Comedy/Theft Questions

[Shard]

Primarily this goes out to Highwind, although anyone's welcome to respond.


I've been looking through some of the links with the Bloop of Approval here and wondering whether joke-thievery was an epic problem or is it sort of an undercurrent of suspicion? Ever so often it gets mentioned in passing, but there doesn't seem to be a lot of documentation of people doing it and being caught.


Also, just writing casually I've accidentally stolen things like place or character names that I thought were original and then later come upon them in things I'd seen and forgotten about. For someone who spends a lot of time in comedy circles, exposed to various acts and material that's always being tuned, how do you keep from incorporating that stuff into your own output?

[Big Rick Cook]

Re: Comedy/Theft Questions

Murder everyone and steal their material.

I'm actually looking forward to Highwind's response here. He's got a mad chubby for joke theft awareness.

[Tintenfisch]

Re: Comedy/Theft Questions

From watching stand up comedians, jokes are stolen a fair amount of the time, but some people don't care or just don't notice. Then you have people like Carlos Mencia and supposedly Dane cook (though he most likely does).

[Magus]

Re: Comedy/Theft Questions

Isn't Ned Holness the mother****in' king of joke theft?

[Duel]

Re: Comedy/Theft Questions

More like Carlos Menstealia!

I didn't come up with that.

[Crimson Knight]

Re: Comedy/Theft Questions

Isn't Ned Holness the mother****in' king of joke theft?

He also has a really geh name.

[Shard]

Re: Comedy/Theft Questions

Still you've got to admire a man who can distill his comedic philosophy into three syllables. I mean, it took Limp Bizkit eight: "I did it all for the nookie." So like, Carlos Mencia is twice as awesome as Fred Durst.

That's something.

[Chad]

Re: Comedy/Theft Questions

Being twice as awesome as Fred Durst is like being half as awesome as drying bird turd.

Also, I think Louis CK said it best. Who cares, that joke is old material to me. I already got my use out of it.

[highwind]

Re: Comedy/Theft Questions

Well, some of the cases getting attention are Denis Leary ripping off Bill Hicks, Dane Cook ripping off Louis CK and Carlos Mencia (Ned Holness) ripping off...a lot of people.

But. Apparently a lot of stand up comedians don't freak out too much about it because it's been happening since the dawn of comedy and will happen forever. There's also the fact that coincidence and tapping into the collective unconscious occurs all over the world with "creative" types, not just in comedy.

I've actually had a column from my site ripped off by somebody already. Weee.

Y'know what? I'll just do something new and better. Screw it. I'm not going to lose sleep over it because I know there are plenty of new ideas I can generate.

[Translucid]

Re: Comedy/Theft Questions

if I ever do stand-up, I'll do a bit about how ladies have to change their names from something reasonable to a grandma name at like age 55. like, from Jessica to Fran. ORIGINAL JOKE DO NOT STEAL

[Shard]

Re: Comedy/Theft Questions

Being twice as awesome as Fred Durst is like being half as awesome as drying bird turd.

Yeah, that was the implication.