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Yeah these last couple of episodes have definitely felt a little rushed. Plenty of good stuff in there, but generally they could make these episodes longer and give them more time to breathe.
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Oct 7, 2025 11:53
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Maybe the victims of Voltron could come together and form a OH NO
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Oct 7, 2025 12:08
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I somewhat dislike the modern crowd work trend in standup, but only because when I was doing comedy open mics "write a couple of good jokes and then use the audience to get to their punchlines" as a process would have worked really well for me. Instead I realized I couldn't keep up with my own standards for tight fives and gave it up. Of course I enjoy it when done well, but there's some misplaced jealousy I need to get over sometimes. "Good at crowd work" is the skillset of the type of person that gets told "you're funny, you should do comedy" because they're quick with a joke or funny turn of phrase in a group conversation. I guess that becoming A Thing was inevitable from motivated people actually sticking with it. stringless fucked around with this message at 12:16 on Oct 7, 2025 |
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Oct 7, 2025 12:10
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cowboy
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A friend works at a bar that does comedy regularly and they apparently have a ban on doing more than a couple of minutes of crowd work. It's becoming a thing moreso because it travels really, really well in the social age: people love a good crowdwork moment, and you don't burn jokes that are part of your set. You can't share daily content of your jokes without revealing your whole thing, but you can share infinite crowd work.
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Oct 7, 2025 12:38
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Yeah, the vast majority of content coming from comedians is either banter while recording podcasts or doing crowd work; with a couple exceptions like Josh Johnson.
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Oct 7, 2025 12:57
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Infidelicious posted:Yeah, the vast majority of content coming from comedians is either banter while recording podcasts or doing crowd work; with a couple exceptions like Josh Johnson. And it works and I'm seeing him live in November. It's basically the same as doing crowd work but skipping direct crowd interaction, which is why it wasn't surprising he did fine on the Crowd Control pilot.
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Oct 7, 2025 13:12
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CatstropheWaitress posted:A friend works at a bar that does comedy regularly and they apparently have a ban on doing more than a couple of minutes of crowd work. Yeah, its why im surprised they went with a show about it when opinions from stand ups are turning against it pretty hard. Its engagement farming, relatively easy and the people doing it the most are just the absolute worst. It was one of the targets when Maron went after Rogan's Austin comedy scene since they're the ones using it in place of an act.
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Oct 7, 2025 13:20
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stringless posted:Josh Johnson's trick is commenting on local news and telling Real Personal Anecdotes That Are Totally True as a way to get to the jokes about current events, y'know what I mean? I think this massively undervalues Josh's ability to essentially write and perform a fresh 45 minutes of solid prepared material on a weekly basis. (I'm assuming he's writing it mostly or all by himself, but given the volume of material, I wouldn't be shocked if he has some collaboration).
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Oct 7, 2025 14:01
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Thought I'd made it clear I wasn't trying to diminish his work by pointing out that it does work and that I'm seeing him live relatively soon. I was commenting on the method, not the effort. Though, yeah, given the amount of unique weekly material he puts out I've got to assume he's getting some assistance from Daily Show writers, even if it's just for feedback. stringless fucked around with this message at 14:54 on Oct 7, 2025 |
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Oct 7, 2025 14:52
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I actually slept on Gianmarco for a while because I would just see a ton of clips posted of him doing crowd work and I thought that was his whole thing. It looked exactly like all the clips I've seen of Jeff Arcuri for years and no disrespect if you love him, but to me he definitely falls into that category of person that is a decently funny person socially but has barely any juice in the original material and delivery department.
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Oct 7, 2025 16:46
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I slept on him for a long time because he suddenly filled up my algorithm way too hard out of nowhere and it set off my internet astroturf bullshit detectors so I was like 'yep never gonna click on that, too suspect'
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Oct 7, 2025 16:49
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I think if they killed the final segment it would let the show breathe more. The last segment is really hit or miss on if it makes any good content.
