Everything is fine with me: A comedy

Josh Thomas created, wrote and will star in 'Everything's Gonna Be Okay' for the Disney-owned cable network.
Table of contents

With comedy, as with most things in life, the dopamine addict any regular human already has the drug of choice and the syringe with them. Okay, now insert it. So what happens when a joke goes wrong? For most amateur comedians, this is a terrifying situation. At this point, the audience is almost begging you to let them laugh. You can take all the time you want. You can stop, look confused, or squint your eyes a little.

You can do whatever you want to draw this out for a long as you want. You just unintentionally slipped over a punchline deadline, so the audience is already primed to laugh and pretty much anything you do or say is going to let them release. When you finally say something, they will laugh. Anything you say, anything that is real and authentic, will break the tension and release the laugh.

What Standup Comedy Taught Me About Public Speaking and Life

In any situation when things seem to go wrong, the most powerful thing you can do it to be transparent about it. Usually, everyone knows that there is some kind of issue.

I counseled a leader in a technology company who was confused about his role. I told him that everyone else in his organization was also confused about his role. He wondered if he should get clarity about his role before he talked with them about it. I explained that the biggest issue he faced was the disconnection with his staff, and that this elephant-in-the-room was pretty much the only thing that was getting in the way of that relationship. He needed to clear the air that they all breathed. Once he started to discuss this issue openly and honestly, there was an almost audible sigh of relief.

The tension was released and he and his staff could move forward to the next challenge. By the way, one of the most powerful roles you can fulfill as a leader is to have your finger both on your own pulse and on the pulse of the organization. I could head-off down a long path with this, being self-deprecating and apologetic about how terrible my jokes are and how much of a failed standup comedian I am.

I could develop that into a whole section of a set. One of the reasons that I could do that, and that it would probably work, is that I have a tendency to collapse and self-berate. I tend to self-flagellate. This is one reason that comedians often start their sets by addressing the obvious elephants in the room.

A comic with one leg will joke about it. A comic with a strange accent will say something funny about that. This removes the impediment that might get in the way of unbridled laughter later. Initially, a patient might see their therapist as a perfect and omnipotent god, like a very young child perceives its mother.

This is called transference. I have included a link at the end of this article to a video in which I talk more about transference. He started to say really nasty things to the audience, things that made me cringe. He started berating the audience, treating them as he was probably treating himself internally. This audience, this collective being, was simply confused and quiet, listening patiently, wanting to laugh. I believe that we were all very willing and that we kept trying to like him, but it was as if he was compelled by an unconscious self-destructive drive to re-enact his early trauma with us.

After a while, individuals from the audience started to speak up to protect us. An argument—a fight even—started between the comic and the audience. When an audience is quiet, they are listening. If that confuses you, then you could mention it. Did you know that this is a comedy club and not a library? Do what I did: There are harder things for a comedian to deal with than a silent audience. Hecklers are not even the hardest.


  • What Standup Comedy Taught Me About Public Speaking and Life!
  • Tom Clarke - Everything Is Fine | Melbourne International Comedy Festival .
  • Wycliffe and the House of Fear.
  • .

At least a heckler is engaging with you. This can happen, understandably, when performing in spaces that are not intended for only standup comedy, such as the Stanford CoHo. CoHo is short for coffee house; I tried to make a joke out of that several times, but I never got it to work; For example, is it rude to refer to someone as your co-ho?

This is distracting to the people who actually do want to listen to you. It takes balls of steel to temporarily make the show about the talking table and your relationship with it. You have to engage with them in a non-aggressive, confident, and assertive way. The energy is going there anyway, so take it there fully.

The secret to great performances is to not take things personally, but to fully engage with what is happening. This is also the secret to achieving great things in all areas of life. It takes great courage to fully engage with what is actually happening. You need to be confident in your own perception of the world, and you have to value your own voice.

The more you engage with the world, the more challenges it presents to you, and the harder it is to not react. What are we listening for? Is your talking supposed to be funny? We thrive in life when we seek to engage fully with what is actually happening, not with what we assume is happening, not with what fear is happening, not with the false narratives that we lazily allow to play uninterrupted in the privacy of our own minds.

