Reader: "Do you still use any of your old jokes?"
On old jokes, why they stop working, and what to do about that.
A reader asks:
How long have you been doing standup and do you still use any of your very older jokes? You had a few bits in the [“I Need Laughs”] documentary that I think still stand the test of time. Curious if some of these jokes ever made it onto an album or were simply left by the wayside.
I started in 2006 and wrote about my first decaded in standup here.
I don't really use any of my oldest jokes. If a joke is good, I tend to eventually put it out on a special and then retire it. Also, jokes tend to stop working after a while in my experience. My hunch is that’s because I eventually start to go into autopilot mode when I've done a joke for too long and the crowd can tell that I'm checked out. Also, comedy is like a baguette, it goes stale awful fast.
That said, sometimes I'll pull an old one out of the "junkyard," retool it, and bring it back. It's amazing how just a new tag or shift in the setup can breathe new life into something that once seemed DOA.
Here’s a good example of a joke that took years to go from idea to finished bit. I’d wanted to do a bit about how the wind chill factor is absurd but could never find the right way into it. Then I realized I could lump in with a discussion about “fake news” and it all clicked…
That’s from my Feels Like Matt Ruby special/album.
You can watch the full thing below:
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