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Oct 7, 2025 16:58
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Ror posted:I actually slept on Gianmarco for a while because I would just see a ton of clips posted of him doing crowd work and I thought that was his whole thing. It looked exactly like all the clips I've seen of Jeff Arcuri for years and no disrespect if you love him, but to me he definitely falls into that category of person that is a decently funny person socially but has barely any juice in the original material and delivery department. Gianmarco has been on a big glow up. Like him, Josh Johnson, and Stavros Halkias all really started on a big uptick in my feeds almost all exactly at the same time. Edit: Brennan was also on Gianmarcos podcast a few months ago and it was phenomenal. https://youtu.be/8t12OsPeCFY?si=ZmoYeaddRPb1o8F1 DeathSandwich fucked around with this message at 18:08 on Oct 7, 2025 |
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Oct 7, 2025 18:05
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DeathSandwich posted:Gianmarco has been on a big glow up. Like him, Josh Johnson, and Stavros Halkias all really started on a big uptick in my feeds almost all exactly at the same time. yeah I feel like all three, in varying ways, fulfill some pent-up cultural demand for "smart lefty who can be a little edgy without being a racist/transphobe/etc" in this time of lovely austin douchebags dominating everything edit: speaking of, soresi's ep today with demi is really good and talks a lot about comedy today and racism and (to a lesser extent) the upcoming backflip special he's got next month on dropout https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l_PqY9vRYA4 eke out fucked around with this message at 20:28 on Oct 7, 2025 |
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Oct 7, 2025 19:26
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DeathSandwich posted:Gianmarco has been on a big glow up. Like him, Josh Johnson, and Stavros Halkias all really started on a big uptick in my feeds almost all exactly at the same time. Yeah, a lot of Stavros stuff has been coming up for me lately which led to a bunch of his Cumtown stuff and yeesh. Glad to see his opinions has evolved.
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Oct 7, 2025 20:57
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Is mildly interesting that all those dudes have been around for a minute and are mostly in their mid-30's. Cum Town was a relatively huge podcast, not one I listened to, but certainly aware of, but I've caught more Friedland in the past six months than ever before. Suppose it tracks that people who've been doing the work for a decade + are in the position to really move on current events and rise from the ashes of legacy media.
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Oct 7, 2025 21:27
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I think the increasingly visible problem with Crowd Control is that good crowd work involves tension, interrogation and spontaneity; it has an element of cold reading to it. An audience member gets picked on at random and ends up reluctantly confessing something bizarre or unique about themselves. When it works, it's a great formula for comedy, and it's humanistic, too - because look, all our lives are funny and interesting if you take the time to dig into it! Crowd Control's setup mimics that structure but it loses all the spontaneity and tension in a single stroke by making the audience active participants. Instead it becomes a curated game of 'invite regular people into the limelight to reveal what they think is funny or interesting about themselves'. That's just an office icebreaker, and the novelty wears off fast. And so we get the same four basic reveals which keep recurring across the episodes: I have a weird business or hobby, I have a weird kink or relationship, I have a weird family, I almost died once. (Only the last one, so far, has consistently led to funny bits.) The comedians are doing a good job riffing off these, but it starts to feel thin real fast. The extended bit with Megan and the Filipina lady was great because it let the comedian build up something beyond a shocked 'WHAT?' and a couple of quips.
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Oct 8, 2025 12:17
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Yeah, I've noticed a lot of "I was horribly injured!" and "I have unconventional sex!" stories.
