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Posted 30 August 2007 - 11:20 AM
The whole article can be found here: Source: http://www.davidspar...mprovsucks.html
Here are the highlights:
Quote
Here are the problems with Dave Spark doing improv:
I’m a stand up comic. For those of you not in the know, there’s always been a long-standing Montigue-Capulet rivalry between the two performing camps of improv and stand up. It’s more complicated than these bulleted explanations, but in a nutshell:
Improvites dislike stand up because they believe its preparation lacks challenge.
Stand ups hate improv because it’s not funny.
Improv is a process by which about 12 people, independently thinking yet never cast in the high school play, step on stage with the hopes of working together as a team but realize that due to their violently intrusive egos, that never happens.
My education began and I soon realized that there’s a very fine line between taking an improv class and paying someone to make you look like an idiot. Probably the reason I’ve avoided improv for so long. I have a rather low threshold for voluntarily looking like a moron. Kind of the same reason I don’t walk around The Loop wearing a red wig and clown makeup.
The most common questions one asks oneself upon taking their first improv class:
Who am I going to sleep with? In my case, it was nobody.
Is it possible to be the fat guy in an improv group yet not be funny?
The class show is coming up. Can we do it without an anal sex reference?
Is sexual harassment a requirement? Could I possibly get through this class without touching anybody? "Gee, I’d like to give you a hug, but I have a rare medical condition. It’s called, ‘I don’t want you in my space.’"
Improv Philosophy
Sit a thousand monkeys in front of a thousand typewriters and eventually due to the laws of word combinatorial probability they’ll write something that resembles a joke. Running concurrent to that theory, it only takes 12 improv performers one hour of stage time to formulate a joke.
Improv at The Playground
Improv every Friday and Saturday night at Café Ashe. For $5 you get two hours of improv with four improv groups. That’s a guarantee of at least two jokes (Only $2.50/joke). Sure, there aren’t that many jokes, but you get so much more talking.
Three Rounds. No Holds Barred. Improv vs. Stand Up
Here’s a defining difference between stand up and improv. You’re probably familiar with improv’s one word story game. The process in which an improv troupe lines up and tells a story one-word-at-a-time. Throughout the history of time have you ever seen the game actually be funny? Of course not. As a stand up if I was to tell the same joke five times and it didn’t get a response, I’d either change it or simply stop telling it.
That’s the difference.
Excuse me, may I make another suggestion here? I’m having a great time playing all these wacky improv games, but I was wondering if I could suggest one of my own. The rules are rather self-explanatory, yet it’s a slight departure. I like to call it "Let’s Be Funny."
But then again, I don’t know if I’d ever want to play that game. Improv laughs make me feel so dirty.
Improv Economics
Improv is the Shredded Wheat to stand up comedy’s Total. In other words, you’d have to watch 1000 improv shows before you got the nutritional laughter equivalent of a single stand up comedy performance.
That doesn’t even touch upon "long form" improv. Better known as "really unfunny" improv.
Stand Up - Down for the Count
Let’s assume Dave that everything you say is true. Improv does truly suck. Then tell me, Mr. Fancy Pants, why is it so popular? Huh? How come there are close to no comedy clubs left in Chicago, yet improv is packing it in night after night? Huh, Dave? Cat got your tongue?
Of course not, I wrote the friggin’ question. Think I would write a question that I couldn’t answer? So here’s the answer: the reason that improv is so popular, and this may come as a shock to you, but it’s absolutely 100% true
Improv is the 90’s version of the singles bar.
Let me explain. You’ve been to a performance of some kind before, right? Something akin to a movie, ballet, stand up comedy, opera, concert, Ziegfried and Roy. What happens at the end of the show? People leave. But what happens at the end of an improv show? People stay. In fact, the crowd grows. Why? Because some people, I’m guilty of it myself, want all the benefits of improv’s social atmosphere without having to endure the pain of actually sitting through a performance. Those who did watch just haven’t smartened up. Nobody’s watching improv to see a professional performance, they’re just there to hang out and meet people.
Differing Audience Perceptions:
Stand up - Jokes expected. Punchlines unexpected.
Improv - Boring pander expected. Jokes unexpected. Jokes with punchlines really unexpected.
Watching stand up, the audience knows jokes are going to be told, they’re going to vote on the ones they like by laughing at them. In improv, jokes are not assumed. No one knows when they’re going to be told. The audience is on the ready for that joke to be told. When it’s told, the audience will laugh, whether it’s funny or not. They’re not voting on what jokes are told. They’re laughing because they’ve been relieved of their anticipation. The same joke told during an improv show receives a stronger response than during a comedian’s performance. To the audience, a comic’s act is premeditated and improv isn’t. They don’t realize that comics create jokes with the same level of immediacy. The only difference is the setting is no longer a theater but rather a cockroach ridden apartment that doesn’t have a cover or a two drink minimum.
Improv and the Insurance Industry – They Both Profit When Nothing Happens
Improv survives due to its persistent lack of accountability. Improv performers never have to prove anything. That’s what makes it more self-indulgent than stand up. Ever talk to an improv performer after a non-enlightening performance? "Oh well, it’s improv." But if an hour show gets a half dozen laughs, it’s considered a huge success.
But Dave, improv is not about getting laughs. It’s something much bigger that you haven’t even touched upon.
That all may very well be true. But as an observer, the discussion after a purely improv performance by both the audience and performers focuses on the laughs, or lack there of.
