MANY DOCUMENTARIES have been made trying to capture the essence of the stand-up experience, and most fail. The films are either too reverent, too serious or just sloppy.
I must get asked for an interview once a month. I sit dutifully, answering the same unimaginative set of questions, knowing the film will never be seen.
What a delightful surprise to encounter I Am Comic, which just finished its brief theatrical run and has been released on DVD.
It’s the first stand-up documentary to really take the viewer inside the world of contemporary stand-up in a witty and insouciant way. Shot in Los Angeles, New York and Florida, I Am Comic features dozens of well-known and obscure masters of the craft talking about what it’s like to entertain crowds night after night with only a supply of jokes and a microphone.
Previously, Jerry Seinfeld’s Comedian was the only reference. It wasn’t bad, but to see the game solely through the eyes of one comedian, no matter how great, is limiting.
I Am Comic’s through line is a comic named Ritch Shydner. During the ’80s, Shydner was one of the top touring club comics on par with a Seinfeld. But Shydner never made the leap to the next level. His alcoholism burned him out, and he transitioned into a comedy writer, working with some of the best, including many of the comics on the Blue Collar Comedy tour.
Many years sober, Shydner wonders if he might still have what it takes to perform live, and the cameras catch his difficult steps, beginning with painful experiences of bombing at open mic nights in sports bars. It’s as pathetic as it sounds, but by the end of the film, he’s killing at Hollywood’s Laugh Factory.
Along the way, dozens of comics are interviewed and edited to appear at a brisk pace. The comics speak frankly about things like drugs, working conditions and joke theft.
A wonderfully funny segment involves the comedy condo, a condominium bought by a club owner too cheap to put the visiting comics in a proper hotel.
These condos are rarely cleaned week to week, and the comics’ stories of the filth are a scream. The best segment involves “redneck” comedian Jeff Foxworthy. Caught backstage after a performance, the man radiates joy from having the best job on the planet. He tells an anecdote about his first appearance on The Tonight Show.
Given six minutes to perform, no more, no less, his planned set goes awry when he gets an applause break early on. As he drinks in the accolades, he realizes he has to cut one joke later in the set to make up the time lost to the applause break. It proves just how technical and precise the job can be. A lot of the comics talk about the experience as a calling. “I don’t do it ’cause I want to do it, I do it cause I have to,” says Dana Gould. Bobcat Goldthwait, who returned to stand-up recently, may be more honest: “I missed the audience.
And I needed the money.” That’s the kind of honesty that keeps I Am Comic fresh and watchable.