AFI TOP 100 COMEDY FILMS

The American Film Institute has a list of the top 100 comedy films of all time. The list is one of the biggest crocks of all time. 

For starters the top ten is.

 1 Some like It Hot

2. Tootsie

3 Dr Strangelove.

4 Annie Hall 

5 Duck Soup

6 Blazing Saddles

7 M.A.S H

8 It Happened One Night

9  The Graduate

10. Airplane/Flying High.

The first mistake is that it's only American funded films so Monty Python and The Holy Grail, The Life of Brian and films from the Pink Panther series are not included. Nor are other great British comedies from the 60's such as Billy Liar.

THE LIST

It's a nice list with two romantic comedies in the top 10 but the best romantic comedy Pillow Talk is on another of their lists. The three Hudson/Day/Randall comedies should all be in the top 100 with Pillow talk easily top 10 and Lover Come back top 20.

Most of these films aren't on the list

Catch 22

Where's Poppa

The Paleface

 Monsieur Beaucaire 

Divorce American Style

The Naked Gun

There's Something About Mary ( 27)

Silent Movie

 High Anxiety

Dumb and Dumber

and the Woody Allen films starting with Zelig, The Purple Rose of Cairo etc.

THE ART OF LOVE - film 1965

 The Art of Love

This has been screening on Foxtel lately.

Starring  James Garner  Dick Van Dyke  Elke Sommer  Angie Dickinson

Director - Norman Jewison

Screenplay - Carl Reiner  story by William Sackheim Richard Allan Simmons

Not a bad line up.

Set in Paris , Dick plays a struggling artist who falls into the river Seine to save Elke Sommer. When they both go missing James Garner hatches a plan that Dick has committed suicide so that the price of his paintings goes sky high.

That's about the gist of it and that is a good idea for a comedy.  

Meanwhile Elke is falling in love with him while he is waiting for his fiance Angie to fly in from America. Ehh Ehh. The Elke bit makes sense but the Angie bit is ho hum.

Anyway with all this talent involved you'd think this could be a laugh riot. well it's not.

Both Garner and Van Dyke were emerging films stars at the time after television success. Elke was the new Swedish babe on the block and Angie was a big co starring name. But they don't seem to gel. I have trouble believing that Angie Dickinson would be flying over for Dick Van Dyke. Of course she ends up with James Garner and that makes sense as does Dick ending up with Elke. Makes sense but none of this is funny.

Norman  Jewison was an emerging director. Two years later he made the very over rated, oscar nominated The Russians Are Coming The Russians Are Coming. ( I think the title sucked people in) it's like a boring telemovie.

Carl Reiner was a TV comedy writing superstar.

The Actors :They all seem miscast or more importantly it's just not the right cast. Carl Reiner has a totally unfunny cameo as well.

The Direction:  It's ordinary at best. 

The Screenplay: I'd like to hear Carl Reiner's thoughts on this because it would have to be the worst thing he's ever done. Just no laughs. No funny lines. There's just nothing here.

I thought this would be one of those under rated Dick Van Dyke films from the 60's but in fact going from the IMDB rating of 6.1 it's hugely over rated.

 

 

MR INBETWEEN REVISITED and My Similar Idea

 MR INBETWEEN REVISITED

I'm watching Mr Inbetween on Fox again. That's not hard to do as there's not too many good shows on TV. lots of shows, lots of new shows , not too many good ones. Also every show is a serial so you are obligated to watch every episode in order.

So for some unknown reason I watched the premiere episode of Mr Inbetween when it premiered about 4 or 5 years ago. First thing the main character is Ray Shoestring who is a hitman and his soul is inbetween good and evil. 

In the first episode his mate Gary wants Ray to retrieve a Pee Pee or Golden Shower dvd from his ex-girlfriend's place obviously before she finds it because they're easy enough to buy. Anyway I liked this angle , not just a porn dvd but a fetish dvd. Reminded me of the time I got caught out by my ex wife ringing the Granny Phone Sex line. She made sure everyone found out about that. And that's the first thing, straight away I could relate to Gary.

Also in the first episode we learn that Ray is a single father who lives in very basic low rent house or flat and that he has a a 12 year old daughter from an Asian mother and he has a brother who is dying. And that Ray uses his fists at the very least to solve his problems.

So by the end of episode I had to watch the next episode.

What got me is over that first series was the reality of the dialogue.

We learn that Ray the hitman is also a criminal mastermind.

 Unknown writer and lead actor Scott Ryan tried to sell this idea for 20 years until eventually A-B and eventually C got this show running. He'd even made an obscure film called The Magician about the same character 20 years ago which didn't get off the ground.  NO one wanted to touch him. Dealing with pen pushers and bureaucrats etc.

So I watched every episode and the thing that got me was all the things Scott Ryan had learnt so that Ray Shoestring could get out of trouble when in a fix and they all seemed possible if you know what you're doing. The booby traps etc and the expertise of Ray in his field. So I'm saying to myself I would love to write something like this but probably not capable. But I can write that Australian dialogue and I'll finish on that note in a minute.

So when the show is finished I believe I've watched the best show ever on TV. A black comedy of course but with no flaws or mistakes.

1 The actors look like the characters they are playing. They are all believable. This usually the first mistake with many Australian shows and films. Bad casting.

2 The dialogue rings true all the time. That's how we talk. Two blokes arguing over a breakfast cereal.

The nightclub owner getting angry over the amount of toilet paper his girlfriend uses.

 

3 The human element of Ray.  How he loves those he loves, but when a bloke begs for mercy Ray kills him only to be told later that it's the wrong man. His relationship with Brooke Satchell nor anyone else is doomed.

4 The cleverness in Scott Ryan finding out all these things to make ray a mastermind.

5 My favourite. Gary. Gary in his daily life is basically a complete likeable dickhead. Not unlike myself. But in every scene in which Ray calls on his assistance with help Gary is 100% capable. He is not a fuck up. He also is a total professional. And this is what really to me differs it from every other show.

So I consider MR INBETWEEN as better than the great American shows BREAKING BAD, BETTER CALL SAUL, THE SOPRANOS, DEADWOOD and MAD MEN.

So anyway my film script The LAST NIGHT OF THE HOODOO'S written awhile back has that same Australian dialogue and it's a god script.

Can I write something like MR INBETWEEN? Yes and No.

I can write the dialogue and the stories. But I can't do what Scott Ryan did with the cleverness of the problem solving. I'd need another writer for that.

RELEASED or THE ACCOUNTANT  or no proper title as yet.

Series 1. 8-10 episodes with the murderer being caught at the end of the first season so a another story line has to be set up for the second season.

The protaganist has spent a life sentence in jail for murdering his wife who's body was never found. He is totally innocent. Yes they had arguments over money.  He was charged, found guilty and and did the time.  Is he still alive? Actually No. But it is a red herring that is brought into play at times and our protagonist has little doubt that she was murdered.

