Comedy: Stand-Up, Improv, Sketch, Podcasts • Page 4

Hopefully the Harris Wittels posts from the last thread are archived for all time.

 

On the Buffalo Wild Wings episode of Doughboy's... Gonna have to save this one for a time when I can get some wings. Listening now would hurt too bad.

 

I've been finding me saying

to myself a lot lately. Doughboys is slowly driving me insane.

 

Hola. Subbin.

 

Honestly, it's just the style. Improv is rarely, if ever, serialized the way it is in MT. Serialization/plot/narrative, however loose, is usually a nightmare in improv. "Don't get bogged down in plot," "focus on relationships and not where the story's headed," these are common notes I personally get when I do narrative. It's a little counterproductive, right?

But it's true, when you're focused on where things are headed, you're not paying attention to the now, which is why improv exists in the first place. So it's all about finding a perfect balance. Now, obviously the guys on this show are paying attention to the now, they just are doing double duty in a real way when they do something like this with so much continuity. Even if narrative does happen in improv, it's usually (from what I've seen) contained to the single set without anything spilling over into the next show.

They have to be working so much harder, likely taking a lot of notes to know what beats to hit in future episodes. I4h's mantra through UCB is all about the concept of game and "if this weird thing is true, then what else is true?" While a challenging thing to discover at all, it's much easier to do it while being silly for silly's sake in a 10-minute i4h scene knowing that your characters and discoveries are gone as soon as they've begun. With MT, yes, they're being silly, but doing it on top of building a truly cohesive and realized world that comes back each time means you're losing the "for silly's sake" part. Essentially, it's just improv with a much smaller lens and a lot less wiggle room.

There are probably 2 or 3 improvisers in Minneapolis who could pull something like this off successfully. This podcast is truly three masters of their craft showing you just that. It's wonderful. A must-listen for anyone even remotely interested in the field.

 

Thanks Cody for saying what I have been thinking

I'm going to try to meet them at their PAX East live show. It's crazy that I've only been listening for like a week at this point. Glad I could get others interested in it too.

 

Who is Matt? Get out of this thread now

 

hi

 

Jon Gabrus just liked my tweet. Did anyone check out the ALW and intern Gino podcast?

 

I liked it but I expected it to go way more off the rails than it actually did.

 

I agree. I think that proves Scott is such a great catalyst for driving a show in crazy direction.

 

Every time the McMahon music hits on Doughboys it kills me.

 

excuse you

 

I will not acknowledge you. Only Wall E.

 

I'm sorry, I'll delete my account

 

Lol at the survivor theme on Doughboys and Mitch's drop at the beginning with just clips of him saying why he doesn't like force awakens

 

I haven't started Magic Tavern yet (and won't start anything else until I catch up on Doughboys) but this post makes me super interested. I've never studied improv, but have assumed that it shouldn't be serialized because of continuity issues. Pretty amazing if they're able to keep things straight throughout.

 

doughboys > the force awakens

bold, accurate claim from mitch today

 

the random continuity is kind of amazing.

 

on my way to Tommy's for the first time right now! Will compare my experience to that of The Spoonman and Burger Boy after

 

My friend has free tickets to a Kevin Smith podcast taping tonight as part of the Freep Film Festival. I haven't listened to a Kevin Smith podcast since like, 2011, but I'm hoping it'll be a solid time.

 

Update on Tommy's:

I agree about the chili cheese fries, it's a bit too much. The burger was amazing though. I don't like pickles at all usually but I thought I'd keep everything on the burger for my first time and the pickles and chili worked surprisingly well together. Did it make it into the golden plate club? It deserves to be in the golden plate club.

 

Today's CBB was a lot of fun.

 

Yeah, it's actually crazy the degree to which very mundane and minuscule things are brought back correctly and identifiably.