Quotes & Jokes about Audience / page 7
I've spent days in cinemas answering questions from the audience, in interviews, travelling abroad, and all they do is thank me nicely.
I have something called the ‘Who Gives A Shit Test’ that I apply to the things I’m talking about onstage. Like, most of my personal stories, people wouldn’t. Richard Pryor used to tell personal stories, and the audience would be completely rapt, but it’s really rare to be able to do that.
How does the audience fall under the illusion that they have some right to not be offended? Certainly you have the right to not be harmed; but offended? Imagine the number of subjects that might offend any single individual and multiply that by the number of people in any given audience. Subtract all those topics from any given comic's set list and what do you get? Mime. That's what you get and possibly what you deserve. I've been booed for wearing the jersey of an offending sports team and then won the audience back with rape jokes. Who can tell?
I love talking to the audience, and I must be the luckiest performer in the world. I always land something or somebody that just takes off.
Hopefully the process is to spot things that would be grist for the funny mill. In some respects, the heavier subjects are the ones that are most loaded with opportunity because they have the most - you know, the difference between potential and kinetic energy? - they have the most potential energy, so to delve into that gives you the largest combustion, the most interest. I don't mean for the audience. I mean for us. Everyone here is working too hard to do stuff we don't care about.
The last thing I'd learn, well into my career, was how to get on, how to say hello, how to get in with the audience.
25, 30 years ago, that meant something, they were making some money. And they were doing all sorts of comedy, screaming at the audience, basically crowd control. And then there was the whole urban comedy scene.
The odd thing about comedy is that the more personal you are, the larger the audience.
When you have a great audience, you can just keep going and finding new things.
The shortest feedback loop I can think of is doing improvisation in front of an audience.
The first time I got up in front of an audience was terror, abject terror, which continued for another four or five years. There still is, a little bit.
Standing ovations have become far too commonplace. What we need are ovations where the audience members all punch and kick one another.
Ratings experts say the best way to get people to watch during sweeps is to leave the audience with a question that won’t be answered until the next time the show is on. You know, like "Who shot J.R.?" I like to think I do this every night - the question is, "Is this show still on?"