The Timekiller: The Secret To Standup Comedy Success

What I’m about to say is liable to ruffle some feathers, so before I begin, I’d like to issue a brief disclaimer: Everything I’m about to say concerns the standup comedy “business,” not the “art” of standup. And even though I’m not a standup myself, I have been around the business of standup for long enough to have some idea what I’m talking about.

With that in mind, here’s my theory...

The secret to standup comedy success is NOT doing standup.

Variety’s Brian Lowry (who I actually once served jury duty with - true story) recently wrote a column about how television development executives are no longer developing material for standup comics. Among other things, Lowry mentions the following:

"(TV executives) eventually learned that building concepts around standups is trickier than it looks, especially because most acts don’t lend themselves to becoming the template for a weekly series. Many comics were given shows despite slim resumes, and lacked the necessary foundation to survive the transplantation process, chewing through all their best material in a matter of weeks. Hell, it even took multiple tries to capture Cosby’s rumination about the vagaries of parenting, which yielded a payday sizable enough to keep a good-sized country up to its eyeballs in Jell-O pudding.

Ultimately, the lure of TV proved too intoxicating, and the talent pool wasn’t equal to the demand."

This set off a firestorm of criticism from the standup comedy stalwarts over at Shecky magazine who took great offense at what they perceived as Lowry’s put-down of the caliber of today’s standup comedians compared to the 1980s standup (and standups-getting-sitcoms) boom, among other things.

I’m not going to address that argument, but Lowry’s article does highlight something else that I think is worth discussing.

There has been a real shift in the standup business over the last couple decades and because of it, standup comics who focus all their energy on standup are likely doomed to never have more than a moderately successful standup career at best.

Once upon a time, the path to standup comedy success was as follows: Develop your act, work the road, get yourself booked into festivals like Aspen or Montreal, book a couple late night TV or cable appearances, work your way up through the clubs to become a headliner, and then have a TV executive give you a sitcom deal based on the persona you created in your act.

But as Lowry points out, that end game no longer exists. And that makes that plan a big mistake.

Sure, the road may hone your skills, but is it really going to get you any closer to being able to pack a club as a headliner? Probably not. The #1 goal of clubs (including rock clubs or other alt-venues) is to sell tickets. That’s why they’ll always take some hacky sitcom sidekick or third-rate reality star who can sell tickets off their notoriety as opposed to a solid comic that nobody knows.

And as far as TV goes, with the splintered audience of an 800-channel universe there is no real launching pad on television for standup specifically – there’s no equivalent of the Johnny Carson show (where an appearance could literally make your career "legit" overnight) and the only real standup comedy ever seen on network TV these days is Last Comic Standing, which, at best, buys a handful of comics one really good year of touring.

Even if you’re lucky enough to work your way into being a headliner the old fashioned way, little good that will do you. As Lowry references in his article, the days of TV execs handing out sitcoms to every headlining comic in town are long since gone.

So what are comics supposed to do? I suggest they invert the process.

Instead of hoping your standup will lead to other opportunities, pursue other avenues to create opportunities for your standup. Spend your time and energy concentrating on ways to get yourself known by as broad an audience as possible (broad as in large, not necessarily mainstream). Whether that means acting, writing, making dumb pop culture jokes on shows like Best Week Ever, podcasting, posting videos (not standup videos) online, or embracing new technology to build an audience so large that people have no choice but to give you opportunities (see Dane Cook).

After all, what will truly get you closer to achieving your dream standup career? Chasing down open mics to get stage time five times a week or shifting half of that time and energy to taking acting classes? Or writing screenplays? Or making videos? Or building a fanbase online?

This is a much better success plan than scrambling to get feature gigs in 2nd-tier road clubs and driving yourself crazy about every festival or Live at Gotham audition you come across. Think about it – a memorable cameo on How I Met Your Mother would get you way closer to achieving your standup dreams than would 10 weekends on the road in random clubs. It pays better too, but that’s just an added bonus.

Nobody’s saying you should give up on standup if that’s what you love and want to do. It’s not an either/or situation. But if you want to “make it” as a standup, you’d better be pursuing other avenues to break in with the same dedication you have to standup. Otherwise, you’re just spinning your wheels.

At the end of the day, the time comics are spending working on their acts are not necessarily getting them any closer to having the opportunity to really use those acts. Your skills as a standup are very important (obviously), but equally important are the things you need to do in order to get the opportunities to use those skills.

And that’s what so many standups seem to ignore these days.

But you know who hasn’t ignored it? Many of standup’s biggest success stories.

Patton Oswalt’s first love may be standup (I assume), but it was his work on King of Queens that allowed him the opportunity to launch Comedians of Comedy. Dave Chappelle may be most passionate about standup, but it wasn’t until he did a sketch show that he really had the opportunity to explode his standup career. Aziz Ansari may be a great standup who was even hailed by Rolling Stone as an "It" comic, but it's not his standup that kickstarted his career - it's his sketch/internet work with his buddies in Human Giant.

I’m not saying that you should give up on your standup dreams. I’m just saying that the best way to achieve them might be to spend a little less time working on your standup, and a little more working on something else.

Josh Spector is the "mastermind" behind Whip It Out Comedy. His column runs every Monday, assuming he remembers to write it. He has recently written about how to choose a team to root for in March Madness and using the 99 Cents Store as your Valentine's Day headquarters. He can be pestered at whipitoutcomedy@yahoo.com.