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Oct 9, 2025 07:52
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Sestze posted:I guess? Olethra starts out loving the idea of adventure, she gets to be part of an adventure and feel triumph, she then nearly dies due to that adventure, she sees how being sky-eyed is somewhat of a sickness that forces you to push the envelope constantly, and eventually (maybe) she'll want to settle for some amount of normalcy. I have at times found the boundary between the character of Olethra, and the character of Ally to be a little thin. There was a moment earlier, I think this was after she spotted the different energy on Marya's bullets and on Van, which really took me out of the story for a moment. "Olethra" out of nowhere and for no reason suddenly said something like "this reading also says to kill Wealwell," playing off of Zac's gag. That really took me out of the story at that moment. eke out posted:most of aabria's DMing for them is a prequel series to Season 3, so it's a relatively fresh place to start. it's somewhat lore heavy and setting up the culmination of three seasons so it might take a bit of googling now and then. I would very much skip Exandria Unlimited season 1. I think it will serve as a very, very poor introduction to Critical Role because it is very bad. It had an incredibly confusing introduction to the cast of characters, being drunk and partying in the house of... some guy. I never enjoy scenes where the characters play drunk, and it's a million times less enjoyable when this is your introduction to them. In addition the story sets up and drops like 8 different storylines and only maybe resolves one of them, because it's trying to have an epic, world-traveling storyline with a limited run of 8 episodes. There's no focus to it. (Adding to that, it doesn't help that events from the OFF-SCREEN Session 0 were referred to often, leaving viewers lost) eke out posted:calamity is also just fantastic and probably has some of the most youtube clips -- especially because it gives Brennan a chance to play some significantly more Evil beings than we ever see in d20 and everyone loves that. plus Aabria and Lou Wilson are in it, among others Yes, Calamity is a masterclass, and it's largely self-contained. This is a solid entry.
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Oct 9, 2025 12:03
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Stabbey_the_Clown posted:I have at times found the boundary between the character of Olethra, and the character of Ally to be a little thin. There was a moment earlier, I think this was after she spotted the different energy on Marya's bullets and on Van, which really took me out of the story for a moment. "Olethra" out of nowhere and for no reason suddenly said something like "this reading also says to kill Wealwell," playing off of Zac's gag. Ally finds moments to discuss meta commentary about her actions and dice luck in D20, stating flatly that Ally's summoning of yet another familiar (Wisconsin P. Toad) is going to get some mean comments about them getting away with crimes against the narrative due to dice rolls yet again. I'd like it if there was more of a push for Ally to be in the narrative of the universe instead of losing focus halfway through and going for low hanging fruit, but that's their shtick so I guess it's a thing you have to grit your teeth and fast forward through.
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Oct 9, 2025 13:42
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This is absolutely not a criticism of Brennan, but I watched him GM the first episode of the new critical role season, and it's really funny that the difference in cameras lets me see something new... On D20, which cuts back and forth around the Dome, we really only see Brennan when he's talking. On CR, which has static cameras, you see all players, all the time. When Brennan is not talking, he is watching the players, carefully observing all the comments and emotions to be the best GM possible and he switches off his 'performance' while he concentrates. And he has the most stupified, gormless look on his face the whole time because of it. 
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Oct 9, 2025 14:15
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Sestze posted:Oh sure, there's moments where Ally makes an IRL reference during a serious moment and derails things heavily. The girl that's idolizing Comfrey is talking to her for the first time in god knows how long (for her, 10-15 years, for comfrey, 15+ years due to time nonsense) suddenly says "KEEP YOUR NAME OUT OF MY MOUTH" in an aggressive way halfway through the conversation and handwaves it off (Brennan's response is to make a comment as Comfrey afterwards saying "If you talk like that to me again, we're going to have a problem"). Ally used that joke/reference in another season of d20 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KijHnecnGRQ) but used it as an off-camera gag, so it didn't feel strange to have it in the world (because it wasn't). Ally is usually my least favorite Intrepid Hero due to their constant bits and immersion-breaking quips derailing the game. Sometimes I want a dramatic scene to be dramatic and not turn into a five minute quipfest comparing the monster to a 90's star, and Ally is, in practice, incapable of that. I liked Olethra at the start of Cloudward because she was generally pretty good at leading everyone else have some screen time but now it's back to pulling the spotlight back to Ally. Contrast to Never Stop Blowing Up, where Ally stepped back with a more grounded character and kept themselves busy by helping the others remember how to actually play the dice game. Ally was one of my favorites in NSBU because they were helping to push the game forward, not stop it screeching in its tracks.
