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I think you just have to figure out what your own joke specifically is and then honestly reflect on what / how much of it your took from another person and how much of your own process it went through. Do you think that it's uncannily reminiscent of the other bit? There are certainly plenty of comedians out there who are adamant about not watching other stand-ups and try to not even pay attention to others when they go to the clubs. They always insist that it's impossible to steal someone's joke if you're not listening and laughing to it. And that is true. But at a certain point I think that all arts involve communication with the world at large. You can make music without listening to anybody else's but it's pretty strange to me. But again, you have to analyze what you have taken. Did it just get you thinking about the WBC itself? Are you taking a general premise, like "Why is the WBC so angry?" Or have you taken a somewhat novel premise, a specific line of the comedian's that got you? If it's the latter, think about the funny part of your joke. Does it require the original premise? Can you make it more your own? Jokes and bits tend to grow as you refine them and add tags and whatnot. If you just took a seed, no one will ever look at your fully fleshed out bit and tell you that it's not your own. But if you've taken a cutting of someone else's comedy and put it in your own garden, then you might want to try to scale down your inspiration to broader topics and jumping off points rather than more discrete ideas. And ultimately if you can develop enough of your own material then it will be able to stand on it's own and you don't even really need any of the foundation that resembles where the idea originally came from.
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Oct 19, 2013 02:53
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Also not books, but Ralphie May and Ari Shaffir have both given classes/talks about the business. They tend to be more about stuff like stage presence and career choices than writing the actual jokes though. But they're worth a watch for anyone wanting to go into stand-up and they both contain lots of interesting thoughts from people who have been doing this for a long time. I'm not sure if I've seen them linked here before or not. https://vimeo.com/15182852 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k43XcdlO22s
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Aug 12, 2019 16:55
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