It's important that he has done his time. he's not a fugitive nor escapee. He has spent a life sentence for something he did not do. At this point he's not so much angry but he wants to clear his name.

 What does the protagonist do when he leaves prison? He is a good guy, unlike ray Shoestring who is "inbetween' but he has learnt a lot in prison, some street cred but that's not his thing.  He wants to help people so he becomes and I hate the term for now a Private Investigator. And part of his investigating is to prove himself innocent.

I'm thinking he may have been an accountant so he has learnt a lot about computers and he was a model prisoner so he had access to learning. He has learnt hacking.

And this my my angle but how do you do this every week. People come to him with there problems and let's say an elderly couple have been scammed out of their life savings he out scams the scammers. How ? I don't know but I'm sure it can be done. 

He also has a ( violent) mate in prison  who can help him from the inside in the first series and is released in the second series to become even more helpful.

Another angle the protagonist  occasionally comes across s people who have seen his face on TV so they are quick to call him a murderer or wife killer.

 And finally he finds his wife's killer. Is it someone close to home?  Many people will come into contention . I know who it is and I can't divulge that because who the killer is important to the credibility of it all. It's not so much "who it is' as opposed to "Who it can't be".

 Each episode has a separate theme and oh by the way , lots of laughs. And how , well people will want your services for the weirdest of things. 

And finally in the tradition of those great modern shows it needs a style. It needs a director and photographers with a bit of imagination.

I can write the dialogue and some story lines but with the technical side I need help,  I know nothing of hacking.

 

BARRY HUMPHRIES 1934 -2023

I never see any sense in me doing an obituary at the time of a comedians death. I have to reflect.

I consider that Barry Humphries was the greatest stage performer ever, albeit in the the guise or disguise of Dame Edna Everage, Sir Les Patterson or Sandy Stone. I say stage performer as he was not a stand up comedian.

I first saw a Dame Edna/Barry show in Brisbane in I think it was 1979. I went by myself and was I about the tenth row, just far enough away as to not cop any of Les's dribble. Over the next forty years I saw him most times he came to Brisbane or the Gold Coast.

The funny thing for me is when I watch a comedian doing their live show I usually spend half the show figuring out how they do their show, by that I mean their structure and lots of other bullshit things.

However since Barry was not a stand up comedian I just watched the show and laughed loud. 

Until his death. 

Since he has died I have watched countless of his interviews and other appearances,  I've even watched the horrific Les Patterson Saves The World twice, but these things you do.

But what I did discover is what his style of comedy actually was and that was a strangely a revelation to me and that is Sir Les for example never had a bad word to say about anybody. But in being kind he would say something totally unnecessary about that person and that is wherein the joke would lie. He would go "She's a lovely person , BUT  it's a pity that she does this."

So what was this creature Barry Humphries?

One thing I've noticed is that in interviews Barry was nowhere near as quick witted as Dame Edna or Les. Barry was the real person and as the real person I have seen him hold back where as Edna would go straight for the throat. Dame Edna and Les were quick witted characters, but also Edna in particular was always way prepared and way ahead of her guests or hosts.

Barry or more so Edna was:

1 The greatest stage performer.

2 A very good TV host.

3 A good serious actor who did too little serious acting.

4 Made a few funny Barry McKenzie films but Les Patterson Saves The World ended the idea of anyone investing in his films. Although I could re-edit the film cut out ten minutes and make it watchable. Unfortunately I'd cut out the whole unnecessary segment with Graham Kennedy although his one not so funny line is the best thing in the whole film.

5. A good author.

6. Barry made one sketch show special in the late 70's. I watched it of course and just wished there were more. Probably time consuming as he would have written it all by himself.

A few things. When I saw Barry in 1979 he was not the flavour of the month. He was a niche performer and my mother questioned me on what I was doing seeing a man who dresses up as a woman. I answered "He's a comedian'.

I met Barry once with my ex wife. he was incredibly friendly and charming to me, but no doubt my ex wife had a lot to do with that.

In one interview with Barry he said that in order Peter Cook, Benny Hill and John Cleese because of Fawlty Towers are the be three best comedian/writers to come from England. I love this because many will denounce Benny Hill but this was not only a correct assessment but an honest one.

LOUIS CK LIVE 2022

 LOUIS CK LIVE

November 17 2022 Louis CK performed at Brisbane Entertainment Centre. I've seen many of the great comedians  especially Billy Connolly, Robin Williams  and Steven Wright. The only great on my list who never came to Australia was Garry Shandling.  As much as I love Jerry Seinfeld seeing him live didn't interest me. Of the others I've seen Dylan Moran who was extremely good.

All of these comedians take you on a journey because they have to, if you're doing stand up for a period of hours it has to be more than just jokes or a series of stories. the only disappointing thing about Louis was that he was on stage for only 75 minutes but I didn't feel robbed or anything.

Louis takes you on a journey that is always going to start in a weird place, but with him it's like starting at the bottom of Everest and in that 75 minutes you are going up that mountain until you reach the peak.The journey is great but reaching that peak really is as funny as anything you will ever see.  He is the funniest comedian of them all. 

The main reason you love a comedian is that you feel you think the same , or have similar routines in your head. I once did a routine at an Open Mike  venue about Mel Gibson's film The Passion of the Christ. A year or so later I saw on You Tube  Louis doing the same subject and crazily we had some of the same lines. ( Like it's an interesting film in which Christ gets the fucking shit beaten out of him for an hour and a half).

I had thought he'd never come to Australia (again- he did a Melbourne and Sydney show around 2011/12) but due to his wrong doings which I don't condone at all , I think he will return in the next 2-3 years.

 

 

 

THE CANNIBAL COOKERY BOOK SKETCH

 THE CANNIBAL COOKERY BOOK SKETCH 

Earlier today I watched a few minutes of one of those cookery shows, something I never watch , but whilst doing so I asked myself the question. Where's the sketch?" Within about 30 seconds the answer came to me. The Cannibal's Cookbook.

1. I asked myself why I haven't seen a sketch on this theme before. Like it's obvious. 

2.  Next: First reference. Jeffrey Dahmer and the head in the fridge. 

3 Do I do it as interview with the cannibal taking questions or do I do in a Ronnie Barker style with the e cannibal in a kitchen and those monologues were written in a style in which Ronnie asks himself the questions. "And where do I find a butchered up body at this time of night you may ask, well here's the answer".  The answer is you do both because the interview can be a prelude to the cannibal having his own cooking show.

4 Other things that come to mind when writing this sketch Obvious Chinese and or Indian.

Ok  Straight away I think of the Cookery Show

Cannibal : And here is my Chinese dish, come out Mae Wong. Lovely isn't she , Mae will be served with rice and oyster soup.