I was an early employee of that company. Jensen once told me that I needed to take myself less seriously. That nugget of feedback has sat with me over the years as I have tried to understand what he meant. I have come to the conclusion that, for me, this means to try less hard. I used to think that my insane drive for perfect execution was a good thing, but I have since realized that it creates stress, reduces productivity, and leads to lower quality work. I have been relatively successful in spite of it.

Instead, I have learned that the most effective way to succeed is to have fun and to be playful. I was doing really well in the Ninth Annual Rooster T. I got into the final round against two excellent comics: Nick Aragon who won second place and Shanti Charan who won first place. I may have come third because the other comics were simply more capable than me, but it may also have been because my performance fell apart in the final; it was a shadow of what it had been in the earlier rounds.

Up until the final, I had been enjoying the performances, playing with them. All I had to do was show up and have fun. I engaged deeply in practice but when I got on stage I just let it flow; I was not concerned about winning or losing. However, when I got into the final, I started to realize that I could become a professional standup comedian. If I won, I would be emceeing for a week at Rooster T. This was getting serious. Now the stakes were high and I was focused on winning.

When I went on stage, I was nervous and sweating. My voice was shaky. I was having trouble thinking clearly.

Freeform Orders ‘Everything’s Gonna Be Okay’ Comedy Pilot From ‘Please Like Me’ Creator

Because I was finding it hard to remember my set, I was feeling even more nervous. Sweat started running down my face. Each time I forgot what came next in my set, I used audience riffing to cover my tracks. I screwed-up that performance because I was trying too hard and because I was too concerned about the outcome. This is the biggest lesson I learned from standup comedy: I wrote about this extensively in How to Become World-Class at Anything , a viral article that has been read by thousand people so far. I started doing standup comedy for the love of it.

I enjoyed entertaining a crowd and making people laugh. I relished the mental, physical, and emotional challenges of co-creating a compelling live experience with a large group of people. However, I also realized that I have a compulsion to become world-class at anything I do.

"Road Trip" - Gabriel Iglesias- (From Hot & Fluffy comedy special)

This compulsion led to me focusing on standup comedy myopically. I realized that I could take everything I learned from standup comedy and utilize it in areas that held more interest for me, such as business leadership and speaking about mental health and wellbeing. I take my hat off to the people who persist through the process of becoming professional standup comedians. Ironically, after writing this article I feel a strong compulsion to perform standup comedy again. I hope that you can join me on my journey, whether I perform comedy again or not.

Quick Links

You might enjoy the following compact guide that I wrote, which explains how to be funny:. Sign in Get started. How to Bring More Funny This is a compact guide to making people laugh in everyday life. This guide is going to teach you how to add real and… medium. Never miss a story from The Mission , when you sign up for Medium. Get updates Get updates. From May until September , he received credit in at least 22 films. It was difficult for producers, writers, and directors to write for his character, with American audiences knowing him either as a "nutty burglar" or as a Charlie Chaplin imitator.

Seeing film comedies inspired an urge to take up comedy himself and, in , he began working with Lubin Motion Pictures in Jacksonville. He started by helping around the studio with lights, props, and other duties, gradually learning the craft as a script-clerk for the company. He was rejected for enlistment by the Army during World War I due to his size. In , after the collapse of the Florida film industry, Hardy and his wife Madelyn moved to California to seek new opportunities.

The humor of Laurel and Hardy was highly visual with slapstick used for emphasis. Much of their comedy involves milking a joke, where a simple idea provides a basis from which to build multiple gags without following a defined narrative. They used some details to enhance this natural contrast. Laurel kept his hair short on the sides and back, growing it long on top to create a natural "fright wig". At times of shock, he would simultaneously cry while pulling up his hair.

In contrast, Hardy's thinning hair was pasted on his forehead in spit curls and he sported a toothbrush moustache. To achieve a flat-footed walk, Laurel removed the heels from his shoes.

