17 People Try to Make a Comedian Laugh in 20 Seconds (Ft. Iliza Shlesinger) | Vanity Fair

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- Okay, I don't look tan.
Hi, I'm Iliza Shlesinger, a comedian,
and today we're going to be doing an experiment
in Zoom.
There we are!
So we're gonna have a bunch of people
who are waiting in a Zoom waiting room.
I don't know who these people are.
I haven't seen them.
They don't know that I'm here.
But these people are gonna come in with their acts,
their material, whatever they've cobbled together,
and they're gonna perform it for me and you,
here in Zoom.
They have 20 seconds, and I'll tell you why they're funny
or why they're not funny, and hopefully,
you guys are gonna learn some things about comedy
along the way.
All right, let's do this.
[energetic drumbeat]
- All right, Gianmarco, you can go into the main room.
First person's coming in Iliza.
- All right.
[chime]
- Well, hello, oh!
- It's starting!
- Hi!
I'm Italian, and we do a lot of hugging,
we kiss each other goodbye, we used to at least.
And my roommate who is not Italian,
when he first saw my dad and I kiss, he was just like,
"Ew, do you kiss your dad in public?"
And I was like, "Yeah, you know what would be weird?
"If I only kissed him in private."
[Iliza laughs]
- Good!
[chime]
- He had a good premise.
- I'm Italian, we do a lot of hugging,
we kiss each other goodbye.
- He had a good set up.
- Do you kiss your dad in public?
- And he had good timing,
so I was waiting for that punchline.
- And I was like, yeah, you know what would be weird?
If I only kissed him in private.
- Plus the second he said he's Italian, I was like
this could either be really hacky,
or it's one I hadn't heard before.
All right, next one.
[chime]
All right, hit that clock!
- Hey, I just want people to be better at racism.
That's pretty much all I want.
If you're gonna be racist to me,
don't just call me a terrorist, that's very lazy.
I'd be a terrible terrorist.
I can't keep a secret.
That's a really [beep]ing important part of terrorism.
You got a couple drinks in me,
I'll tell you anything you wanna know.
If I was a terrorist,
I would've screwed everything up September 8th.
I would've ruined the whole thing.
- It was too much set up.
- If you're gonna be racist to me,
don't just call me a terrorist, that's very lazy.
I'd be a terrible terrorist.
- If you say to me from the beginning, like,
"If you're gonna be racist, don't be lazy about it"
Then I'm dying to hear, I'm like,
how are white people lazy about it?
But, he didn't stay in the pocket.
He set up all of these things.
And then the payoff was like a pff.
- If I was a terrorist,
I would've screwed everything up September 8th.
- Like barely at the end.
Look, this isn't easy.
Having a timer in your face, ticking down,
is not normal and it adds pressure and it adds stress.
But that is a huge part of being a stand-up comic,
and that's why we've put it here.
[chime] Hello there.
- Hi!
- Hi.
You have 20 seconds to impress me.
- So originally I submitted a video
talking about how I've been low key thriving
throughout the quarantine,
but then yesterday my internet went out for 20 minutes
and I literally thought the world was ending,
but then when it didn't,
I immediately tried to buy crochet needles online,
but then I couldn't,
because my bank account was in the negative,
so instead I just gave myself bangs and I started crying.
[Iliza laughs]
- That's funny, that's funny!
A big part of comedy is seeing something
that's bright and shiny and awesome,
and then watching it unravel.
Whether it's Chris Farley as Matt Foley starting off okay
and then smashing into a coffee table,
or somebody starting off great like in Trading Places,
and then descending into being a total homeless mess.
For her, she started with--
- I've been low key thriving throughout the quarantine.
- Which was a lie,
and then we watched one bad thing beget the next.
- But then yesterday, my internet went out for 20 minutes.
- And then we wanted to see, how's our character,
how's our hero gonna get herself out of it?
- So instead I just gave myself bangs and I started crying.
- What isn't funny is her redeeming herself, and being like,
"And in the end, I made a million dollars"
What is funny is seeing how she makes it even worse
by being like "And then I cut my own bangs,"
which is crazy, but relatable,
because every girl has done it.