The next thing is what will he be cooking?

My first thought once again obviously all the exterior human features. Head, eyes, ears, lips, arms , hands, legs and feet. Then there's the interiors , brain, heart, liver and kidney.

All of these have to be combined with a cookery term such marinated or stewed or casserole.

But what will really make this funny or make it work as far as recipes.

A.Marinated liver. No  

B Silvia's marinated liver. So so. 

C Annoying Landlady's marinated liver.  That's more like it. let's get specific here, he's a cannibal and he eats people who annoy him.

So I'm making up a name for this cannibal character and a dozen have gone in and out and then it hits me, yes the obvious hits me. It has to be pop culture icon Hannibal Lecter in full face mask.

1. It's a satirical sketch so there's no rights to the name etc.

2 He's the biggest cannibal name in the business.

3 He will grab every kid's attention. "Did you see the Hannibal Lecter sketch, that was disgraceful". At this point I'm not thinking disgraceful but I want it to be distasteful. ( pun not intended).

 4. No lines like : 

So what possessed you to be a cannibal.

You could say I had a hunger for it . ( None of that ) Something similar though.

 

 

HANNIBAL'S LECHTER' S COOKBOOK INTERVIEW

 

Host :  Good evening , my next guest needs no introduction. He is world a renowned serial killer and cannibal and master chef. Currently do time a life time in prison with the special title "Never to be released' this man has murdered more people than most of us would dream of. Give a warm welcome to Hannibal Lecter.

CUT TO Hannibal Lecter in face mask.

Hannibal : Hi Guys.

Host: I've got to say Hannibal, that's an impressive entourage you have with you behind the screen.

Hannibal:  They are eight highly trained SAS men who will kill me as if I as much as sneeze.

Host: Give a big hand to the SAS they do such a great job.

Hannibal:  Maybe.

Host: Before we get to the cook book Mr Lecter I'd like to discuss your history of murders, if that's fine with you. It says here Thirty two alleged murders.

Hannibal:  Twenty nine. Alleged. the others are pure coincidence.

Host: Twenty nine.

Hannibal: Well who's counting really, I mean someone turns up dead two blocks away from my house, they are have their tongue cut out , their lungs and kidney removed, their fingers and toes cut off and everyone points the finger at me. Next thing I know they say I am number one on their suspect list.

Host: Yes, those accusations must hurt you.

Hannibal: You bet, sometimes they hurt me so much I could just cut their heads off and eat their brains,  with a mushroom sauce but so be it.

Host: Yes. And did you cannibalize all your victims or just some? 

Hannibal : What do you take me for, a pig? No! In most cases I just enjoyed the killing. I ask you , could you eat a politician. I bet the answer is No!

Host  It is No!

Hannibal: Of course it's No. You would create such a bad vibe from eating them and belly pains. yuk yuk yuk.

Host ( nervously) :  Let's get back to the book. I'll open at a random recipe and you explain. Grilled postman with a bean salad. Can you explain that.

Hannibal:  Self explanatory , he he he. best with olive oil.

Host: Virgin olive oil?

Hannibal: The virgin's the dessert.

Host: The Annoying guy on the bus....... soup. 

Hannibal: Self explanatory. Again. I don't like stupid questions.

Host: They're not questions, I'm just reading out the recipes.

Hannibal: Don't push it buddy. I have little patience.

Host:  Ok Mr Lecter. Ah yes and here's another one. Here's a funny one Chef's Surprise.

Hannibal : Very good choice, the last thing a Chef expects is to be standing over a nice hot stove and suddenly his throat is cut and a minute later his or her naked body is stewing in a enormous pot with lots of garlic, barley and beef stock for flavour. Voila! Chef's surprise.

Host: That's great.  So Mr Lecter, so what will you be having for dinner tonight?

Hannibal  You . I've just removed my hand cuffs.

FADE TO BLACK 

Host AAAGGGGGHHHHHH

Hannibal: Could someone get me a glass of  Penfold's rose.  Please.

THE END

 So that's as a first draft written in about an hour and I've covered the major laugh angles which I was looking for and with a lot more work this could be a very funny sketch.

 

 

WRITING A COMEDY SKETCH

 WRITING A COMEDY SKETCH

It's a bit like everything else in life. If you do it long enough and do it properly it then comes easy.

Your stock standard sketch would usually go for a minute and half to about 5 minutes. the process is the same.

The sketch is like a pop song. The song has a verse  a chorus and somewhere in there is a crescendo.

If the sketch goes for one and a half minutes there is one verse, one chorus and one big laugh somewhere. it does not have to be at the end as a punchline but it helps. Each minute and a half has the same process.

My basic sketch is the two person sketch. It doesn't matter who the people are, the sketch is like an interview. Whether its boy meets girl or cop meets killer one is interviewing the other.

In the sketch interview questions are asked and the wrong answers are given. That's the comedy.

My basic sketch is done in 4's with four lead up lines each which get to the point  and another 4 lines each to the big joke. That's not set in stone of course but it's a good guide.

It's a sketch so the lead up lines are in rhythm like song so that the performers are singing a duet. This makes it comfortable for the performers but it also gets smiles from the audience because they see the humour in the rhythm.

Me. I've devised a little strategy that if it's a confrontational the protagonist abuses the other party with The "Go fuck Yourself" Sketch.

There are a few reasons for this:

1. The Go Fuck yourself signals the end of the sketch.

2 It's my signature

3 I don't want anyone to say my humour is nice and clean and "He doesn't have to use bad language to get laughs'. I'm not writing for Christians nor my mother, I'm writing for 11 year old naughty boys.

Once you learn this it should be like shelling peas. It might take a life time though.

That's about it.

THE LOST COMEDY SKETCHES

 LOST COMEDY SKETCHES : Especially the DUMMY COP.

I've had quite a pile of comedy material for too long. On Sunday it was time to sift through and see what I had. I was of the belief that I had lost many of my sketches over the years. To my relief I've hardly lost any if any at all.

I do have most of the stuff on discs or those plugins but now I know exactly what I have. I can either get it scanned if possible or even re type and save it all again. I have no problem with that because some of the sketches will need to be rewritten. really all the sketches should be rewritten at some time.

I didn't learn a lesson but I should have gone through all of this stuff ten years ago or even fifteen years ago and just sort it out properly. Would have saved some unnecessary anxiety.

One sketch I had presumed lost was one about a cop whose partner is a ventriloquists dummy. I had no idea what the title was , possibly Dummy Cop which would have made things easier. I had done a series of sketches called Mullumdimby Vice and it was an episode of that series of sketches. Once I found that sketch though I realised I had just about all of my material.

This is an important sketch to me. It's very good or very funny. I sent it to a show which premiered in the year 1998. They never got back to me, but this sketch was the opening sketch in their first episode.  I wasn't credited nor did they call me it. It was just plain stolen.

