Is Comedy Endurance a Sport?

by jbox on Jan 5, 2008 11:34 PM EST in News Comment 0 comments

Dane Cook set a record by performing stand up comedy for 7 hours at the Laugh Factory in LA. Apparently Dave Chappelle and Dane Cook have been besting each others records since last Spring. Richard Pryor set the record in 1980 with a 2 hour and 41 minute set. In April of last year Cook did set the record going 3 hours and 50 minutes. Chappelle broke the record later that month then broke his own record again in December by doing 6 hours and 12 minutes.

Is my belt buckle in the shot? Good.

So on the night of January 1st, 2008 Cook did 7 hours in front of a crowd 60 people that dwindled throughout the night to a total of 35. He ordered dinner for the audience to keep them "fed and happy".

My question is how did the audience keep the food down? Just thinking about Dane Cook makes me want to puke. I hate that guy. You know what the weird thing is? I've never seen or heard any of his stand up. The most I've seen of him are his movie trailers on TV and his annoying Post Season Baseball Commercials. Sometimes you don't need to know much about a guy to know that you hate him.

Here's some of what he wrote in a blog entry on his website:

Quick true or false blurb:

Did I really do a record breaking 7 hours of stand up comedy last night at the Laugh Factory?

True.

I like how nobody is even asking him about it but he feels he needs to boast. Yeah, so in case anybody was wondering I hold a record that nobody cares about. Hey! Look at me over here!

On 1.1.2008 I hit the stage and walked off the morning of 1.2.2008 to bright skies. I never sat down or left the stage. The show started with a small mighty crowd of around 60 and 35 of us were together this morning still laughing and recapping 2007 with laughs galore. It felt fantastic.

So I guess the rules are you have to be standing and you can't leave the stage. I think there needs to be a judge to see if you are actually being funny. Like there has to be audible laughter at least once every 2 minutes.

In theory you need a good level of fitness to be entertaining on the stage and on your feet for that long. If you're doing it right it requires skill and mental dexterity. Does that make a sport?

I talked about anything and everything. From tigers mauling people to my parents deaths. Reconstructive surgery to starting my very own race war. Sex, drugs and anything else that my brain served up. I knew everyone in the crowd by the end and now they know me too.

Yeah sounds like killer material. Ugh That must have been something.

I'd applaud the audience for being able to sit through 7 hours of that verbal vomit, but it just dawned on me that these are not normal people, they are his idiot fans who deserve no respect.

With all this talk of Dane Cook and Beer Pong this site should be overrun by frat boys in no time.

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