Browse Shows

Both wore bowler hats , with Laurel's being narrower than Hardy's, and with a flattened brim. Hardy's sports jacket was a tad small and done up with one straining button, whereas Laurel's double-breasted jacket was loose fitting. A popular routine the team performed was a " tit-for-tat " fight with an adversary. Laurel and Hardy would accidentally damage someone's property, with the injured party retaliating by ruining something belonging to Laurel or Hardy.

Another short film which revolves around such an altercation was titled Tit for Tat One best-remembered dialogue was the "Tell me that again" routine. Laurel would tell Hardy a genuinely smart idea he came up with, and Hardy would reply, "Tell me that again. Hardy, who had difficulty understanding Laurel's idea even when expressed clearly, would understand perfectly when hearing the jumbled version. While much of their comedy remained visual, various lines of humorous dialogue appeared in Laurel and Hardy's talking films. In some cases, their comedy bordered on the surreal, in a style that Stan Laurel called "white magic".

He then flicks his thumb upward as if working a lighter. His thumb ignites and he matter-of-factly lights his "pipe". The amazed Hardy, seeing this, would unsuccessfully attempt to duplicate it throughout the film. Much later Hardy finally succeeds, only to be terrified when his thumb catches fire. Laurel repeats the pipe joke in the film Block-Heads , again to Hardy's bemusement.

The joke ends, this time with a match Laurel was using, relighting itself, which Hardy throws into the fireplace, whereupon it explodes with a loud bang.

Laurel and Hardy

Rather than showing Hardy suffering the pain of misfortunes, such as falling down stairs or being beaten by a thug, banging and crashing sound effects were often used so the audience could visualize the scene themselves. The first was his "tie twiddle" to demonstrate embarrassment. He said, "I had been expecting it, but I didn't expect it at that particular moment.

It threw me mentally and I couldn't think what to do next, so I waved the tie in a kind of tiddly-widdly fashion to show embarrassment while trying to look friendly. Laurel was the industrious "idea man" while Hardy was more easygoing. The catchphrase most used by Laurel and Hardy on film is: In popular culture the catchphrase is often misquoted as "Well, here's another fine mess you've gotten me into. Another regular catchphrase, cried out by Ollie in moments of distress or frustration, as Stan stands helplessly by, is "Why don't you do something to help me?

Homer's first intentional use of "d'oh! The first film pairing of the two, although as separate performers, took place in the silent film The Lucky Dog in The exact date the film was produced is not recorded but film historian Bo Bergulund dated it between late and January Hardy's character is a mugger attempting to rob Laurel. Hal Roach was considered to be the most important person in the development of their film careers. He brought the team together and they worked for Hal Roach Studios for over 20 years.

His uncle, played by Hardy, is shown trying to put trousers on him. Laurel said to the duo's biographer John McCabe: I always explain that we came together naturally. Quite unwittingly Laurel and Hardy's parts grew larger while those of their fellow stars diminished because Laurel and Hardy were considered to be great actors. It was during this period that McCarey and Laurel jointly devised the team's format. After teaming up they played the same characters for 30 years.

Although Hal Roach employed writers and directors such as H. Horne on the Laurel and Hardy films, Laurel would rewrite entire sequences or scripts. He would also have the cast and crew improvise on the sound stage; he would then meticulously review the footage during the editing process. Stan had three or four writers who joined in a perpetual game of 'Can You Top This?

I think I earned my money". He ran the Laurel and Hardy set, no matter who was in the director's chair, but never felt compelled to assert his authority. With any director, if Laurel said 'I don't like this idea,' the director didn't say 'Well, you're going to do it anyway. In the silent era of film was coming to an end, and many actors saw their careers decline with the advent of sound.

Laurel and Hardy avoided this pitfall because they continued making primarily visual films. The first feature film starring Laurel and Hardy was Pardon Us from While Laurel and Hardy could not speak these foreign languages they received voice coaching for their lines. The film Babes in Toyland remains a perennial on American television during the Christmas season. Laurel was unhappy with the plot, and after an argument was allowed to make the film his way.