The version which appeared on TV wasn't 100% of what I submitted, there were of course subtle and even unsubtle changes. 

This was the last straw as far as theft of my material was concerned. It was the theft of this sketch which made me make the choice of trying stand up comedy. To protect my material ( As if that worked).

Anyway, I have over 100 complete sketches, mostly "off the wall" to sort through and rewrite. Rightly or wrongly I've gone down this path as opposed to writing sketches for established comedy characters as they already have their writers. They will be retyped, rewritten and improved and stored on a device.

 All good.

 

CARL DITTERICH & ME. ( A true and funny football story)

 

This is my favourite football story.

It was in the early 80's when Carl Ditterich moved up to Brisbane as coach of Coorparoo Australian Rules Football Club. It was big news at the time.

My best mate at the time Neil Perryman had decided to have a crack at first or reserve grade and I went along to training one night just to watch. I hadn't played for  two years ( I think)  because I officially retired from football at the end of Under 19's. Well, I thought I had. 

Now at this time I actually had my right hand still bandaged at the time after it had been crushed in a printing press a few months earlier.

So I'm watching the training the fathers of a player Wayne Clarke who I only knew as Mr Clarke came and spoke me. He said that even though Coorparoo had signed Carl Ditterich they were short of players and now that I've arrived it was necessary that I return. I thought I should explain that I was recovering from a crushed hand. 14 stitches and 78 micro stitches ( they are figures you never forget) and that I wasn't overly keen. I was also a shift worker so training was one week every fortnight. he said " None of teat matters.

So I turn up training and quickly became a favourite of Carl's, the crushed hand angle may have helped.

So about three weeks in Carl calls a group of rovers aside. I was one of that group.  Now in that group was a bloke I will call Rosco. Although short,  physically he was a Greek adonis, every muscle in his body rippled and he was the fastest player in the club. BUT his Achilles heel was that he was weak as piss and a show pony.

So we start this drill and Carl throws the ball out in Rosco's direction and Rosco is first to it, does a baulk or two runs rings around me and gives it back to Carl. I feel a bit eeerrrrr.

Next time it's me and Rosco again and Carl throws the ball to Rosco's side and once again he runs rings around me. once again I'm feeling eeerrrr

Ok, so the third time Carl throws the ball  to my side. Now as I'm positioning myself to pick up the ball, Rosco just drags me off without me having touched because he's showing Carl that he's Rosco and I'm just a piece of shit.

BUT  I reacted as I only can. When his hands grabbed me without the ball I swung around with my left  elbow and  and I elbowed him right in the middle of his fucking forehead. Rosco gave out a scream, I thought "Fuck what have I done" and here's Rosco with blood just pissing out of his fore head. What will Carl think? His gun rover. I'm petrified. 

Carl looks at Rosco and says "You, get off the field mate" and to all the rest of us he says "Lets continue boys".

And although I had plenty of good moments on the field in my time , splitting that gutless squibs head open in front of the king of the elbow will always be my favourite individual moment.

STEPHEN FRY: BRITISH V AMERICAN COMEDY What a tosser.

 Stephen Fry ( tosser)

I've seen a few You Tube videos with Stephen Fry comparing the comedy of the Britain to the comedy  United States. It's seems to be a pet subject of his and I don't get it. I don't get the comparison angle and the whole thing annoys me. I love the comedy greats of both countries equally, but it's not a subject I  would ever bring up as a conversation piece.

First of all his opinion is that British comedy is funnier or better than American comedy, because it's much smarter, more human , more character based. (whatever) Is it? Proof?

In both of these videos he's not in a debate.  He is  stating his opinion unchallenged and in the case of the one in the auditorium he is talking to an audience who are his true believers.

When he talks about the great British performers he reels off many from the 1950's and 60's but he has chosen to compare them with John Belushi , who had a very short career from about 1975/80 Ben Stiller and  Jim Carrey who are modern day American comedians.

He says that in the American film National Lampoon's Animal House John Belushi (and  he calls him John Belushia the first time, which is rude because we all know his name) plays this crazy guy who smashes a folk singers guitar. He says that the American comedian and the English comedian would rather be the folk singer much to the delight of his audience. But John Belushi wasn't the star of this film, it was his film debut and he was eighth on the cast. He was playing a crazy guy, not the protagonist so the whole point which Mr Fry is going down is totally irrelevant. AND he sort of hangs his hat on that example.

He also makes a point of comparing British sitcoms to American films. He reels off  a selection of British sitcoms which include Steptoe and Son, Rising Damp, Fawlty Towers, Tony Hancock, Dad's Army, Alan Partridge, The Office,  but as I say he is comparing these to Belushi , Stiller and Sandler who are now all film comedians. He is not comparing these with Get Smart, MASH, The Mary Tyler Moore Show, Barney Miller, All in the Family, Cheers, Seinfeld The Larry Sanders Show, nor even the American version of The Office. If he is going to make comparisons he should compare them to the right genre. He does the apple and oranges comparison as if that's like a fact.

For some reason he makes a comment that Americans are brash because anyone born in the USA can become President but that's not the case with becoming Prime Minister in Britain, well I think that's his point.to me, once again is irrelevant. What the hell has that got to do with fucking comedy writing?

Anyway , I see that what he is taking about is humour and in some ways he is correct,  because the British and the Americans have a different sense of humour and and i'd rather talk to a Pom aover an American anny day , except fro Fry and Ben Elton,  but sense of humour is not comedy , comedy is to me a theatrical exercise. I am an Australian with an Aussie sense of humour. My comedy is a combination of all the things which make me laugh, whether they be Australian, American, British or something from some other place in the world. Once again humour and comedy are not the same and in fact very different. Fry likes to suggest that comedy and humour are the same. They are not and I'm repeating myself here.

His old comedy partner Hugh Laurie is a huge hit in America TV dramas and comedy as well as appearing in films. I sense a huge hint of jealousy and that is why he is attacking the Americans.

FILMSCRIPT REWRITES

 

Film Rewrites

I've been looking at the film scripts which I have written over the years and my first observation is that many of them need some work. That work in most cases involves improving the comedy. Rather than continue writing half good scripts I am better off improving the older ones first. It's also practical because all of these which I wrote in the 90's were before mobile phones were a part of normal life.

1. THE VAMPYRE:  WITH BLOOD & ROSES.

Story A young transyvanian guy takes his girlfriend to meet count Dracula. 

This was my first script and it needs very little fine tuning so I can leave it for the moment. Actually it was my second script. The first was flushed down the toilet many years ago.