[chime]
- Someone just told me to go back to where I come from,
which is very weird, because I'm just white and gay,
which means that this guy thinks there's a country
where gay people come from, which means,
he knows about Canada.
- That's funny.
It's been done before, the go back to where you come from,
and then they say "Why, that's an insane thing
to say to a person."
So we're taking racism and turning it on its ear.
- Which is very weird, because I'm just white and gay.
- The Canada is gay joke has been around forever,
so for me, what worked was the delivery.
- Which means he knows about Canada.
- A big part of comedy is saying things
that have been said before, but in a new way.
So while it wasn't the most revelatory joke,
he had a fun delivery.
And funny is funny.
[energetic drumbeat]
- Hey everybody it's your man Steve Harvey.
- Steve Harvey!
- Now even though we are quarantined right now,
you gotta look fly.
And that's why I had my wife put an extra button
on my suit here, so I look extra fly for the--
Aw damn.
Y'all can see I ain't wearing no damn pants.
Goddamn it,
where the hell's the button to turn this shit off?
- The key to what made that funny was simplicity.
We've all seen Steve Harvey impressions.
Kenan does them on SNL really well.
This guy, the second I saw him, I saw the thick mustache,
and the bald head, and the suit, I was like,
that's Steve Harvey, the m%ustache lets you know that,
and it was simple.
- Hey everybody it's your man Steve Harvey.
- [Iliza] We all know Steve Harvey
wears a lot of buttons on his suits.
- That's why I had my wife put an extra button
on my suit here.
- [Iliza] And to be honest,
I was so distracted by the buttons,
I didn't even realize he wasn't wearing pants.
- Aw damn.
Y'all can see I ain't wearing no damn pants.
- So that was a nice little tag at the end.
It's simple, it's easy, he nailed it, and that was that.
It's math.
Okay, what's next.
[chime]
[Bert moans]
[increasingly frenzied squealing]
- Oh Kermie, that was beautiful, mmm, ahaha!
[high-pitched laughter]
[crash]
[Iliza laughs]
- Um, costumes are a tricky thing,
because there's always the uncanny valley.
There's really two ways you can go.
You can either nail it and look just like the character.
Drag queens are a great example,
whether you're Derrick Barry doing Britney Spears,
or any drag queen doing Cher, or whoever they impersonate.
The other version is kinda what this guy did
where you look nothing like the character.
He was a dude in a beard with like a cheap plastic wig
and odd-looking pig ears.
It gave him even a wider berth to do something weird.
[Bert squealing]
If it was actually Miss Piggy doing it,
that might just be so uncomfortable
nobody wanted to watch it.
[high-pitched laughter]
[crash]
Falling off camera though, is always funny.
[chime]
- This is my mom on every vacation.
That's pretty.
Oh that's pretty, hon isn't that pretty?
Oh is that a church, that's pretty!
Why didn't you tell me you were gay sooner?
[chime]
- Everybody loves to make fun of their parents.
Everybody likes to watch people making fun of their parents.
He moved the hair to the side, he's like,
"This is my mom on every vacation."
I was like, great, we're gonna get some insight,
maybe the mom has a fun accent,
or she's got this quirky personality,
and instead, the mom just sounded like a drag queen
who smokes too many cigarettes.
- That's pretty.
- This one was all about expectation versus delivery.
By the way, a real act takes time.
You've gotta craft it, it's still an art form,
it's something you need to work at.
So these people are coming in raw with just the basics.
I guarantee the next time they tell this joke,
it'll be just that much better.
And that's how you build an act.
- 20 seconds on the clock, please impress me.
- Of course.
[landline ringing]
Can I go?
So this is my impersonation of, this is my impression
of a parrot taking a bath.
[landline ringing]
- What was that part?
- The body's in the fridge!
- What?
- The body's in the fridge!
The body's in the fridge!
- The body's in the fridge is a hilarious punchline.
It's a total misdirect
because we didn't expect the parrot to say that.
That being said, if you're gonna set up--
- This is my impression of a parrot taking a bath.
- I was so excited to see a great parrot impression.
That would've meant more to me than the punchline.
A great animal impression is always a hit at parties.
