning a solid laugh. “He’s trying to look young,” he added for another, and then went for the jugular — “He’s fat” — to applause. Not only had he won over the crowd in less than a minute, he was already killing, and he hadn’t even talked as “himself.”
Roy then breaks down Gaffigan’s classic Hot Pockets bit.
One thing Roy explains is how Gaffigan manages to still get transgressive even though his act is always clean: He gets mean so his jokes still have some bite.
Like most of Gaffigan’s work, “Hot Pockets” contains no “swear words.” While a clean comic might have material that works in more places and access to audiences that “dirty comics” don’t have, a stigma accompanies the idea of working “clean” in the minds of some of stand-up’s most dedicated fans. There’s a sentiment that comedy should always contain the possibility for anarchy and transgression, and that a comic who removes profanity from their toolbox because they might offend someone is like a metal band choosing not to play above a certain decibel level. Having opted out of using taboo words, Gaffigan must find something else to replace their transgressive power in his material.
His first solution is to get mean. He says that Hot Pockets’ warning label should read, “Hope you’re drunk or heading home to a trailer, you hillbilly. Enjoy the next NASCAR event.” This hostility gives the joke some bite despite the lack of profanity. The price is possibly angering NASCAR fans, but Gaffigan has a trick for that — the same one he used on the hipsters at UCB in 2013. “I like NASCAR. He’s a jerk,” Gaffigan says in his “annoyed audience member” voice, winning any detractors back by showing them they are “seen.” Two seconds later, he’s at it again, having lost no one.
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