–By Jan McInnis, Comedian and Keynote Speaker
Ask any comedian and they’ll tell you that they are baffled when a joke hits big with one group, and then totally bombs with another. It’s the same joke! And these erratic results aren’t just a phenomenon with comedians: many professions can have uneven results with the same efforts. Baseball players will hit a home run one day, and they’ll strike out the next day against the same pitcher. Football teams win and lose games when matched up with the same team again and again.
Life is inconsistent.
Sure, there are many factors that go into inconsistent results. Comedians are affected by many things: the type of group, the room setup, the amount of alcohol the audience has consumed, and even the act before their set. (I’ve had poetry readings, dancing girls, and fire alarm evacuations precede my show, just to name a few examples.) But even if everything is the same, we can still get different results.
I was driving home from a gig many years ago, and was pretty upset about my show. It was a room that I’d performed in many times, and I always, until that night, had done well. I thought to myself, “When is this ‘bombing’ thing going to stop?” And then the little voice in my head said, “When you get out of comedy.” In other words, I needed to learn how to handle things when they don’t go as planned, because there will always be times when they don’t go as planned.
To help me stay grounded in this inconsistent world, I’ve tried to be consistent with the things I can control. For example, I decided early on that I would be consistent with my act and make sure it was funny without using vulgar or dirty material. Don’t get me wrong, I have nothing against funny, dirty jokes, but I just don’t think jokes that use profanity for the sake of profanity are a good idea. Personally though, I wanted to have an act that I was proud of, and in which my friends and family would not feel embarrassed about seeing me.
This decision led to some pretty painful nights for me when I first started out doing many bar gigs. Sometimes these heavy drinking groups did not appreciate my clean, clever humor on kids and family, because they were looking for edgier and/or dirtier jokes. Bombing in a bar will make you drink.
And sometimes it wasn’t just bar audiences that wanted dirty jokes. I once had a waitress in a major comedy club tell me that an audience member told her that he didn’t like the show because none of us comedians cussed, even though the other 499 attendees loved us and we practically got a standing ovation! He said it wasn’t an “adult” show without curse words.
Despite weird comments like that and some tough, tough shows, the decision to stick with clean material eventually helped me out more than I could have imagined. It led me to so many fun places and unique experiences in front of audiences who don’t give a damn that I don’t say “damn.” And, it got me away from audiences who didn’t appreciate my material.
Years into my comedy career later, when I was pretty much done with these tough gigs, I ran into a comedian friend whom I hadn’t seen in over a decade. He always did well in bar gigs, and those crowds loved him. Many nights, I’d skulk off stage while he’d go up and rock the room. But at this meeting, he said he had seen my picture up in lights on the strip in Las Vegas, and he confessed that he was a little jealous. He said when he started out he swore that he’d never do any pot jokes, and now he can’t get hired in Vegas because he had 60 minutes of pot jokes. He knew he had compromised his act just to get those immediate laughs.
Handling the inconsistent times is a true skill that we all need to practice! In my new keynote “Flourishing in Failure – Handling Mistakes Like a Comedian,” I offer more tips and insights on how I got through these tough times and came out ahead.
So figure out what it is that you can be consistent with and that you will not compromise, and stick with it. There is a huge difference in reaching your long-term goal in a way that you can feel good about.
About the author. . . comedian, keynote speaker, and comedy writer Jan McInnis has shared her customized humor keynotes with thousands of associations and corporations. She is also the author of “Finding the Funny FAST; How To Create Quick Humor To Connect With Clients, Coworkers And Crowds,” and “Convention Comedian: Stories and Wisdom From Two Decades of Chicken Dinners and Comedy Clubs.” Jan was featured in the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post, and the Huffington Post for her clean humor. From a recent client: “Thank you Jan. You were a HIT! It was a good conference and you capped it up for us perfectly.”