Unfortunately he lost me because it just looked like
he had lost control of his neck.
To me the funniest part of the whole bit
is that he had a landline that was going nuts.
Like, who gets that many calls on a landline?
[chime]
- All right.
Okay, I'm gonna do a couple impressions.
This is an Australian person
who's really into conspiracy theories.
9/11 was an inside job.
Okay, so that's that one.
Um, here's another one.
Brene Brown is my favorite comedian.
That's me failing to connect with my peers
due to a fundamental misunderstanding of what a comedian is.
- Whoa!
Shots fired!
The tricky thing with name checking
someone who isn't Beyonce or the president
is that you run the risk of not everyone in the room
knowing who that person is.
- Brene Brown is my favorite comedian.
- And then, to take it even further,
you shouldn't have to have firsthand knowledge
of what the comic is talking about
for them to make it relatable.
Women talk about being women and men still find it funny,
and vice versa, because the material itself is very funny.
A trick to being a comic
is conveying the connections in your mind
that lead to funny thoughts perfectly to your audience,
so they can come on that journey with you.
[energetic drumbeat]
- You'd think guys online dating
would make more of an effort
because you only get one chance
to make a good first impression.
Here are actual messages I received within two weeks.
[Iliza chuckles]
- Is it all from the same person?
- No!
[both laugh]
- Even if you've never really done online dating,
as I haven't, I still have seen people deal with those.
And it's enough in the zeitgeist
that you know how painful that is.
I'd never seen someone print out the messages
and hold them up, but as she was doing it, I could see,
I've gotten DMs that are like that, like "Hello miss."
As she was doing it I started getting angry for her,
I'm like, "What do these guys think they're doing?"
So I laughed at her because I felt her pain,
and comedy is pain.
[chime]
- All right, my name's Nate Dicken,
and this is beer roulette instead of comedy roulette.
I'm gonna close my eyes, tell me when to stop.
- Stop.
- Ugh!
It was the pee again, wasn't it?
It was the--damn it!
I drank the pee again.
That's the fifth time this week I drank the pee.
- Sorry you drank the pee.
It's perennially funny, the sort of sad, frat boy,
willing to do anything.
The problem with that gag is that it's a bit of a sight gag
in that one of those is labeled "PEE,"
but I was so focused, to his credit,
on him and what he was doing,
I thought all of those said beer.
- Ugh!
It was the pee again, wasn't it?
- Then I had to stop watching him,
which you never want, because you're not a magician,
I don't want to look at your hands, I wanna look at you,
And I had to read that it actually said pee.
- I drank the pee again.
That's the fifth time this week I drank the pee.
- You never want to give the audience a reason
to stop focusing on you.
- Damn it!
- You go watch Carrot Top,
you see the whole thing is about what he's saying,
and the props.
You never have to watch Carrot Top explain anything.
The props tell the joke.
But drinking pee is funny, if it's actually pee.
[chime] Hi!
- Smurf meat is the veal of the mythical world.
Marinate it in its own blood and tears.
Don't throw out the bones!
They can be ground and fried into tortillas!
I plucked smurf public hair for this quill!
Don't be afraid to really milk those sebaceous glands
for perfume oil.
- The good thing about this was his props were specific.
He had his premise, he was like, "We've murdered a smurf,
"and here is how we will break down the body."
Like the Native Americans, he's going to use every part.
So, morbid as it is, it at least was on brand.
One of the things you have to keep in mind
when doing comedy, and this doesn't come for a couple years,
but in the back of your mind is,
why are you telling this joke?
That's why people tell jokes about their parents
coming from other countries, or your home life,
or personal things about dating,
because these are things that make you unique
that you wanna put out there.
Or, is it simply that you want to be seen on a stage?
And if so, you've gotta dig a little bit deeper.
We all wanna be seen, the question is,
why should people be watching us?
[chime] Hi there.
20 seconds to impress me, also, you are sideways.
[Doris laughs]
- Okay.
At the end of quarantine,
I decided to go to a movie theater,
because there was nobody there.
So when I saw some jackwad
decide to sit right in front of me,
I said, oh, I'm gonna give him a big old popcorn explosion.
Oh, oh, wait, I'm exploding everywhere!