2. MY STREETKID

Story: A famous radio D.J finds a young female street kid hiding in his house. Years later I realised I'd plagarised Goldilocks. ( Just Kidding)

Has some major issues with the comedy aspect and this is my first project. In the first scene which goes for two pages I changed the last four lines and made something ho hum suddenly funny. The film script is not meant to be hilarious but that means I have to improve the jokes because the story is  quite likeable. It's my attempt at a feel good story and for that reason I think it stinks.

3 LAST NIGHT OF THE FILTH.

Story: A print worker  accidentally on purpose murders his boss and some of his workmates cover for him.

This is my best script has been drafted many times and is now ready to go.

4. WHEN BUSHPIGS COLLIDE.

A football team called the Bushpigs hire an agency to get recruits for their club for a weekend football carnival. However a mistake leads the agency to send a punk band called The Bushpigs in as the recruits. The band want the money so they pretend to be footballers but they are all hopeless.

I actully like the concept but the script although completed needs a lot of work.

KILL VICTOR GOLD

Story: Millionaire and celebrity doctor Victor Gold has upset gangster heavy weight Milo Krane so Krane orders his execusion. The doctor is left a  paraplegic but whilst recovering invents and designs a body suit which enables him to walk.

What was i thinking. This is like a Marvel Movie super hero story.( It would probably make a zillion at the box office) I haven't looked at it for over ten years.

THE MAD WEEKEND

 

 

The IMPORTANCE of DUBBED LAUGHTER

The Importance of Dubbed Laughter.

I've read that when dubbed or canned laughter was invented the ratings of comedy shows went up.

Sketch comedy needs some sort of laugh track but not a phony baloney one.

As good as Fawlty Towers was it has a laugh track. It could probably get away without one but it would need a musical score and it doesn't have one.(at all).

Over the years of having watched The Benny Hill Show , The Two Ronnies, The Paul Hogan Show for example I came to this conclusion of which I may be wrong.

They have an intial episode with a studio audience. That episode  I believe has the "STAR" doing a series of monologues and maybe one or two simple "live" sketches.

From that they have cutaways to as studio audience for the start and end credits only.

 This smoke and mirrors approach means that  this is the only time a studio audience is necessary but implies that audience was there for all 6 or so episodes.

It also implies that audience saw every sketch so that makes the dubbed laughter seem real.

And most importantly sketch comedy is a very hard sell without dubbed laughter.

 

 

MY FEATURE LENGTH FILM BLUEPRINT

The basic Hollywood comedy has a budget of minimum $20million. I guess in Australia it would be $6 million tops.

In most cases I don't even think along those lines . I think cheap cheap cheap.

My script will be 90 -100 pages and hopefully the finished product will be 90 minutes tops. It will be tighter an funnier.

My protagonist is usually male, some variation of myself.

In most cases the story is about a guy in a fix trying to get of the fix. Sometimes the situation is usually caused by the protagonist being an idiot in the first place.

For the film to be a success you have to come up with 6 big sight gags or sight gag scenes. A film with a budget of $20 million can have a box office of $150 million with 6 good sight gag scenes.

In some of my scripts there is a MacGuffin, which is chasing something which is unattainable. I say that because some of the scripts are about a scam.

In my scripts you have a beginning and end and what happens in to get to that end can be a pile nonsense. I don't write romantic comedies which need a proper story.

I find a need to write in a few off the wall comedy scenes.

Have some kind of comedy music scene.

I like the idea of wacky cameos from name comedians.

As many one liners as you can think of. 

So we start of with a quest and in that last scene we reach the quest.

That's about it.

Revisiting IT'S BRISBANE TONITE WOW! 2010

It's seven years since we made 

 

IT"S BRISBANE TONITE  WOW! a film made from a script I wrote in 2002. You know the film was a dud when you write a post like this. My film maker mate Scot had read the script years earlier and contacted me in 2010 about making it into a film. We also had this conversation in 2006.

I said "Go for it, you've got my script"
He said that he wanted me to be the lead character
I said to him that I'm more than happy at my current job at M ON MARY apartments and wasn't prepared to risk my job for the film role. The way I saw it, is. that if the film is some kind of success my script won't go unnoticed. In most cases when a film is a success it's the script which gets most of the recognition in the aftermath.
However Scot was relentless and I caved in to his relentlessness begging and guilt trips so that I would play the lead role.

The script is essentially about 6 people being trapped in a community television station during a flash flood. Those characters are the station boss, the Tonite Show host, the producer, the control room expert, a major sponsor and the protagonist who is a film maker only being there to pick up a film he has had there for editing purposes. The Tonite show host has a show to go live to air.  Her guests can't make it in and everybody else can't leave. So she asks the film maker to help her out. He goes from being one guest to all the guests. A role a great comedian like Robin Williams or Peter Sellers would revel in doing. Meanwhile all the guests who cannot make it to the show have turned up at a nearby pub and are watching this man imitating them.

When I originally wrote the script I wrote it without what is called  a first act. I should have done a fifteen minute introduction of the lead character. Instead of being like a three act play I wrote this as a two act script in which the script hit the ground running. Sounded good to me but in reality it's a bit of a wank. It was a big mistake by me.

Scot asked me to do a final draft but I made some weak changes but nothing significant. He then wrote about another ten pages to the script. I didn't object to this but introducing another four characters totally changed the concept of the story, because these four characters being in the studio could have also pretended to be guests. It defeated the purpose of the story.

I became involved in the auditions and I had no issues with the casting and from May to July there were rehearsals. Late August I said to Scot that I feel that when I tell my boss that I will need some time off for filming that she will sack me so I should stand down and he should find another person for the lead. She was having a sackathon at the time. He said that would be wrong and that without me the project would not get off the ground. I notified my boss about this on August 16 and was sacked on September 5th for a variety of unrelated items. None worthy of sacking at all. Things I didn't do on Tuesday but did on Wednesday type of things. All were so minor it was ridiculous. It was like she had a dossier on every mistake I had made and everyone else for that matter.  Just on this point, this boss had taken over at the start of year. She sacked me in April for a story she invented, re-employed me when some workers called her a liar and in the time I worked there had sacked all the seventeen of her staff that she had when she became boss. Bottom line, she loved sacking people. Loved it.

Scot had a plan to start shooting in late September and finish in early December, We only filmed scenes on the weekend between 8am and 3pm (and I worked on the weekends) The camera man had to leave for another job at 3pm so that's why shooting finished at 3pm.  If we had shot to 6pm on Saturdays and 4pm on Sundays we would have completed the filming in a month.As an actor I was a slow starter but was usually getting into my role in the early afternoon.
Scot proved to be a well organised producer and a competent director but the early finishes didn't do the film or anyone else any justice. At 3pm it was like we all felt let's knock over another scene or two but this never happened and the reality is that when you read this script, which basically has 80% of it at only two locations could be done very quickly.


