Earlier this week, we introduced you to a new series we’re running with the
Funny People people in which we force our intern, Spencer, to become a stand-up comedian (
read Part 1 here). Spencer has never done stand-up comedy before, and is not even particularly comfortable speaking in front of people, so it’s bound to be entertaining. For the past few days, Spencer has been immersing himself in the world of stand-up comedy, studying clips, thumbing through stand-up books for the pictures, and practicing his joke writing skills. This is what Spencer looks like when he’s focusing on stand-up comedy:
As you can see, he looks pretty much the same as he does when he’s doing anything else: boyish, naive, and fairly resilient to extreme humiliation. We talked to Spencer briefly to find out what it means to study stand-up comedy:
HT: So, Spencer, how’s the research going?
Spencer: It’s good. I’ve been reading a little, and watching a lot of clips online.
HT: What have you been reading?
Spencer: I picked up a copy of Steve Martin’s book, Born Standing Up, which looks pretty good, but I haven’t started it yet.
HT: You know that his book is more about his life up until he started doing stand-up, and not so much about the actual process of doing stand-up comedy, right?
Spencer: Oh,…really?
HT: What kind of clips have you been watching?
Spencer: Lots of stuff. A lot of the classics, y’know, like old Eddie Murphy clips and stuff like that. I’ve been watching a lot of the comedians that I really like, too, like Demetri Martin, Jim Gaffigan, and Louis CK.
HT: …Those seem like very reasonable goals to live up to.
It seems like Spencer is well on his way to figuring out what good stand-up comedy should be, but reading a book about stand-up and actually doing stand-up are two totally different things, so we wanted to find out more about Spencer’s joke writing process. We told him earlier in the week that it would be a good idea for him to bounce his jokes off of us as he’s coming up with them, and that we would give him our honest opinion (which was a complete lie), so he’s been sending us jokes all week. While some of the jokes are genuinely pretty good, a lot of them are downright horrible, but we’ve been reacting to every joke like it’s a Chris Farley pratfall, laughing uncontrollably and telling him it’s the funniest thing ever, and that it would be good for his set:
As you can see, Spencer’s got a long road ahead of him, but he’s off to a great start nonetheless. He seems excited about the process, but he also seems a little bit nervous, too. That’s why we decided to ease his mind a little by setting up an interview with a professional stand-up comedian,
Matt Braunger. You probably know Matt from his appearance on
Letterman, or from MadTV, or from listening to him on his
awesome new album, or from one of the millions of comedy festivals and stand-up tours that he’s been involved in. He’s fully qualified to talk Spencer through the ins and outs of a stand-up performance, and we’ll post a video of the interview on Tuesday. Stay tuned for Part 3 coming up next week.
In the meantime, we suggested that Spencer work some techno beatboxing and talking about raves into his open mic routine, and we provided this Pablo Francisco clip as inspiration:
Courtney Love & Muppet Sexual Assault
Playboy’s Big Dance March Madness Bracket Challenge
Spencer has much better jokes than whoever Matt Braunger is, that’s for sure. The joke about owls with hatred in their eyes? Is that funny?
And I commend your subtlety while falsely praising Spencer for those pretty bad jokes. Unless he’s got a mental deficiency, he probably picked up on your thinly-veiled sarcasm.
I think Spencer is going to be more funnierest than this guy:
http://www.holytaco.com/worlds-worst-comedian-funny-all-wrong-reasons
Wow…Matt Braunger is massivly untalented, isn’t he? I’m unsure whether you were taking the piss or not posting that embarrasing ‘stand up’ clip.
I thought the violin one was the funniest.
this is all so terrible, im really losing intrest in this site. the Noah expiriment was funny without trying to be funny. this one is trying to be funny and sucking so much ass its rediculous. oh well chalk one win for the shizzle if i never come back here again. thanks holy taco. you have shown me what not to do to get pussy.
I don’t like your name.
spencer is adorable!
spencer is adorable!!
…they’re really…bad
The only one that could be built into something good is the racist kid one.
All of Spencer’s jokes end right before the punchline. That doesn’t bother anybody?
he’s no Noah, thats for sure
spencer is adorable!
yo shut the fuck up
Spencer you are on skinny bitch, go gain some weight because everyone knows only fat stand ups are successful since even when they aren’t funny they jiggle, which there is nothing funnier than an agitated fat man.
I like the ‘pretty instrument’ one. I’d love to hear him deliver it though. Will you guys be posting up the location? I’ll heckle the shit out of him.