And he left.
- I am the queen of fast delivery.
I am the queen of looking just frantic on stage.
I like to think I've been doing it long enough
that it's become just my vibe and my product.
One of the things that you don't wanna do in comedy
is seem uncomfortable,
and it was so frantic and the delivery was so fast,
all I remember was the popcorn going everywhere.
- I'm exploding everywhere!
- And if you're gonna have popcorn go everywhere,
commit to it.
Like, the walls of the room should come down.
It should be that the popcorn is hot.
There's something to be said for creating the expectation
that what's about to happen
is gonna be outlandish and crazy.
If you deliver anything just short of that,
your audience will always be disappointed.
[energetic drumbeat]
- What is Alanis Morissette's favorite jelly?
A traffic jam when she's already late!
I'm gonna open up a store that only sells irons
and I'm gonna call it, Isn't It Ironic.
And I'm gonna open up another store and call that one
A Little Two Ironic.
Yeah, I really do think.
[chime]
- The second he brought up the premise of Alanis Morissette,
my mind just turned off.
Now if you go far enough back in time, like,
"You know what the problem with the plague was?"
Maybe I might tune in.
To me the funniest part was the like,
"Yeah, I do" at the end.
- Yeah, I really do think.
- That was the only part where I saw any of his personality.
The most important thing in comedy
is to fail and keep going,
because you know you have something to say.
If you think it's uncomfortable
to bomb in front of one person,
try actually doing this in the real world.
If we ever get to leave our houses again.
[chime]
- Iliza!
- Yeah!
- Congrats on all your success, you know,
the Netflix show, specials, and now you're doing Zoom calls
with a guy whose biggest credit is this Zoom call.
What do you have tomorrow?
A homeless telephone?
- Where are they gonna get the phones?
- No idea.
- So what I loved about this is that he made fun of me.
Comics love that.
We love ball-breaking from the highest light.
If you look at any of the Dean Martin roasts,
or Don Rickles.
The problem was, A, he asked me, his audience, to engage,
and I wasn't sure if it was rhetorical or not,
so I felt like I stepped on him.
- Iliza!
- Yeah! - Congrats
on all your success!
- And B, my heckle back was just as good as his joke to me.
Which is fine if you're in a roasting environment,
but I'm in the audience.
If you're gonna insult someone,
you don't want there to be a comeback.
[chime]
- America, what is wrong?
I was watching T.V. the other day in my mansion.
I am a dictator.
And there was an ad.
It said for $1 a day, I can sponsor a quarantined American.
[Tatenda laughs]
Africa is the first world now, bitch.
[Tatenda chuckles]
- You never wanna bring up something sad.
This is why Holocaust punchlines are never funny.
This is why spousal abuse punchlines, abortion punchlines,
the joke's gotta be fire
for people to laugh so much that they're removed
from the fact that they're thinking
about something sad and personal.
That was a very long set up
for a very short punchline at the end,
which would be great if the set up were fun.
If the joke leaves you thinking about the premise and set up
more than the punchline, it's not a successful joke.
[chime]
[Linzy screaming maniacally]
[garbled noises]
- Oh, my god, I don't know how to work this, sorry,
that's my 7th grade photo when I was a blond,
oh no that's me eating trash pasta out of the subway,
I don't know how to use Zoom I'm sorry.
= Sometimes when you're too frantic,
and I've made a living off of being frantic on stage,
while it was weird, that is not so funny.
The good news is some of these people want to be funny,
and you can see the want in their eyes.
Desperation is a key characteristic in being a comedian, so,
they're partially there.
So that was a really cool experiment,
and the fascinating and the best part about comedy
is that it is 100% subjective.
So just because I wasn't laughing, I don't know,
maybe some of you were laughing,
and maybe the things I laughed at, you guys thought,
"Eh, not so funny."
The truth is though, there's no right or wrong answer.
That's why there's so many comedians
and so many types of comedy.
So I give a big round of applause to all the people,
all the comedians, I dub you comedians,
that showed up today and tried to make us laugh.
Because at the end of the day,
you're still watching this, which means it was entertaining,
which means it was successful.
[clicks tongue]
[chill music]