» Breaking The Fourth Wall: Almost 30 Years In Standup

- Breaking The Fourth Wall: Almost 30 Years In Standup
  
  A post about Columns by yatesy on April 7th, '08
  
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- I DVR’d a great little documentary the other day called “When Stand Up Stood Out”. It chronicled the Boston Stand Up Comedy scene in the first half of the 1980’s. I never realized all the talent that was bubbling there, and I have to say that most of the guys that made it are still around: Lenny Clarke, Denis Leary, Stephen Wright and a ton more.
  
  There was a point in the documentary where a talent scout from The Tonite Show with Johnny Carson came out to Boston to scout colleges with his kid, and he decided to have an audition at a local standup place. Stephen Wright was selected to come on out and do The Tonite Show, igniting pride and jealousy in all of his fellow comedians. So, it got me thinking about television in the last almost 30 years.
  
  Some of you out there have grown up with cable tv and Comedy Central always being there. But years ago, before fifteen thousand channels, before stand up show after stand up show, if you were a comedian; the place to be was The Tonite Show with Johnny Carson. The only other outlet was to be picked by Bob Hope for one of his Young Comedians specials. As a little kid, I loved those specials. A ton of people like Gary Shandling, Jerry Seinfeld and lots of others who blew up in the following years got their start because of Bob.
  
  If you wanted to see Stand Up Comedy back in the day, you had to go to a comedy club. They were a dime a dozen back in the 1980’s, much like disco’s were everywhere in the 70’s and Starbucks is everywhere now. The 3 (Fox did not exist) major networks, CBS, ABC & NBC would occasionally pick one of these comedians and put them on a sitcom and that was as far as it went. If you were lucky, like super lucky, you could maybe do some movies and hope it’s not as a bit player.
  
  Contrast that to today. If you happen to somehow get noticed in the internet (via YouTube, MySpace, or wherever) & cable, the possibilities are endless. Of course, when the door opens so much wider, it has a dual effect: while people who are really talented and funny might be able to make get noticed in ways that would not have happened back in the day, it also lets into the public consciousness people who are, for lack of a better word, hacks.
  
  Stand Up Comedy is still a very hard thing to break into and be good at. Even professionals still work on it. Catch Jerry Seinfeld’s documentary “Comedian” to see him try and work on his act. Interesting stuff. However, it’s not like it used to be, and the thrill of seeing a new young comedian walk thru the curtains on The Tonite Show can be put in that box with Drive In Movies, Saturday Morning Cartoons, and 8 Track Tapes. All we have to look forward to now is the blazing future ahead of us.
  
  Hopefully, it’ll make us laugh.
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