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The Show That Had the Most Impact on My Standup Act
I’ve been doing standup a long time and in some ways my act has stayed the same the whole time. The jokes themselves change of course, but I’ve always loved absurd humor with some splashes of dark.
When I first started I assumed my act would get tighter and more polished as I went along, but in fact the opposite has happened. Now before I get up onstage I have only a vague idea of what’s going to happen. Part of that is that I also do a lot of improv, but a big part of that was this show:
In case that was TLDW, it’s the audio of when I was on a themed show where the goal is to perform jokes that pass the Bechdel test. Trying to make my jokes explicitly pass made my silly jokes even sillier, to the point that I completely broke. This was not the plan at all, but the audience was into it.
I used to feel like a failure when I’d break and laugh when I was performing. It happens even more when I’m doing improv because I have even less control over what’s going to happen. I used to make fun of Jimmy Fallon because he does that all the time.
