Killing time before the show with my feature act, eating Subway in some comedy condoĀ somewhere, weād play each other the bits that impressed us the most. I always played āPeanutĀ Brittle.ā
It comes from Paul F. Tompkinsās 2007 album Impersonal. I imagine he called it that because theĀ tracks are observations and not the biographical stories you find elsewhere in his work. To me,Ā though, every thought a comedian has is personal. In one bit, Paul sees The Apple DumplingĀ Gang on TV late at night and imagines a drunk divorced dad forcing his kids to watch it. MostĀ people see a family movie on at midnight and produce no interesting thoughts whatsoever. ItĀ just floats through their mental drain pipe with the rest of the dayās sensory input. In TompkinsāsĀ mind, however, it stuck, and the result was a scenario only he could conceive. Who cares if itāsĀ not an anecdote from his life? Itās as unique to Paul as his fingerprint. So is āPeanut Brittle.ā Listen to it before you read another word.
The writing in āPeanut Brittleā is as surprising as the subject matter. Comics often affect aĀ conversational tone to disguise that they are making a well-practiced speech to hundreds ofĀ people, sometimes for the third time that night. Paul, however, doesnāt care at all if he soundsĀ natural. āOh, my heart is beating like a jackrabbit!ā he says at one point, like no one you haveĀ ever met. Describing the āvenomous cobrasā that pop out of the prank brittle can, he exclaims,Ā āOne of them tried to hook my eyeball with a fang as he gained his freedom!ā Like the characters inĀ Shakespeareās plays, HBOās Deadwood, or an Aaron Sorkin script, Paul talks in a baroque,Ā stylized manner. This frees him up to employ every verbal weapon available for maximumĀ laughs, with no obligation to sound like heās ājust talking.ā Yet he never forgets that comedyĀ requires brevity. Talk show bookers tell you to get your first laugh by the forty-second mark.Ā Paul gets his in six. The only way to get it faster is to fall into a pie.
Paul gets six laughs in his first minute. When people compare current comics to the legends ofĀ the 1970s, I wish they appreciated the quantum leap they have made in laugh density. There are bits where George Carlin doesnāt get six laughs in ten minutes. Itās not just impressive ā forĀ Paul, itās necessary. Most people donāt give a shit that the canned peanut brittle gag is weirdĀ because there is no actual canned peanut brittle. Paul gives many shits about this. The only wayĀ to get people to pay attention to such a premise is to hit them in the gut so many times they think, āWho cares if itās trivial? If it delivers laughs like this, I want more.ā
In that very same first minute, Paul establishes a rhetorical tactic that he maintains through theĀ entire piece. Every single sentence in āPeanut Brittleā is ironic. Most standup bits have at leastĀ one setup line where the comic tells you their sincere point of view. āTwitter is a scam,ā theyĀ will say, or āI hate that I like Imagine Dragons,ā then, sure that we are all aboard their comedyĀ boat, they row us out to Laughter Lake. At no point does Paul do this. The words of āPeanutĀ Brittleā as written are those of someone completely taken in by the prank. Itās only his tone that shows he thinks itās the dumbest thing ever. Paul begins, āI was in a novelty store the otherĀ dayā¦ because I am a fan of hilarity,ā His facetious inflections signal to the audience: In this bit IĀ will be saying the opposite of what I believe. Paul uses every way he can to tell them what heĀ means except actually saying it. He sarcastically yells āWhat a great prank!ā He notes that theyĀ changed the packaging font to be more modern, ironically bellowing ābecause THAT was theĀ problem!ā All the while his sentences are, on the surface, positive. The whole performance is aĀ comedianās voice at war with his own words.
An almost six-minute piece written entirely ironically would not be remarkable in poetry or anĀ essay collection. For standup, this is a towering achievement. Most comedy bits have nothingĀ unifying the words at all except that fifty drunks laughed at them between pretzel bites. Itās justĀ a collection of the shit that stuck when the comic threw it at the wall. Standup routines are putĀ together through hundreds of moments where the people in the seats either laugh or they donāt.Ā The comedian chops away what doesnāt work and serves it to the next crowd. A bit must pleaseĀ a live audience every night. A unifying conceit of any kind is a luxury a comic canāt oftenĀ afford. A bar band is never like, āWouldnāt it be cool if every song was in the same key?ā TheyĀ just donāt want to get bottles thrown at them. The genius of āPeanut Brittleā is that Paul gets asĀ many laughs as it is humanly possible to get in the time heās got, and never once breaks theĀ ironic structure he sets up in the first sentence.
Once the crowd is on board, Paul jams the premise in hard. In sixteen separate beats, in sixteenĀ different ways, he pounds in the idea that there is no canned peanut brittle anywhere in theĀ world. He does this, of course, by ironically proclaiming how common it is. āYou can get itĀ ANYWHEREā he raves, meaning you can get it nowhere at all. The audience, now fully awareĀ of the game, loves it more every time he does it. By the end, he only has to mention that this is āa snack weāve established is very common,ā and they howl. The bit culminates with PaulĀ addressing the audience as if they just pulled the prank on Paul himself, an oblivious sucker. HeĀ embodies every emotion of the victim, from trust to horror to shame. He pours his heart into it.Ā When, at the very end, out of breath, he steps out of character for the tiniest moment and says, āI really acted it up!ā the crowd agrees and gives him a well-deserved applause break.
He should be proud. Paul got a hundred people to see the world his way for just an instant,Ā giving them five minutes and thirty-eight seconds of joy. He has achieved the foundational goalĀ of standup comedy. Growing up, a comedian perceives absurdities in life that their peers donāt.Ā Itās the part that canāt be taught, and itās what separates them from other people. They noticeĀ things like the canned peanut brittle gag having no basis in reality. Things like this donāt justĀ stand out to a comedian. They frustrate them. The absurdity is maddening. Pointing it out toĀ others is futile. Their friends think they are weird and pull away. They feel alone.
Comedy is the solution to this alienation. If you can word it just right, people will not only seeĀ the absurdity you canāt ignore, they will laugh. Suddenly your oddness doesnāt repel people, itĀ makes them happy. The way you were made now has value to your fellow humans. ThisĀ acceptance is a profound relief. It drives people to this insane career instead of using the sameĀ skill set to become ad men or trial lawyers. Even so, getting others to understand yourĀ unorthodox thoughts is hard. Paul must use everything heās ever learned about writing and allĀ the acting passion he can summon. His efforts pay off. When heās done, the audience hasĀ connected with him on a deep level. They see the prank the way only Paul ever did before.Ā Thereās nothing more āpersonalā than that.
John Roy is a comedian who has appeared onĀ Conan, The Tonight ShowĀ andĀ @midnight.Ā His new albumĀ Everythingās BurningĀ is available now on A Special Thing Records. He is on Twitter atĀ @johnroycomic.