Poor Little Tink-Tink

The other night I was watching a comedy special on Showtime. It featured a comedian I was quite familiar with, even if I haven't always found him funny. However, since I am always willing to give comedians a second chance, I sat through it. The thing is that while 90% of the special was new material, there was one entire segment which was exactly the same as the last comedy special I had seen him perform almost 10 years ago. Now, I'll grant you some comedians have to repeat aspects of their show or risk annoying their fans. For example, I am sure that Jeff Foxworthy would love to take one night off from telling "You might be a redneck..." jokes, but knows that will lose him more fans than he would gain by trying to be original. However, this particular repeated bit was not exactly famous, which is why I suspect this comedian thought he could sneak it passed most of his audience. I would never get on a comedian for repeating the same jokes if I saw them twice in one year, but these two specials were filmed years apart - you would think enough things would have happened in that time that he could gotten 10 original minutes from, but apparently not. Personally, I think there is nothing worse than seeing a comedian perform the same jokes as the last time you saw them. Actually, I take that back, because there is something worse - a comedian telling no jokes at all.

A couple weeks ago Katt Williams was performing in Oakland. For those of you who may not be familiar with Williams, the pint-sized comedian is very filthy but can also be very funny. He does a great bit about runny Oscar Pistorius you should look up if you don't mind a lot of swearing. Additionally, has a very colorful past off-stage, getting arrested numerous times. In fact, he had been arrested just a couple days before he was scheduled to perform in Oakland. And while he come out to start his act, he didn't stay there for very long. After rambling on for a few minutes, Williams stripped down and started challenging audience members to a fight. Katt has always been kind of out there, but never in an Andy Kaufman kind of way, so it didn't take people very long to figure out this wasn't part of the show. His bodyguards pulled him off stage and the show was over after about 10 minutes. Now he and Ticketmaster are being sued by several audience members in a class action suit. Clearly, someone needs to get a hold of this man and remind him that while he has some very funny bits, he is not at a level where he can do this kind of thing. Comedy was around before him and if he doesn't treat his fans better they will find another comedian's show to attend instead. The train will keep rolling along whether he is on it or not.

But beyond all that I am fascinated to see how this lawsuit goes. You would like to assume there is a little good faith between the promoters, the artist and the venue, but I think expecting any type of protection for the fans is rather naive. These companies proved a long time ago they are in it to make money - not to bring people the best entertainment experience. If you look at the large amount of very small print on the back of almost every ticket these days you will see all sorts of legalese to protect the ticket seller and the venue while warning people about the penalties of scalping their tickets - there is nothing on there about whether or not the show will last longer than it took you to complete your order through the website. Ticketmaster's lawyers could easily argue that, given Williams unstable nature, the fans knew exactly what they were getting into when they bought tickets to see him. Also, your average comedian in a club only does about 10 minutes, so why should the venue change the length of the show? We all know that it is implied, but the problem with things which are implied is that they are damned hard to prove. Now, if he knows what is good for him Williams will offer to refund the price of the tickets out of his own pocket or reschedule the show for another night (and actually go through with it this time), but if you are expecting Ticketmaster to foot any of the bill you probably have a long wait ahead of you.

I'm sure, given the lengthy legal document people have to agree to finish their transaction (and often do so without actually reading any of it - it probably contains a clause about this very kind of incident), this lawsuit doesn't have much of a leg to stand on and will be dismissed before it actually gets going. Still, it would be pretty amazing if this suit resulted in some real change. Obviously, most people would have expected the performance to last a lot longer than it did. But technically you could argue that Williams did take the stage which means he did give a performance so what the fans are really mad about is the quality of the show. If they win this lawsuit it could open up a whole new set of standards regarding what constitutes a quality performance. Artist doesn't sing your favorite song? Refund. The acoustics in the arena were awful? Refund. Comedian isn't funny enough? Refund. Given how expensive things like concert tickets can be (and that is without all the stuff around it like dinner, parking and such), it would be nice to have some kind of insurance against this kind of stuff. After all, if a movie cuts out after a few minutes the theater would give you a rain check to see it another time. I know a live show is a different circumstance from a movie, but the idea behind them is roughly the same. If fans don't start getting some kind of guarantee about the show they are supposed to see, many of them are going to start staying home and watching old comedy specials on TV. It won't be the same energy, but at least they know the show will actually happen. And, given the way some comedians apparently operate, the jokes won't even be all that different.