We had one major disagreement on the set. I was playing a man who was pretending to be six other characters. Scot wanted one actor to play a dual role which I thought was confusing but more so unnecessary. I told Scot so and when this actor came in for the second role I was very pissed off.
The reality is this guy's second character was not so obvious so maybe I was wrong but it was unnecessary and the bloke actually flew back from Perth especially to play the lesser role , because his scenes were shot early in the production.

Now here's where the real problems start. The film was shot in a 3 major locations. A shop in Wooloongabba, a studio in Annerley built by Scot and a hotel in the city on a night where there major construction being performed.  All locations had such major sound issues the final print was unwatchable.

Scot deleted twelve laugh lines from his final edit. Everyone was unhappy about this and Scot said that Ricky Gervais didn't use laugh lines in THE OFFICE. Actually Scot misunderstood what Gervais was getting at, but what Gervais was saying is he didn't write characters in the ABSOLUTELY FABULOUS vein who enter a room and say some deliberately outrageous to get a laugh.  He later admitted this was a mistake but the footage was discarded by this point, never to be retrieved. Twelve laugh lines is an enormous amount, most comedy films don't have twelve laugh lines.

The final product had minimal music and we are talking about a light comedy here, so I insisted on more music This may sound strange but I believe the music is what sets apart a good film from great film and some music can kill a good film. Try watching the original CASINO ROYALE. After the great opening theme Burt Bacharach he had no idea how to score a movie. I've always said that Jerry Goldsmith could turn an ordinary film into what appears to be a very good film on the strength of  his great music. BASIC INSTINCT being the perfect example. 

 Scot finally came clean and said he had no interest in a music score as there was none in THE OFFICE or FAWLTY TOWERS. ( True) I'll say this, presuming we all love FAWLTY TOWERS, we'd love it a hell of a lot more if it had a music score. If I knew that he didn't believe in musical scores for movies I would have said "Why bother making films then?"

THE FINAL PRODUCT
Terrible sound killed it. I suggested to Scot before shooting that we should approach Briz 31 for the hiring of their studios. He said "NO" in a heartbeat,  and yet a quote from Briz 31 would have been useful and they weren't expensive.

Little music made that situation worse. It needed a bouncy feel through it. It wasn't a drama nor was it THE OFFICE.

The Actors
Everyone who performed in the film was really good. Especially Sonia who played the equal lead role. Honestly, I was the weak link in the acting stakes.  And I was now out of work so the whole thing didn't sit well with me.

My performance was ordinary and unfortunately all my best stuff was shot in the mid afternoon.

Editing
The editing was mediocre. Too many scenes of people especially me, walking from A to B. I did my own edit cutting ten minutes from Scot's Final product which made big difference. I cut one scene but also cut every entry and exit from a scene to a minimum.You don't need to see people leaving a room if it's unnecessary.


My script was 6/10
I should have written two introduction scenes for the lead character taking a minimum of ten minutes.
That was biggest the second biggest mistake.
My character should have been a bumbling idiot with some minor but effective sight gags added. I should have written what I know and that was my biggest mistake.  This is the biggest mistake with modern comedy. He should have been a klutz.

I had  a scene at the start with  mechanic. I needed to have this mechanic contact  the lead character a few times through the film to build up a tense situation, because they meet at the end it would have been very funny if there was more interaction during the film. ( It's also very Larry David)

Strangely Scot changed the title to IT"S BRISBANE TONIGHT WOW! using proper English for TONITE.

Would I do it all again? Having highlighted the issues I know another shot at this would work.

A rewrite of the script would improve it dramatically.
Scot's direction showed it was a good watchable story.
Needs a suitable light musical score. (BUT No guitars).

THE WRITING OF PONDEROSA

 I've almost finished writing the best comedy film script I've ever written PONDEROSA.

First of all BONANZA is one of my very favourite shows of all time. Top 5.  I watch it now on Foxtel at least few times a week. Back in the 90's it was on Channel 9 at midnight and I finished work at 11pm so I'd watch it before going to bed. I'd go into work the next day and I had a running joke with my work mate Terry Keir.
It went this way.
Did you watch Bonanza last night?
Yes.
And what was the lesson?
DON"T FUCK WITH THE CARTWRIGHT'S.


Six years ago I started writing PONDEROSA a comedy tribute and feature length send up of BONANZA and it's now near completion. I have many excuses for why it has taken so long but over that time I had written 30 pages of notes and had many visions in my head of what was going to happen.
At the same time I was writing another script which has still gone nowhere.
So I've just had some time off work and almost completed PONDEROSA and it's looking good.
So what is PONDEROSA and what is not PONEDROSA.


IT'S NOT
It's not a Zucker Abrahams Scary Movie type. ( Apologies to the Zuckers because they created a comedy genre that has been abused so that films in their style are now ridiculous, or shithouse or both).

So it's not a western in which characters use mobile phones and computers carry automatic weapons and have many irrelevant things going on in the background and foreground. The are no scenes with 10 pointless gags per minute.

IT'S NOT
A gross out western, so that although there's plenty of killings and accidents the injuries aren't highlighted for "laughs".

IT'S NOT
Full of swearing and "cuss words" because I want the biggest audience possible if possible, but there's plenty of sexual innuendo which Is what I use to instead.


IT'S NOT
A lame likable frolic, it's full of comedy. It's fucking comedy.

IT IS Not at all like BLAZING SADDLES in a comedy sense.

IT IS Like BLAZING SADDLES in a style and budget sense. I'm writing a big picture .

IT IS
A big budget big scale western. I can picture  a few actors as Ben Cartwright as Ben is hilarious, so Will Ferrell would be my first choice, but there are a few others who would fit. 

IT IS
FUNNY for every minute and seldom lets up. I had to write comedy comedy comedy at the top of each page.

IT IS
A film with a paper thin plot and surrounding that plot are many big scenes or big sketches, so in that sense it resembles the MONTY PYTHON films.

IT IS
 A film with send ups of other westerns such as Brokeback Mountain, but it's not Zucker like so not every scene is a send up. I've been very selective and as an avid BONANZA and THE VIRGINIAN viewer.  I've chosen to tweak scenes from those shows rather than look for film send ups.

IT IS
A film with big scale sight gags  but is heavy on verbal jokes.

That's it for now as it's still not completed but getting close.

Note: 2022 and it is complete.

FILM REVIEWS :CAT BALLOU & THE GOOD GUYS and the BAD GUYS

Two films I've watched recently. Both Comedy westerns

CAT BALLOU   1965 

IMDB RATING 6.9

AFI Funniest 100 films Rating Number 50

Starring  : Jane Fonda and Lee Marvin

Directed by : Eliot Silverstein

Screenplay  : Walter Newman and Frank R Pierson

Based on a novel by  : Ray Chanslor


THE GOOD GUYS & THE BAD GUYS 1969 
Robert Mitchum and George Kennedy & Tina Louise

IMDB RATING
6.2

Directed by Burt Kennedy

Screenplay
Ronald M Cohen and Dennis Shryack


Cat Ballou was huge hit and The Good Guys and the Bad Guys not so.
These two films are lightweight comedy westerns, but the word lightweight is more appropriate than comedy.
Sure lots of mildly amusing things happen, like in Cat Ballou there's a guy who fires his gun and from 20 metres away misses a barn and in The Good Guys and the Bad Guys there are people chasing a runaway train in cars and on horses.

