Comedy’s all over, but nobody is laughing

By PHILIP MWANIKI

Posted  Saturday, September 15  2012 at  19:00

In Summary

• Instead of taking us forward, these kids are going back to the years when wearing make up and playing President was the style
• You see, comedy is no laughing matter, Nameless can live off singing one song for ten years but Eric Omondi can only tell one joke a maximum of two or three times
• Having a good production does not mean you have a good show, at the end of the day, content is king

Worldwide, after soap operas, nothing sells more than comedy. We all want to laugh and we will go all out for anything that can crack our ribs and that is no different a scenario in Kenya.

It’s a crowd puller and a definite winner and this was proven with “Churchill Live” and with no set date for the show’s return, every other TV station with an ident is trying to get it’s own comedy show with disastrous results.

All these shows take me back to 2000 when “Intru kalas” hit our stations and since we didn’t know what was going on, we embraced it. This was the show that Churchill was first booed off stage and on which he launched his career together with Mdomo Baggy if I am not wrong.

But that was OK because, well, it was 2000 and not 2012, so when I see all these wide eyed kids thinking they can make me laugh taking me back, I don’t slip into reverie, no, I want to smack the black off their skins.

Was the style

Instead of taking us forward, these kids are going back to the years when wearing make up and playing President was the style. I can bet you all of us can do a Kibaki imitation, we can all move our lips like he does and use “Mavi ya kuku” without blinking so how is that comedy?

Second, can they stop recycling Twitter jokes? I mean, I probably Retweeted that joke six months ago so as much as it was funny, I don’t want someone else regurgitating it.

You see, comedy is no laughing matter, Nameless can live off singing one song for ten years but Eric Omondi can only tell one joke a maximum of two or three times. After that, he will be labelled stale and I am happy to see he is not mixed up with all the jokers currently on TV. I take it to be maturity and experience. He did try twice on KTN and NTV and failed.

I expected after “Churchill Live”, we would move forward with bigger and better productions and while I appreciate that such a production is expensive to do, I know that going back ten years is not the solution.

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Now, having a good production does not mean you have a good show, at the end of the day, content is king. Coming up with content is what differentiates a good comedian from a joker. Yes, those two are totally different.

What I can tell all these comedians is to switch off the television and log off Twitter for a week and come up with some good creative jokes.

It is easy if you are true comedian and don’t tell me I don’t know how hard it is, you chose to be one so pull up your socks and tickle me, no, wait, just make me laugh.