Austin Improv

I haven't looked at this yet, but I read about it in the Hollywood Reporter. It supposedly teaches comedy lessons to hopefuls i.e. us.

http://www.comedycentral.com/shows/cras ... ndex.jhtml

tell me if it's lame

So far, it's lame. It's only for standups, first of all. Second, they feel the need to try and make it funny, and it's just not.

But hidden within the one I watched was one good lesson, which was "write what you know, and write a lot." But you have to wade through a lot to pick that up.

Last night on HBO they gave Seinfeld a stand-up comedian award. But before they gave it to him they basically had a panel discussion with him and chris rock and gary shandling and robert klein. It was hosted by Anderson Cooper.

Anyway, you could probably learn a lot about stand-up from watching that, but I think the only real way to learn would be to do it. A LOT.

Yeah, that's exactly what I picked up too. It definitly is all about practicing though.

The guy who hosts this thing does not have enough charisma, especially when he tries to be funny. I think also the whole classroom atmosphere detracts. They should have a guy in front of a screen talking directly to the camera and intercutting clips of comedians doing those bits as case studies, rather than having him act it out.

He is better when he is serious but there is a lot of "no, duh" kind of information in there combined with information that does not help on a vague, non-interactive level.