The dimly lit room, the stool, the microphone – the standup special trifecta. Even though I have not watched any standup shows in person, I have watched several specials on TV. It seems like comedy in its purest form – no canned laughter and few gimmicks; the audience can see what the comedian is truly made out of. Specials are being released at a crazy rate nowadays and the trend does not seem to be stopping anytime soon. Currently, the market is dominated by Netflix, who plan to release almost 40 standup specials this year.
Standup has been on TV since TV came to be. Comedians from the radio gained the chance to have their faces seen on screen through variety and talk shows where they would do a clean segment. They would get the opportunity to make it to TV after working the comedy circuit, and saw getting a TV segment as their “Mom, I made it!” moment, especially because talk shows like ‘The Tonight Show’ and ‘Def Comedy Jam’ were watched by tens of millions in the 20th century, so it was the best way to get exposure. So many comedians like Jim Carrey, Richard Pryor, Jerry Seinfeld, Dave Chappelle and Joan Rivers got their debut on talk shows and that propelled them to stardom. Now, because of a saturated market, a stint on ‘The Tonight Show’ is just a drop in the ocean. They need to do way more to grab attention. They need an entire comedy special to themselves.
However comedy specials have evolved from being a reward for reaching your comedic peak to being a launching pad for your fresh comedic career. Before, comedians would work to get to the pinnacle of their career and then have the chance to have a comedy special or two. This led to iconic specials like ‘Eddie Murphy Delirious’, a product of a comedian already proving themselves to the audience. Now, standup specials act almost like an advert for their work because they don’t have that stardom yet, trying to encourage people to buy tickets to their next tour. Due to audiences being split between ample options on TV, film and streaming services, a comedian has to do a lot more to be seen and has to advertise themselves a lot more to break ground in the industry, hence the surge of comedy specials. This is not to say that any comedian can get a special, but the scope has definitely expanded.
Comedy specials were mainly on Comedy Central and HBO in the early 2000s, but Netflix, as it always does, took a lot of their TV traffic and invested a lot in comedy specials (partly because making several comedy specials was cheaper than creating a whole Netflix show season). Comedy Central still does comedy specials but not to the Netflix calibre. Many comedians went from their self produced specials to being a firm spoke in the Netflix comedy wheel. Netflix specials have a certain look and are extremely successful, catapulting comedians like Ali Wong, Bo Burnham and Hasan Minhaj into worldwide acclaim. Partly due to these specials, standup has surpassed the simple stage and microphone. The audience is able to see backstage, watch the comedians use music and graphics to get their jokes across. Comedians like Bo Burnham have taken their specials to a whole new vulnerable level, with his COVID19 special ‘Inside’ being a music exploration into his deteriorating mental state in quarantine. It was critically acclaimed and has encouraged other comedians to be creative with their work as well.
But some people question the art of the standup special and if it is really a genuine art form anymore as specials have gotten to a point where there is editing and cutting which can take away the authenticity. Comedian Kristen Schaal says that a standup specials being recorded removes the stage presence of the comedian. Many comedy specials are made an edit of 3 or 4 different shows with different audiences and take the best bits to create the 60 minutes. This could be seen as removing mistakes to make the show as good as possible, or it could be seen as taking away the essence of a live comedy performance, which can have charm in its failures. Maybe we are losing the beauty of a standup special when things are edited to be flawless. For example, one standup special producer shared a story of inviting a comedian into a studio to re-record a joke that they made during their comedy special filming because they mispronounced a word. They used a green screen and pasted the comedian’s head over the footage while he said the word correctly, all for the joke to land better. Anything to make the perfect advert I guess.
The specials use audience cutaways to show that the audience is having a good time and therefore so should we, watching at home. But are they having a good time, or is it just cut to look like that? Specials seem to work and have increased the ticket sales for comedian’s tours, but have we just been bamboozled into buying a ticket by just watching the comic’s best bits instead of their true uncut show? I’ll let you decide.
Another BANGER. I think this is really interesting because these are just another victim of the quantity over quality impact of Streaming services. I’ve been to a couple of live recordings (I saw the London shows of Chris Rock’s tambourine, and Kevin Hart’s Irresponsible) and while they don’t use canned laughter, they do make the audience do laughs before the show starts to use for the edit. But thats not to take away from the fact that the show was then actually as funny as the show would be.
But aside from the prepped laughter, I think the main thing I miss about old TV stand up shows is the anticipation of it. I know how excited I would get when I used to hear that a new Katt Williams’ show was coming out, and even as recently as 2020, I have gone back to watch The Pimp Chronicles, and American Hustle because of how much I loved the jokes in them. With streaming, there’s such a short lifespan on shows on there that you don’t have time to get excited for anything (or the energy to get excited since everything gets cancelled anyway), but also, because they are mass producing it, the priority is more on getting clips that will make the rounds on Socials instead of actual quality comedy. It’s why Matt Rife does so well on Tiktok…with audience work. I doubt anyone has ever actually seen a clip of Matt Rife comedy, or able to quote a joke of his, even after his stint on Wild N Out, because as a comedian, I don’t think he actually has the ability.
I do ultimately think it’s a shame because 2018’s Nanette by Hannah Gadsby is probably the BEST special I’ve ever watched by a comedian I knew nothing about going into it, and that really could have been the blueprint…if only.
Amazing contributions fr. Thanks for reading/watching!!