How Many Comedians Are Too Many Comedians?
Quantifying our current boom by the thousands of aspiring stand-ups competing across America this year
On my way to a hang last night, the Upright Citizens Brigade announced the new location for their theatrical return to New York City, and wouldn’t you know they’re conveniently located on East 14th Street between my N train to Union Square and the meet-up in the East Village, so of course I stopped by, just in time to see several people (including a few “legacy” UCB people) loitering outside to check out the new spot for themselves.
The return of UCBT-NY also lands geographically between their longtime hub below Gristedes in Chelsea and their former UCBeast, and will seat 130, with a separate bar and lounge. If you’re a sketch comedian or improviser in NYC, auditions for the UCB house teams are happening at the end of the summer. Submissions accepted til July 26 for Maude (sketch) and Betty (characters) teams, til Aug. 16 for Harold (improv) teams.
But that wasn’t even the wildest news to break late Wednesday in comedy. To wit: We also learned Warner Bros. Discovery called it quits on The Other Two (the season-three finale is now the series finale bowing today) in part because of too many workplace complaints regarding creators Chris Kelly and Sarah Schneider (was their series satirical, meta, autobiographical or all three? you decide!), and then Colleen Ballinger dropped a 10-minute YouTube in which she responded to allegations about her behavior toward fans as Miranda Sings by…checks notes…singing her response whilst playing the ukulele. If you have insight or revelations on either of those sagas, please let me know! What a different world it all must’ve seemed when I sat down with Ballinger in 2016.
Now onto some other interesting tidbits from Ha Ha Land…
Before almost getting derailed (metaphorically) last night, I wanted to dig in to some more numbers in my ongoing quest to quantify our current digital comedy boom before the bubble bursts.
PREVIOUSLY…
So back to my headline query:
How Many Comedians Is Too Many Comedians?
When I first became involved with comedy on a professional level in the mid-1990s (or “the late 1900s” if you’re a Zoomer, the funniest humans of North America agreed upon a principle of scarcity. If you wanted to do stand-up, you went to New York City or Los Angeles to get famous; for sketch comedy, you wanted to study and perform at The Second City (or iO) in Chicago, or The Groundlings in L.A. The industry convened twice each year to dole out development deals at HBO’s Aspen in the winter and Just For Laughs Montreal in the summer. And if you wanted to compete in a comedy contest, you entered San Francisco’s monthlong competition in September and Seattle’s in November.
In 2023, most of those pathways still exist, but they’re also joined by so many more festivals (I just got asked today to add the Oakland Comedy Festival to my list) and contests across America and around the world. I’m not going to claim to have the complete list, because there may be some festivals or contests out there that I don’t know about simply because they don’t have much of an online presence or feel the need to market themselves to the world.
But I can give you a look at what it’s like, thanks to the Helium Comedy Clubs, and their network of stand-up competitions in Austin, Buffalo, Indiana, North Carolina, Philadelphia, Portland (Ore.), and St. Louis. While the o.g. San Francisco and Seattle competitions maintain a level of exclusivity, holding to about 32 stand-ups for each who come from across the U.S. and Canada, the Helium contests have blown up like hot air balloons.
I’ve judged the finals at the Funniest Person in Austin contest twice, most recently in May 2017. Where does the time go? Cut to 2023.
The 2023 FPIA preliminary rounds started May 30 and DO NOT END UNTIL Aug. 12, with more than 300 entrants this year competing for $3,000. More than 300 people — not even including the headliners, touring comics who call Austin home, and some of the regulars at Joe Rogan’s Comedy Mothership — consider themselves worthy of the title of Funniest Person in Austin. This page of entrants lists 269, so not quite 300, but I’ll take their word for it that there are more where they came from.
Buffalo: Buffalo’s Funniest feels relatively reasonable, listing only 66 names competing in prelims from June 7 to July 19.
Indiana: 141 contestants, in prelims from June 27 to Aug. 1.
North Carolina: 150 locals, competing at Goodnights in prelims from June 20 to July 26.
Philadelphia Phunniest 2023: 286 locals, competing in prelims at Helium from May 22 through July 29.
Portland: 254 locals, competing in prelims from May 23 through Aug. 2.
St. Louis: 96 locals, competing in prelims at Helium and Elements Restaurant from June 35 through July 25.
