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Clean Comedy
Pays the Bills
By JEFF PENCE
The Blue Collar
Comedy Tour. BET TV. Southern Fried Chicks. American
Standup Comedy comes in many shapes and flavors, and though there's a
comedian for every imaginable niche, the one thing they all seem to have in
common is a passion for the scatological. Backstage at the Westin Center I
asked Chicago comedian Paul Frisbie, who employs no bathroom humor
whatsoever, why so many of his compatriots seem to find it irresistible.
"Most of the time they're just being lazy," says Frisbie. "Shock jokes
get an easy laugh from certain audiences, so they follow the path of least
resistance. You get that Friday late show in a comedy club, drunk kids
with their baseball caps on backwards; and they'll reward you for doing the
blue material. And the clubs are where comedians start out, so it's
easy to develop some bad habits early on."
 I
asked Frisbie if he used to do blue material himself. "Oh, sure, 20
years ago. Like I said, it's easy. But I knew from the get-go
that it's not the way to make a living in this game. If you can't do a
clean, funny show you'll never get out of the comedy clubs. Comedy is
like any other art form; the broader your appeal, the easier it is to pay
your bills."
So in the
long run, clean comedy is the way to go? "Absolutely," says Frisbie.
"If you're blue you work the comedy clubs and the bar one-nighters -- that's
it. And you're competing with all the other guys who can't clean up their
acts, so there isn't enough work to go around. There are exceptions,
but if you can't work clean you're probably going to have to keep a day
job."
So the bulk of your work isn't in comedy
clubs? "I still do some clubs. They're a lot of fun. There's an energy
that doesn't exist anywhere else. But they don't pay as well as the
other venues. I spend most of my time doing things like company parties,
casinos and cruise ships. When the holiday season rolls around, and
everybody wants a clean comedian for the company Christmas party, I don't
set foot in a comedy club from Thanksgiving until the end of January."
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