I’m a stand up comic. For those of you not in the know, there’s always been a long-standing Montigue-Capulet rivalry between the two performing camps of improv and stand up. It’s more complicated than these bulleted explanations, but in a nutshell:
Improvites dislike stand up because they believe its preparation lacks challenge.
Stand ups hate improv because it’s not funny.
Improv is a process by which about 12 people, independently thinking yet never cast in the high school play, step on stage with the hopes of working together as a team but realize that due to their violently intrusive egos, that never happens.
My education began and I soon realized that there’s a very fine line between taking an improv class and paying someone to make you look like an idiot. Probably the reason I’ve avoided improv for so long. I have a rather low threshold for voluntarily looking like a moron. Kind of the same reason I don’t walk around The Loop wearing a red wig and clown makeup.
The most common questions one asks oneself upon taking their first improv class:
Who am I going to sleep with? In my case, it was nobody.
Is it possible to be the fat guy in an improv group yet not be funny?
The class show is coming up. Can we do it without an anal sex reference?
Is sexual harassment a requirement? Could I possibly get through this class without touching anybody? "Gee, I’d like to give you a hug, but I have a rare medical condition. It’s called, ‘I don’t want you in my space.’"
Improv Philosophy
Sit a thousand monkeys in front of a thousand typewriters and eventually due to the laws of word combinatorial probability they’ll write something that resembles a joke. Running concurrent to that theory, it only takes 12 improv performers one hour of stage time to formulate a joke.
Improv at The Playground
Improv every Friday and Saturday night at Café Ashe. For $5 you get two hours of improv with four improv groups. That’s a guarantee of at least two jokes (Only $2.50/joke). Sure, there aren’t that many jokes, but you get so much more talking.
Three Rounds. No Holds Barred. Improv vs. Stand Up
Here’s a defining difference between stand up and improv. You’re probably familiar with improv’s one word story game. The process in which an improv troupe lines up and tells a story one-word-at-a-time. Throughout the history of time have you ever seen the game actually be funny? Of course not. As a stand up if I was to tell the same joke five times and it didn’t get a response, I’d either change it or simply stop telling it.
That’s the difference.
Excuse me, may I make another suggestion here? I’m having a great time playing all these wacky improv games, but I was wondering if I could suggest one of my own. The rules are rather self-explanatory, yet it’s a slight departure. I like to call it "Let’s Be Funny."
But then again, I don’t know if I’d ever want to play that game. Improv laughs make me feel so dirty.
Improv Economics
Improv is the Shredded Wheat to stand up comedy’s Total. In other words, you’d have to watch 1000 improv shows before you got the nutritional laughter equivalent of a single stand up comedy performance.
That doesn’t even touch upon "long form" improv. Better known as "really unfunny" improv.
Stand Up - Down for the Count
Let’s assume Dave that everything you say is true. Improv does truly suck. Then tell me, Mr. Fancy Pants, why is it so popular? Huh? How come there are close to no comedy clubs left in Chicago, yet improv is packing it in night after night? Huh, Dave? Cat got your tongue?
Of course not, I wrote the friggin’ question. Think I would write a question that I couldn’t answer? So here’s the answer: the reason that improv is so popular, and this may come as a shock to you, but it’s absolutely 100% true
Improv is the 90’s version of the singles bar.
Let me explain. You’ve been to a performance of some kind before, right? Something akin to a movie, ballet, stand up comedy, opera, concert, Ziegfried and Roy. What happens at the end of the show? People leave. But what happens at the end of an improv show? People stay. In fact, the crowd grows. Why? Because some people, I’m guilty of it myself, want all the benefits of improv’s social atmosphere without having to endure the pain of actually sitting through a performance. Those who did watch just haven’t smartened up. Nobody’s watching improv to see a professional performance, they’re just there to hang out and meet people.
Differing Audience Perceptions:
Stand up - Jokes expected. Punchlines unexpected.
Improv - Boring pander expected. Jokes unexpected. Jokes with punchlines really unexpected.
Watching stand up, the audience knows jokes are going to be told, they’re going to vote on the ones they like by laughing at them. In improv, jokes are not assumed. No one knows when they’re going to be told. The audience is on the ready for that joke to be told. When it’s told, the audience will laugh, whether it’s funny or not. They’re not voting on what jokes are told. They’re laughing because they’ve been relieved of their anticipation. The same joke told during an improv show receives a stronger response than during a comedian’s performance. To the audience, a comic’s act is premeditated and improv isn’t. They don’t realize that comics create jokes with the same level of immediacy. The only difference is the setting is no longer a theater but rather a cockroach ridden apartment that doesn’t have a cover or a two drink minimum.
Improv and the Insurance Industry – They Both Profit When Nothing Happens
Improv survives due to its persistent lack of accountability. Improv performers never have to prove anything. That’s what makes it more self-indulgent than stand up. Ever talk to an improv performer after a non-enlightening performance? "Oh well, it’s improv." But if an hour show gets a half dozen laughs, it’s considered a huge success.
But Dave, improv is not about getting laughs. It’s something much bigger that you haven’t even touched upon.
That all may very well be true. But as an observer, the discussion after a purely improv performance by both the audience and performers focuses on the laughs, or lack there of.
Personally, I'm with him. I watch a lot of standup and I tried to watch improv one time and walked the **** out. It was just as tedious as described. What about you?
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