Experimenting with my stand-up, help appreciated!!

Hey everyone, I posted a preliminary stand-up script on BCG a few weeks ago and it was really helpful and constructive, so I thought I'd try it again for something new I'm attempting.

My stand-up tends to be a stream of social commentary, and sometimes I'm afraid it can become a bit rambling and monotonous, and come across to the audience as very samey. Therefore, I thought I'd vary and mix-up my set by halfway through breaking off the narrative and giving a few quasi-one liners. The idea is that this will get the audience's attention anew and make my set a bit more memorable by diversifying it.

In my material, I would've just finished a section that ends with a metaphor that references the childrens' game Hop-Scotch (sp.?). I thought here I could give a few tongue-in-cheek fun 'facts' about children's games, just going off-tangent for 30 seconds. What I thought could be interesting is, within these 'facts', the juxtaposition between dark/shock humour within the context of something very light-hearted, i.e. kids' games. Therefore, they're all quite tasteless, but would be ironic in that they're spoken in a light-hearted, and concern a very innocent form of entertainment. I would probably choose 3/4 out of the following. Could readers be lovely by: A) saying whether this is a good idea, and B) whether these 'facts' are actually funny. I only wrote these last night, so be gentle Enjoy!

- The Saw movie franchise originally began as a morbid homage to the game Mouse Trap.
- Al-Qaeda planned for 9-11 by playing a really elaborate game of Jenga.
- Aspiring abortionists are trained up by playing the children's game Operation.
- In the USA, the police had their own internal version of Cluedo. It was later scrapped after it emerged all the characters were black. OR The BNP have just released their own chess board, where it is strategically impossible for the blacks to win.
- By an amazing coincidence, the last five world Hide n' Seek champions have all shared a similar background. They've all been convicted rapists.
- A group counsellor at Mencap was once fired by suggesting her group of children bond by playing a game of Articulate.
- The game Hungry, Hungry Hippos was originally conceived when an employee of Hasbro walked past a female WeightWatchers meeting.
- People who play Chess . . . are f***ing boring
- Angry Birds is the first ever app to be sued by the RSPCA

1, 4 and 10 are excelent scrap the rest and the weight watchers and mencap ones are distractingly nasty.

IU'd also work on building them up.

e.g. I always lose when I play the metropolitan police at cluedo.

It's always the black guy in the car with a replica gun

Agree with Sooty (first sign of madness).

Work on rewriting 1, 4.

Yeah, most of those are punch lines without a set up. I thought the Hide and Seek one was good...

Quote: Tony B @ August 16 2011, 12:23 PM BST

- The Saw movie franchise originally began as a morbid homage to the game Mouse Trap.
- Al-Qaeda planned for 9-11 by playing a really elaborate game of Jenga.
- Aspiring abortionists are trained up by playing the children's game Operation.
- In the USA, the police had their own internal version of Cluedo. It was later scrapped after it emerged all the characters were black. OR The BNP have just released their own chess board, where it is strategically impossible for the blacks to win.
- By an amazing coincidence, the last five world Hide n' Seek champions have all shared a similar background. They've all been convicted rapists.
- A group counsellor at Mencap was once fired by suggesting her group of children bond by playing a game of Articulate.
- The game Hungry, Hungry Hippos was originally conceived when an employee of Hasbro walked past a female WeightWatchers meeting.
- People who play Chess . . . are f***ing boring
- Angry Birds is the first ever app to be sued by the RSPCA

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My re-writes (for what they are worth)

1. It's a little known fact that the movie, Saw, was originally a morbid homage to the popular children's game, Mouse Trap.
2. I know this is wrong but whenever I watch footage of 9/11 I always want to shout "Jenga!".
3. Did you know that because modern medical practices are against their religion, Jehovah's Witnesses won't even play the game "Operation"?
4. In the UK version of "Cluedo" the murder victim is a Doctor called Black and all the suspects are white, this is the opposite of the KKK/LAPD version. (The BNP have released their own version of chess, all the squares and pieces are white).
5. By and amazing coincidence the last 5 World Hide and Seek champions have all had something in common, they've all been Al Qaeda suspects wanted by the US.
6. No idea how to make a usable joke out of this one, sorry, I don't really get the original version, presumably it's making fun out of the children's inability to articulate themselves?
7. The game hungry Hippos was invented when the designer saw 4 fat men fighting over a box of doughnuts.
8. If you laid all the chess players in the world end to end, it'd be marginally more interesting than playing chess.
9. "Angry Birds" is the first app to be banned by the RSPB.

Not great IMHO, but you might be able to get something usable out of some of them.

Sorry if this seems negative but you need to keep writing and re-writing, for every joke I write less than 10% make it into my stand up rountine and, of those, only a small percentage stay in for any length of time.

Quote: Tony Cowards @ August 17 2011, 12:15 PM BST

My re-writes (for what they are worth)

2. I know this is wrong but whenever I watch footage of 9/11 I always want to shout "Jenga!".

View original

Holy F**k! That's a good gag!