Talking Funny: Seinfeld, Rock, Gervais, and CK
49 minutes of insightful comedy talk, featuring Jerry Seinfeld, Chris Rock, Ricky Gervais, and Louis CK. “This is still gold. Every starting comedian should see this.”
Oldie but goodie. I agree with these commenters:
“This is such a great conversation because it feels honest. They are laughing at each other, disagreeing, saying things which obviously offend or annoy each other. Feels behind the scenes.”
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“This is still gold. Every starting comedian should see this.”
…
“This was such a great moment in comedy history.”
Lianna Patch, comedian/copywriter, wrote up some of her notes on it:
Different comedians build their acts in different ways — While C.K. and Chris Rock both write a new hourlong act every year, Seinfeld tosses 10-20% of his act each year and replaces it with new jokes
Wanna get better? Build on the best material you have — Louis C.K. regularly makes himself use his former closing bit as a new opening bit, “just to fuck myself”
You can have a great joke, but if you don’t set it up right, it won’t hit because the audience doesn’t understand the premise. Context is everything.
To Ricky Gervais, truly great comedy isn’t about being funny, because some things are always funny (ex. personifying animals). It’s about “going out and doing something no one else can do.”
In that same vein, jokes that depend purely on profanity aren’t good enough
Chris Rock’s take on racist jokes: “Talk about what [people] do, not what they are”
This is actually pretty good life advice: “Talk about what people do, not what they are.”