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Oct 9, 2025 16:10
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ally is great, and people should remember that their entire tabletop career is on camera for d20 so they're actively feeling things out and figuring out what works and doesn't. i don't think they go for bits much more often than the other intrepid heroes & there's been a ton of strong character choices narratively across a lot of their pcs like pete, margaret, and liam i think olethra has been having a bit of a hard time figuring out what to be as a character past her very fannish and complicated relationship with her grandmother and her crew & stuff like the snipe about marya was ally actively trying the beat out and not vibing with it as soon as it was out in the air. the deep empathy towards ludmilla and actively seeing herself in her came soon after and I think fits much better
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Oct 9, 2025 16:52
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Holy poo poo, re: new Gastonauts I am friends with one of the chefs, I had no idea she was going to be on e: Jenn was fuckin robbed 
Sockser fucked around with this message at 03:34 on Oct 13, 2025 |
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Oct 13, 2025 03:29
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Noise Boys are back tonight for the new season of Make Some Noise!
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Oct 13, 2025 16:44
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The first episode of Crowd Control was more "stand-up spinning off from the audience prompts", and the next two are still funny, but are also a lot more about "drat, that's crazy, sorry that happened to you though". I think the show would benefit from just focusing on the joy of improvised stand-up with a unique ask/get vs. being centrally and overwhelmingly about reading as many shirts as possible. I love Off Book, but I think Play It By Ear had the same problem. It's funnier when you just let the professionals work and steer their own ship a bit instead of heavily prompting them. Joyelle was great this episode. So much energy on stage, an evidently confident performer comfortable in her element. Fun to watch.
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Oct 13, 2025 22:41
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I still need to check out Play It By Ear. I loved Official Cast Recording and watched it again last night. No homerun is worth it if you can't run home to a home you love. Cojawfee fucked around with this message at 23:09 on Oct 13, 2025 |
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Oct 13, 2025 23:07
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The opening prompts of this Noise Boys episode are so annoying (laudatory)
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Oct 13, 2025 23:14
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Arist posted:The opening prompts of this Noise Boys episode are so annoying (laudatory) How many Batmans are we up to?
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Oct 13, 2025 23:54
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"I think the Gen Z fans are gonna love the Homestar Runner reference"
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Oct 14, 2025 00:50
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Cojawfee posted:"I think the Gen Z fans are gonna love the Homestar Runner reference" Great episode of MSN
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Oct 14, 2025 01:04
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swickles posted:How many Batmans are we up to? Same as before but only because he didn't make the buzzer in time
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Oct 14, 2025 02:05
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I've realised that gastronauts only has about 8 minutes worth of interesting stuff to see, for me: the challenge & the presentation. They cut away from the chefs so you can't learn from the cooking (which is going to be hectic and difficult to read given the time constraint anyway) and the banter is just filling empty air with whatever zany poo poo the judges come up with. there's something missing from the concept
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Oct 14, 2025 10:55
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Cojawfee posted:"I think the Gen Z fans are gonna love the Homestar Runner reference" My wife teaches art in elementary school and was talking about teaching kids to draw a dragon the other day in class and I said "You mean like Trogdor?". Then they mentioned Strongbad in a MSN sketch tonight. That puts me at 2 homestar references in one week in tyool 2025. My wife didn't get the reference. 
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Oct 14, 2025 12:56
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I thought it was funny that they released a MSN with the Name That Mobster mini game on Columbus Day. Otherwise it would be anti-italian discrimination. Edit: nerox posted:"You mean like Trogdor?". 
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Oct 14, 2025 12:57
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CainFortea posted:I thought it was funny that they released a MSN with the Name That Mobster mini game on Columbus Day. Otherwise it would be anti-italian discrimination. Name That is my favorite MSN mini-game. I loved the one with the swords. Brennan was super fast with the Rattattony answer. CainFortea posted:Edit: Edit: Sorry sir those are not the official Trogdor S's. 0/10. nerox fucked around with this message at 13:01 on Oct 14, 2025 |
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Oct 14, 2025 12:59
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Not seen Gastronauts or MSN yet but episode 7 of Never Stop Blowing Up is one of the best things I’ve ever seen
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Oct 14, 2025 13:08
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Alright, you've convinced me, I'll watch it a 3rd time
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Oct 14, 2025 13:24
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Love the Noise Boys but feel like the prompts leaned too much into their existing types/personas.
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Oct 14, 2025 13:48
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nerox posted:Edit: Sorry sir those are not the official Trogdor S's. 0/10. Even more different Ss
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