Congratulations to Nick Vatterott, who took home the coveted Andy Kaufman Award for his standup routine as a monster. It’s funny! Here are some suggestions for those considering entering this contest next year:
- Repeat the sentence “You guys know what I think about recursion?” for half an hour. Then take a bow and, as if you’re starting a new joke, repeat the sentence “You know what I think about repetition?” for forty-five minutes.
- Do your regular set, silently.
- Stand next to a projector screen that shows you telling jokes.
- Make a joke about CSI-style forensic puns that ends with you miming whipping off sunglasses and singing the “Yeahhhh!” scream from the beginning of “Who Are You,” but then also sing the rest of the theme song and perform a full-length CSI episode with commercials.
- Open by bringing a volunteer onstage. Make out with them for two-three minutes. Then send them back to their seat.
- Do observational humor using false observations. “Have you guys ever noticed that whenever you go to a Starbucks, it’s full of hemophiliacs? Seriously, I just want to yell at them, like ‘Maybe if you stopped drinking so much coffee, YOUR BLOOD WOULD LEARN TO CLOT.’”
- Plant people in the audience to tell jokes. Sit in a chair onstage and laugh at their jokes, inverting the “normal” “audience”-“performer” “relationship.”
- “Put” “air-quotes” “around” “every” “word” “you” “say.”
- Hum.
