Last night my friend Doogie was a contestant on America’s Got Talent, a ridiculous, lowbrow reality show that is basically an excuse for Americans to gawk at maniacs and novelty acts in stupid costumes. To those of us familiar with Doogie’s conceptual and cerebral sense of humor, this show seemed like the perfect mismatch.
But Doogie did something special last night. He fought the mob and won. He abandoned his planned material and berated the crowd until they had no choice but to concede that he deserved their attention and respect. And he did it in a way that was totally, undeniably Doogie.
Check it out:
He is really blowing up on the Internet today, and he deserves every bit of attention he gets. Doogie is a fantastically funny guy; the major debate about him in Philly is whether he is one of the funniest comedians in town or simply the funniest. Not only that, but he is many different types of funny. His jokes are all dense, well-crafted explorations of bizarre conceptual situations, but Doogie also has the ability to go off the cuff and interact with the crowd to incredible effect (as seen above). He’s the guy that every scene needs, the comic who reminds everyone else of how much better they could become.
Anyway, you heard it here first: Doogie is doing comedy the way the comedy should be done, and he is gonna be big.
Very funny stuff. Can’t wait to actually hearing his jokes.
I remember one time doing a show in China and receiving a similarly hostile response after telling the following joke: “Tibet is an autonomous nation, not a part of China. Get it? No, you don’t.” The rest of my set tanked (literally, I was attacked by Chinese tanks), but I escaped into a dense maze of underground tunnels (literally and metaphorically) and of course went on to become America (and Tibet’s) Premiere Confrontational Compliment Comic™.