stand-up tag

The Louis C.K. Case Study

Louis C.K.

Louis C.K.

Warning: if you don’t tolerate occasionally offensive, consistently crude humor very well, skip the links on this post.

Louis C.K. is a comedian that you may not be familiar with.  On a scale from 1-10, his popularity is roughly a 7.5 (and on the rise).  He’s had an hour long special on HBO, another on Showtime, an HBO sitcom (that was canceled after one season), a new series about to debut on FX, and the first ever stand-up special accepted by Sundance.  Not too shabby.

I first fell upon Louis C.K.’s stand up during his hour long special on HBO.  It was nothing short of magical.

An average stand up routine will typically rouse a couple of chuckles, but I’m onto the next channel within the first few minutes.  A good stand up routine will keep my attention throughout the entire performance, with consistent levels of laughter.  During Louis C.K.’s stand up, I developed a laughter induced hernia, 1-hour of comedy turned into 3 hours of total watch time due to constant rewinding from residual laughter drowning out proceeding jokes, and several pieces of furniture were destroyed in the process (I’m a violent laugher). Read more