The History of Comedy Duels

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If I think of the earlier history of comedy, I see a lot of comedy double acts. The straight man or woman out of fashion? Are they too slow? Is it too slow when you have two people and we need the higher information density of comedy? Those acts came up not in comedy rooms, as you say. Usually they'd be part of a bill, sometimes one of them sang,. But they would do radio plays, so they had to be able to do a plot on a TV show.

Tyler sat down at Comedy Cellar with owner Noam Dworman to talk about the ever-changing stand-up comedy scene, including the perfect room temperature for stand-up, whether comedy can still shock us, the effect on YouTube and TikTok, the transformation of jokes into bits, the importance of tight seating, why he doesn’t charge higher prices for his shows, the differences between the LA and NYC scenes, whether good looks are an obstacle to success, the oldest comic act he still finds funny, how comedians have changed since he started running the Comedy Cellar in 2003, and what government regulations drive him crazy. They also talk about how 9/11 got Noam into trouble, his early career in music, the most underrated guitarist, why live music is dead in NYC, and what his plans are for expansion.

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Recorded March 15th, 2023.

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