The banter is cute and snappy and the actors are all smiling and having a great time so there's some entertainment value.........but mainly for them.

CAT BALLOU made NO 50 in the AFI top 100 comedies of all time and this is beyond  my comprehension. There has to be a criteria and it just doesn't make the criteria. The criteria has to include funny and it's not funny it's mildly humourous.

I can watch Jane Fonda in anything and Tina Louise is so drop dead gorgeous in The Good Guys and the Bad Guys it makes me wonder why she didn't get more work. Seriously.

But there is a bottom line here and the bottom line here is there are no funny lines, no laughs, especially no belly laughs and the stark reality is that without funny lines, it aint comedy.

I'LL BE SEEING YOU GARRY SHANDLING

Late one night in the late 80's I was sitting up as usual and this new show came on Channel 9. Called It's Garry Shandling Show I watched and thought this is a very funny guy and the most refreshing show I'd ever seen.

As a night shift worker the show and Garry became a part of my life. As they are saying now he broke the fourth wall by talking to the audience but that was just one of many devices he used. It wasn't the devices which won me over it was his comedy, his ability to twist a sentence and turn everything on it's head.

The show was very inventive and very funny.  In American terms it was low budget and that always works for me.

Then Garry disappeared off our screens for a few years and then I heard of The Larry Sanders Show.
I watched the first episode and admittedly didn't know what he was doing. I thought this is pretty full on. I'm not afraid to admit that it was way ahead of anything I'd dreamed of , but by the third episode I totally got it and once I got it I was like it's biggest fan.

I don't intend to go into detail suffice to say I think it's the best sitcom ever.

I think the last episode is as good as the last episode of CHEERS and THE MARY TYLER MOORE SHOW.

Since it finished I've missed Garry and occasionally seen him as a guest on a tonight Show.

When I did stand up comedy I wrote many routines and lines in the "Shandling" style.

Only this week I became aware that his feature film WHAT PLANET ARE YOU FROM was an enormous flop. Budget $50 million with world wide returns of  $7 million. I know at the time I liked it and thought it was very funny and I guess I was allowed to enjoy it. Sure the whirring penis angle was uncomfortable at some stages but sometimes it was funny. Well he made it funny.

Who knows what caused his death. I saw him on Letterman and thought he looked very unwell.
I was like a little kid when I saw him in IRON MAN 2. There's Garry There's Garry.

On a purely selfish level I miss that I will never get to meet him, well not yet anyway.

There's very few major new comedy influences around now , especially Louis CK  with  Larry David, Seth McFarlane and Steven Levitan but there's not much on the horizon.
I miss you Garry and I will always love you and your comedy, you are one of my greatest influences.

60's &70's comedies and their WRITERS.

The sitcom is my favourite genre of comedy.
Makes sense, because as a kid you grow up with sitcoms.
I didn't  grow up with too many sketch comedies, there were a few but sitcoms were on every day of the week , whereas sketch comedies were on for 6 weeks and then disappeared until the next year. Also, they were more for the adults.  Also you couldn't see a new release film in my era, you had to wait a few years for television release. As one of the greatest Woody Allen fans the first Woody Allen film I saw was BANANAS late one night on Channel Ten in 1977, and as a kid I only saw stand up comics doing bits on TV specials.

But sitcoms, they were comedies kids could watch.

Why doesn't Australia have great sitcoms.
Answer: You need great comedy writers and the reality is that great sitcom comedy writers are not easy to find.
 Here is a list of some of my favourite comedies. ( in Chronological order) and on the right side are writers who had major involvement in these shows

ROCKY & BULLWINKLE      Chris Hayward  Allan Burns
THE MUNSTERS      Chris Hayward, Allan Burns
GET SMART   Chris Hayward Allan Burns Arne Sultan
MARY TYLER MOORE SHOW  Allan Burns
BARNEY MILLER   Chris Hayward  Arne Sultan

Or
McHALES NAVY  Laurence Marks
F TROOP  Laurence Marks   Arthur Julian
HOGANS HEROES  Laurence Marks   Arthur Julian
MASH Laurence Marks ( Larry Gelbart)

Hollingsworth Morse was a director on all these  "service" shows.

For the record I don't find Hogan's Heroes at all funny. Love Bob Crane but it's a drama with dubbed laughter.

I've just mentioned 8 of the most popular and best sitcoms of all time plus Rocky and Bullwinkle.

Although many writers collaborated on these show it's my belief that there are very few great sitcom writers and this list shows the strong influence of the great writers of this period.
The same thing is happening now with American sitcom.
More on the 70's through to now later.

For the record  and we all love lists.GET SMART, THE MARY TYLER MOORE SHOW  & BARNEY MILLER all would be in my top ten comedies of all time. MASH would miss out because I just didn't find it funny after Henry Blake and Trapper left. It became a drama with Hawkeye Pierce.

ALL IN THE FAMILY had a different set of writers and is in my top ten. I'd lose credibility if not mentioning it and including it in my top ten.

MORE SITCOM THOUGHTS

My favourite genre of comedy is the sitcom. I think that applies to about 95% of people.
Sure we can love paying $200 to see Robin Williams or Billy Connolly. (Once in a life time experience)
Sure we love going to the flicks to see a good comedy movie and it rarely happens. ( Most comedy movies stink)
Sure we get big belly laughs from the great comedy sketches of great sketch comedians. (But we can't watch them over and over again)
But sitcoms are like our best friends.

I don't like defining sitcom. I consider half hour comedy shows in which we get to know the characters as sitcoms. So GET SMART to me is a sitcom. (yer it's satire but it's the format)

Australia doesn't do good sitcoms and there's a simple reason why.
But I digress. I've come up with a great sitcom idea and think it could be a success but here's what it needs.

For the purpose of this article I'll call it AUSSIE FAMILY (that's not the title)
AUSSIE FAMILY if gone through the procedure of every other Aussies comedy will fail no matter how good I think it's potential is.

So back to the heading.
HOW TO MAKE A SUCCESSFUL AUSSIE SITCOM?

1. Take all the key elements from the best U.S comedies. Not the British. The British don't seem how to nail a punchline.

2 Get all the best comedy writers in Australia on board. Have 20-30 writers if need be.
Australian comedies fail because of our "closed shop" mentality. We are too protective, which means scared of our project being shared.