Nevertheless, their association continued for another six years. These films, while considered far from the team's best work, were still financially very successful. The Fox films were so profitable that the studio kept making Laurel and Hardy comedies after Fox discontinued its other "B" series films. The year was a year of rest but included their first European tour in 15 years. A film named "Robin Hood" was planned to be filmed during the tour but was not realized. The team in limbo, Stan still encouraged Babe to take big and small movie parts.

In —51, Laurel and Hardy made their final feature-length film together, Atoll K. This film was a French-Italian co-production directed by Leo Joannon , but was plagued by problems with language barriers, production issues, and the serious health issues of both Laurel and Hardy. Laurel was experiencing painful prostate complications as well. He quickly rewrote the screenplay and hired old American friend, Alf Goulding , to direct the Laurel and Hardy scenes, considered to be their best footage since Hal Roach.

The film was not a success and it brought an end to Laurel and Hardy's film careers. After Atoll K wrapped around April , the team used the remainder of the year to rest.

Stan did take part in a silent newsreel, Swim Meet , in character, as co-director of a local California contest. Most Laurel and Hardy films have survived and have not gone out of circulation permanently. Three of their films are considered lost and have not been seen in their complete form since the s. The first half of the film Now I'll Tell One is lost and the second half has yet to be released on video.

In the operatic Technicolor musical The Rogue Song , Laurel and Hardy appear in 10 sequences and only one of which is known to exist with the complete soundtrack. Following the making of Atoll K , Laurel and Hardy took some months off, allowing Laurel to recuperate. Upon their return to the European stage in , they undertook a well-received series of public appearances, performing a short sketch Laurel had written called "A Spot of Trouble". Hoping to repeat the success the following year Laurel wrote a routine entitled "Birds of a Feather".

Laurel recounted their reception:. The love and affection we found that day at Cobh was simply unbelievable. There were hundreds of boats blowing whistles and mobs and mobs of people screaming on the docks. We just couldn't understand what it was all about. And then something happened that I can never forget. All the church bells in Cobh started to ring out our theme song "Dance of the Cuckoos" and Babe Oliver Hardy looked at me and we cried.

I'll never forget that day. Unfortunately, these shows do not appear to have been preserved on record, tape or kinescope, but notes from the Face The Music television appearance have been recently discovered. According to the notes, Ollie informs Stan that the television program has an audience of six million and that host Henry Hall is "going to introduce us to them". To which Stan replies "That's going to take a long time, isn't it? Lured to the Knickerbocker Hotel as a subterfuge for a business meeting with producer Bernard Delfont the doors opened to their suite , flooding the room with light and the voice of Edwards.

This telecast was preserved on a kinescope and later released on home video. Partly due to the positive response from the television broadcast the pair was renegotiating with Hal Roach, Jr. However, plans for the specials had to be shelved as the aging comedians continued to suffer from declining health. Laurel and Hardy provided a filmed insert in which they reminisce about their friends in British variety.

It contains no audio and is three minutes in length. However, he suffered several strokes that resulted in the loss of mobility and speech. Despite having a long and successful career, it was reported that Hardy's home was sold to help cover the cost of his medical expenses during this time. For the remaining eight years of his life, Stan Laurel refused to perform and even turned down Stanley Kramer 's offer of a cameo in his landmark movie It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World. During this period most of his communication was in the form of written correspondence and he insisted on answering every fan letter personally.

Laurel and Hardy's films included a supporting cast of comic actors, some of whom appeared regularly. The duo's famous signature tune, known variously as "The Cuckoo Song", "Ku-Ku" or "The Dance of the Cuckoos", was composed by Roach musical director Marvin Hatley as the on-the-hour chime for the Roach studio radio station. The original theme, recorded by two clarinets in , was recorded again with a full orchestra in Leroy Shield composed the majority of the music used in the Laurel and Hardy short sound films.

The title track was released as a single in the UK and reached 2 in the charts. Since the s, the works of Laurel and Hardy have been released again in numerous theatrical reissues, television revivals broadcast, especially public television and cable , 16 mm and 8 mm home movies, feature-film compilations and home video.