Whose joke is it anyway?
I have often heard comedians narrate instances of having written and performed a fantastic joke only to find out that another comedian got there first. Many comedians have told me that they had written the joke without EVER seeing the other comedian perform it before, and yet the joke was almost identical!
Irwin Handleman, a TV comedy writer, gives an example:
"A few weeks ago, after President Obama showed his birth certificate to Donald Trump and the other racists, The Onion's headline was: "Afterbirthers Demand To See Obama's Placenta."
A fine joke. But then Bill Maher went on twitter and wrote: "I see The Onion stole my placenta joke that I did in Feb 2010 HBO special"
Wow. Okay. I've never heard of The Onion being accused of stealing in the past. It also seemed a bit presumptuous that everyone has seen that HBO special.
Well, it turns out that The Onion headline was actually a link to something they wrote in August of 2009. Apparently The Onion recycles its content when news stories pop again. They actually did the joke 6 months before Bill did!
Does this mean that Bill stole from The Onion? Of course not. Just like it was dumb to think they stole from him. It happens all the time. In fact, just to show how ridiculous the whole thing is, The Daily Show ended up doing the exact same joke."It is evident that these things do happen. As the old phrase says “great minds think alike”. And, I feel, comic minds observe alike. However, it is impossible to fully understand this until it’s happened to you!
About three years back I wrote material about being an American living in Dubai. I wrote a series of jokes about my ignorance of the Middle East and my attempts at trying to learn to speak and sing in Arabic. One evening, after going to an Arabic restaurant and seeing a bunch of people dancing to the drums with their hands in the air I thought it would be great to do a bit on Arabic dance. There are a lot of traditional Arabic dance moves but the most common one is where your hand is in the air and it looks like you are screwing on a light bulb. I went home that night to think of what the other dance moves looked like and it hit me - the foot turns as if they are putting out a cigarette! I then thought it would be fun to have the audience lift their right arm and screw in a light bulb then stamp their right foot, put out a cigarette and on the count of three shout “habibi”! I put all the pieces together, added a beatbox rhythm and created a ‘habibi song’ and the whole audience did a group dance. The crowd loved it, I loved it and I performed it many times since.
Last week, I was hosting a show and performed the Arabic dance bit to introduce famed comedian and friend, Aron Kader of The Axis of Evil. After the show Aron told me that one of his fans mentioned that my joke was similar to his Arabic dance joke. I quickly realized that the observation of screwing in a light bulb and putting out a cigarette was identical to his! I was stunned because I genuinely remembered the night I came up with it! I had also heard of instances where people will write a joke that they heard someone say a long time ago and subconsciously think they came up with it. But in this instance, that wasn’t the case in point as I had never seen Aron perform it before. I instantly discussed this matter with Aron openly and honestly. He knew I was being sincere and ended our chat with a quip in true Aron style “no foul, no harm.”
I was very grateful that we were able to discuss the situation immediately and quickly reach an amicable conclusion. Without scope for heresy or lingering doubt. Out of respect for him and myself, now that I know he also had this joke I very happily put it to rest and will not perform it again. And that is crux of being true and honest to your art, and a fellow artist.
I’ll elaborate further on this. You see, the subject of tribute jokes and stolen jokes comes up quite often, especially as I am a comedy teacher. As part of our 8 week Stand Up Comedy 101 program we focus on writing, improvisation and performance skills. We don’t allow our students to use “borrowed” material from other comedians or internet jokes. We talk about the structure of a joke, poke fun at truthful life experiences as well as give them weekly writing assignments. By the time they reach the end of the 8 weeks they have generated a great deal of material to choose from. We give them the building blocks in a fun and supportive environment and it has been a huge success. Blatant joke stealing is something we openly discuss and don’t condone it with our students, don’t book comedians who do so on shows we produce, and as comedians ourselves, we aren’t hacks. We practice what we preach so when it came to my attention that my Arabic dance bit was dangerously close to Aron’s joke I literally gasped, as I didn’t want it to appear that I was going against my ethics.
I attended a show where a comedian performed a Gabriel Inglesias joke word for word followed by two Internet jokes and a quote from Austin Powers. I then saw the same comedian perform it again and I spotted more jokes from other comedians and the internet. Clearly, that wasn’t accidental. There was also a recent incident at a local monthly amateur comedy night in Dubai where a first timer took the stage and did a word for word set by a famous British Comedian. As soon as the producer learned the news he addressed it and the community discussed the topic of copying jokes openly online. It ended up being a positive debate and the community had the chance to communicate their thoughts on ethics as to prevent it from happening again.
Comedians will always talk about the same topics because we live in the same world and observe it through comedic lenses. Whether it be talking about relationships, politics, current events, living in a particular city or stereotypes. As a comedy teacher and coach I have had hundreds and hundreds of students come through our program and some of them, who have never met, wrote very similar jokes. Even as we do improvisations and in-class writing exercises, people do come up with similar replies, punch lines and jokes. It happens. However, with that said, there is a huge difference between coming up with the same joke as someone else and watching a video of famous comedians, transcribing their jokes and performing them. THAT isn’t a coincidence, it’s theft.
Delving a little into the history of stand-up comedy, heading back to the Vaudeville Era, many comedians would share jokes, perform similar if not the same jokes and it didn’t really matter. They performed one-liners and moved from city to city so they rarely crossed paths. This was long before television so comedians could perform the same jokes for years. As time progressed people got tired of hearing the same hacked mother-in-law jokes and wanted something substantial. Once comedy started becoming televised they knew that when their jokes aired they would probably be repeated. Similarly, in today’s internet age, comedians have to write new jokes at a much quicker pace.
Kal Raustiala, a Professor at UCLA Law School, made this statement in his essay ‘The Evolving Ethics of Joke Stealing’:
“But as television and the web consumed material faster and faster, and comedians found themselves in direct competition on YouTube and Comedy Central, stealing original material came to be regarded as unethical, for the same reason any conduct becomes unethical: it does more harm than good. Gradually, comics also learned that allowing all jokes to be considered common property worked as a disincentive to creativity. Nobody was laughing at the old jokes any more, and there needed to be a benefit realized by the comics who wrote new ones.”So where do we go from here? It seems like the temptation to steal jokes has been around for a long time and many will continue to do so. If you are a budding comedian who wishes to turn professional and wants to perform on television and move forward, the best piece of advice is to keep writing! Even if it doesn’t seem funny at the beginning it’s better to perform jokes in progress that are yours rather than performing stolen jokes. If you still feel you just can’t write jokes but enjoy the performance side you may want to try comedy acting as a script is provided. I’ve seen many comedians decide to go into acting and have been quite successful and happy.
Any great comedian will tell you that it took them about 10 years to really find their comedic voice. If you don’t write your own material and choose to steal jokes you won’t get to that point. Comedy, whether it be writing or performing, is like any other craft. The more you practice, the better you will get. Cheating will just keep you at the same place.
The joke, ultimately, will be on you!
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