I watch what I consider smart comedy. It sounds pretentious, and that’s because it is, but I like my comedy to be original and make me think. That being said, I had a strange experience after seeing a taping of Comedy Central’s The Half Hour. At these tapings, they have each comic perform for roughly 30 minutes and for most of them they have two comics per show. I thoroughly enjoyed both of the comics I saw at this particular taping, though their styles weren’t all that similar. One of them was a story-teller with a short list of bits but each bit went on for several minutes. Whereas the other comic had shorter, punchier jokes but had many more bits to go through.
After the show I saw a friend of mine and we asked each other what we thought of the show. To my surprise she said that she liked the first guy but didn’t really care for the second because she likes smart comedy.
First of all, I’m so glad to hear somebody say that. Too many people say things like, “I just wanna laugh!” That reasoning wouldn’t even work in other genres, “I just wanna cry,” for a drama? No one would see the movie where the first and only thing happens is that a couple breaks up then immediately get’s back together, there have to be highs and lows and reasons to cheer for the characters to be happy. That’s just like a good joke, either build something up so I want to laugh or hit me with something so true that my whole life has led up to me laughing about it.
Secondly, the second guy did have smart jokes! At least I thought so, they seemed so clever. Comedy is art so I’ll let it slide. I like the idea of people wanting smart comedy more than having to agree absolutely with my opinion on what smart means. Though, I have my limits.
