Saturday, January 10, 2015

The Podcast That Dares Not Speak Its Name 9: "...Comedy Is Hard"

This episode is unlike any I have done before.  It's a lengthy (sprawling? interminable? endless?) essay recorded in one sitting.  The topic is Comedy.  What is off-limits in making people laugh, and do I know the difference between being funny and being offensive?  Can I keep on a single topic for more than five minutes?*  And what does Fake Sean Connery think?

If you've ever wanted a glimpse inside my head, here it is.  You've been warned.



To download the episode, right click RIGHT HERE.

Music for this episode was "Across the Divide" by Kevin McLeod, from Incompetech.com.


*Spoiler alert: no.

P.S.  It may not be apparent, but this episode wasn't just a bitch session, an hour of whining, or an invitation to a pity party.  If it wasn't at least somewhat interesting, and produced absolutely no laughter, then I did something wrong.  Either that, or you weren't listening with both ears.

3 comments:

Seraph said...

Wow. What an amazing episode. Really REALLY cool Rish. Thought provoking and genuinely moving at times, while still being laugh-out-loud funny. I really wanted to hear your diverging thoughts, particularly the ones about being an extra. Maybe another episode.

As a side note - I used to quite like Dhama and Greg, though mostly for Greg's parents, who I thought were pretty funny.

Journey Into... said...

This was a very cool episode Rish. I need to find that imposter you were talking with. He has my credit card.

I don't know if you liked Mad about You, but I quite liked it. There was this episode where Paul keeps getting people mad at him including some of his friends because he keeps saying things that were inappropriate, like when he had angered some recovering alcoholics and and then saying something like, "No seriously you guys. I'm just fooling around. I'm sorry I offended you. Honestly, I really respect you for you and what you've overcome...In fact, let me buy you guys a beer to make it up to you."

He kept trying to tell everyone that it was funny. that he knew what he was saying was inappropriate and because he knew it what the worst thing to say in that situation, he had to say it because it was funny. He didn't convince anybody and he was eventually left to himself.

When he gets home, tells Jamie how hard his day was etc. Jamie just says "Wimp" and leaves the room. Instead of being angry with her or offended, he was touched and so happy that somebody understood him.

Anyway I loved that episode and your comments made me think of it again.

I liked the post comment story. It was even more funny to me becuase I know where you live.

More essays would be cool.

AndyD273 said...

I kind of agree with FSC that you guys can be a bit to hard on yourselves.

I can understand the whole "make fun of yourself before someone else can do it" as a way to disarm critics, but don't overdo it.

In the early days when you had the hate letter of the week as a regular thing, I'd often pull my ear buds out for that segment just because it was so over the top.

I think you guys do a great job, especially with how busy you are outside of the podcasts.
On a personal note, voice acting/narrating is near the top of my bucket list, assuming I can ever afford a decent microphone and get opportunities to practice. Your range of voices is something I aspire to (not sure if that's the right word).

Hopefully that wasn't to over the top, but I wanted to balance out those dumb letters a bit.

Keep up the great work, I'm rooting for you guys.