OK, so that adds up to 1,262 aspiring stand-up comedians in just seven cities, and that’s not counting all of the comedians in NYC, LA, Chicago, SF, or any of the other major metro areas. How many Americans are going around calling themselves comedians in 2023, anyhow?
I’m not suggesting government regulation for stand-up comedy (that’d likely be unconstitutional), but this comedy boom cannot possibly keep growing. Or can it?
Oh, Roseanne
It’s been a while since I’ve spoken with Roseanne Barr, but she’s up to her old shit-stirring this past week, with social media (then mainstream media that relies on social media) running wild with a clip of her “denying” the Holocaust. Of course she was joking. And not just because she’s Jewish. Here’s her flipping mad response.
For his part, Theo Von defended Roseanne, including a longer clip from his podcast session with her.
Not that it does her or him any favors. In the clip Von shared, Barr sets up her facetious Holocaust remark with some snark suggesting that the 2020 presidential election was rigged, sarcastically claiming that we’re mandated to agree upon the “truth” that Biden earned 81 million votes “by winning 36 counties.” To which Von just ignorantly takes her words at face value.
We have too many comedians with giant offstage platforms, claiming they’re just entertainers while also entertaining serious conversations about things they haven’t even “done their own research” about.
As a journalist and as a comedy fan, it’s hugely frustrating to keep seeing these conversations driving the larger media conversation and ecosystem.
Industry News and Notes
We’re two months into the Writers Guild of America strike, so let’s check in with a group of striking late-night TV comedy writers, who’ve been making YouTube videos to make up for their loss of time and income on the channel Contract TK. Among the late-night writers taking part: Greg Iwinski, Sasha Stewart, Dylan Adler, Hallie Haglund, Moujan Zolfaghari, and Liz Hynes.
What else is new?
Jim Gaffigan is leaving Netflix for Amazon. Again. His newest special, Dark Pale, will premiere July 25 on Prime Video.
The Price is Right with host Drew Carey filmed their final episode at CBS’s Television City. They’re moving to the burbs: Glendale’s Haven Studios.
Tom Segura, whose new Netflix special, Sledgehammer, premieres July 4, announced to Deadline that he’s sold a pilot to a streamer to be named later…and that he has multiple movies in the works.
So yes, The Other Two is done after three seasons, first on Comedy Central, then two more on HBO Max and Max.
FX/Hulu announced the third season also will be the final one for Reservation Dogs.
Paramount+ not only took Inside Amy Schumer off the streamer, but also announced they’d reversed course and won’t rebroadcast the final season on Comedy Central.
Peacock, meanwhile, announced a second-season renewal for Pete Davidson’s Bupkis.
And MSNBC ordered a season 2 for John Leguizamo’s Leguizamo Does
America.
Prime Video continues to expand its LOL: Last One Laughing competition format, announcing new editions for Norway and Denmark.
Adult Swim announced Eric Andre and Flying Lotus will headline this year’s Adult Swim Festival, July 20-22 outside the San Diego Convention Center. Other performers will include SNL’s Sarah Sherman, Hemlocke Springs, Ginger Root, DeathbyRomy, and producer and DJ Akira Akira.
SiriusXM has announced it is closing shop on the Stitcher podcast app and website as of Aug. 29, although much of the programming from Stitcher and Earwolf may continue, albeit within SiriusXM.
Last Week’s Specials
New on Dry Bar
New on YouTube
Matt Rife: Walking Red Flag (Crowd Work Special)
Russell Kane: The Essex Variant ENGLAND
Tuxford Turner: Live From The Raven Room (via Four by Three)
Plus a re-release of Sam Campbell’s 2022 special, Companion, and Michael Yo’s I Never Thought on the 800 Pound Gorilla Media channel,
THIS WEEK: 7
LAST WEEK: 16
THIS MONTH (JUNE): 41+7=48
RUNNING TOTAL for 2023: 352+7=359
Fun Things To Do In NYC
This weekend’s show I plugged in The New York Times: Liz Kingsman’s parody of one-woman shows, One Woman Show, was a hit at last summer’s Edinburgh Fringe, and also earned an Olivier Award nomination after a West End run in London, so why not take over off-Broadway now, too? Through Aug. 11 at Greenwich House Theater, 27 Barrow Street, Manhattan; onewomanshownyc.com.
Would you like to promote your comedy show or album or special or whatnot on this newsletter???
Please let me know and we can work out the details.
Thanks for reading!