3 Get an American from a successful sitcom to be the script editor or supervisor.

4 Forget about creating characters as such , create funny lines of a certain style for each character. Then their characters will evolve from the their lines. Look at Carla in CHEERS she evolved from just being a wise cracker.

5 Every character must have an angle no matter how small. The perfect example is Larry in NEWHART. 

 6 The characters all live in the now, the past is not part of the sitcom world.
e.g CHEERS Sam had a brother. His appearance in one episode was the extent of his involvement. Never mentioned before, never mentioned after. Same with Ted Baxter in Mary Tyler Moore Show.

GUEST STARS
Not a big thing in U.S sitcoms but for Australian sitcoms it's necessary.

That's most of my ingredients for an Aussie Sitcom.

OPEN MIKE - STAND UP Part 2

 Part 2 

Although this is about my experiences in stand up I am condensing the experiences so that it's to the point. If I wrote an anecdote about every good and bad experience which I had and the people I met, well, that would be called a book and a very boring book.

THE OPEN MIKERS
When you begin your tenure as an  Open Mike comic you find that you are one of about a dozen new comics on the scene. These guys and gals are your new workmates, they are not your friends, although it's great if you are friendly, and they may become your friends in time but initially they are just people who turn up at the same venue as you do each week. And they are competitive. I personally found that the group which I started with got on pretty well,  some were indifferent to me, but hey, it was generally a very good group.
(One thing I found that everyone involved in comedy has a different comedy taste so it's not necessarily a scene to find like minded people. Far from it.) However some of that group had problems with other members of the group. Taking on board I was nearly 40 and married and these were mainly 20-30 year old's  so they were mixing with each other more. Anyway, the general feeling at an open mike venue is that no one wants you to do shit-house because that makes it harder for the next act, and no one wants you to do too good because that is ego deflating.


PAYMENT
The open mike scene means that as an open mike comic you do the pubs Sunday to Thursday performing to between ten and thirty people and if you get some good feedback you get to do Friday and Saturday night at the clubs performing to maybe 250 people.
As an open mike you don't get paid. The information I 'm giving here is what a number of comics have told me and they've all told me the the same figures.
At mid week venues the promoter gets $900 (that was 6-7 years ago) from the pub. Of that $900 the MC got about $250 and the lights and sound guy got about $200. So the promoter gets $450 a night and the promoter may have a dozen venues, most weekly so that there's a gig for every night of the week. Not bad. Take on board there's no cover charge by the pub and no radio or TV advertising by the promoter so it's all word of mouth and maybe a generic poster. I hope that makes sense.

I think each act should get $20 for the effort.  Greed rules though , and if that will never apply a weeknight venue I think It should definitely apply for the Friday and Saturday night venues with interstate headliners, packed rooms and the open mike is part of the show.

I remember at the end of my first year I was in  this hilarious conversation.
 Me         When's the party?.
Comic     What party?
Me           The end of year party.
Comic      What end of year party?
Me            The end of year party to thank us.
Comic       Pardon.
Me           Well we've been performing at pubs and clubs all year without any payment so I can only assume that at the end of the year the promoter puts on food and drinks for us to show his support          and appreciation for making him heaps of money.
Comic       You've got be kidding

What's hilarious is that I'm a complete idiot at times.

I know a few comics who have demanded payment after about 6 performances but  that is ridiculous also because they don't know their craft and I believe open mike is about learning the comedy craft. I was offered a paid gig after my ninth performance, I refused saying "I'm not ready". That was a mistake because it was 18 months before I got was paid again and that time I accepted.

In 2006 a comedian who went under the name Motormouth started a Sunday night Pub venue. Part of his thing was that everyone who did perform did get $20 and they got it on the night , and sure enough it went straight back over the bar so everyone was a winner.

THE VENUE
The pub is the stock standard open mike venue. The pub has no interest in the comedians they are there to sell beer. That has to be noted. Every pub is different and I for one couldn't give a rats. Some are better than others. I recall The Holland Hotel had a few huge pylons in the middle of the room which meant patrons had to sit strategically so they could see you. But my thinking in all cases was that there's nothing I could do about the room so why worry about it.

GETTING THE BEST OUT OF YOURSELF
Normally at an open mike night there are about 8 acts, sometimes there's twice that many but rarely. My thing was to get up first. No one ever had an issue with this. No one, ever.  The reason being is that the MC had has just got up, he's done his stuff , he's warmed up the audience and they are at their best and if you are going to get a good intro, it's more likely to be after they've done their big 10-15 minute warm up. I learnt this after about ten performances and being first helped my confidence. If  by some chance I missed the opening spot I chose to be first act after the interval ( usually five minutes so people get drinks), because this is when the MC also does a high energy piece. Coming on last or second last sounds important but if the audience hasn't been receptive to the other acts you can be beaten before you start, even if you do well. Or everyone has gone home.

THE MC
At an open mike venue you soon get used to your surrounds. I'm talking about the same venue which you rock up to every week. The staff is the same, the audience are often the same people and you are performing with the same comics . The one thing that changes each week is the MC. In Brisbane the MC is also a headliner or main support at the big venues on the weekend. What does this mean? It means that in most cases he doesn't want to be at the pub gig on Tuesday night. Ok it's frustrating for him/her. You are now with a group of people who you know and they know you except the MC.

The MC is often you worst enemy at the open mike venue. He doesn't want to be there and he thinks all the acts are shit. He's wondering why he's there on Tuesday night when he should be playing The Entertainment Centre  or being on some TV show.  Some of them have no problem conveying this message to comics and audiences alike with microphone in hand. But they go into this venue with one thing which you don't have and that's the experience and stagecraft to make your night a misery so that they can feel good about themselves.

One MC story for this piece.
My comedy mate Mike Shanahan was performing on a Friday night at a venue at which there was a cover charge. He was the support. It didn't stop MC and headliner throwing coasters at him when on stage. He still talks abut it. More of these types of stories later, because some of them are shockers.
I do think the promoter has the job to tell the MC that part of his job is to build up the acts and support them and not shit can and abuse them and I told a promoter that after an incident involving myself.

THE LEARNING PHASE
The main thing to remember when you are in this learning phase is that you are in this learning phase. Get up and do your seven minutes, I would do six to six and a half just so I didn't piss anyone off,  but also because I could concentrate on getting that right. The thing with Stand Up Comedy is that it's all about "me" but you have to say to yourself "Is it all about 'me' tonight in front of this crowd of 15 people or am I using it so it can be all about me in front of 1000 people". Rehearse your lines and get your time up there right. Listen to what they laugh at and figure out what they laugh at and why and what they don't laugh at and why? Cut bits and add bits. Get it right. No one cares but you, really.


Mick Steel writer of a play or screenplay called OPEN MIKE about one night at a pub comedy venue.