The Evolution of Stand-up Comedy

This is Bloomberg Business Week with Carol mess Error and Tim Steneveek on Bloomberg Radio. Come laugh, make com laugh. Don't you know everyone wants to laugh?

Yeah, everybody. Let's make them laugh and laugh a bit more. I mean, I gotta say, it's not always easy, considering the news flow and the stresses that are out there right. Economic, personal are otherwise kind of love that from singing in the rain.

You know what, though, it's actually good to laugh.

I know.

Okay, So where is good for us? We are nerds, But speak for yourself. The Mayo Clinic points out that when it comes to relieving stress, more giggles and gaffaws are just what the doctor ordered, noting that a good laugh has great short term effects. When you start to laugh, it doesn't just lighten your load mentally, it actually induces physical changes in your body, including stimulating your organs, soothing tension,

Yeah, I better go to the Comedy Festival. The seventeenth annual New York Comedy Festival Yes about to.

Get underway in early November. A legend in the world of comedy is with us today in our studio, Caroline Hirsch, founder of Caroline's on Broadway. Of course you know that she's here in our Bloomberg Interactive Brokers studio. Welcome, Welcome, welcome back. How are you good?

I'm good. So we have quite the medicine for you. The Comedy Festival.

My voice doesn't usually sound like this.

Festival number third, the twelfth we've extended this year. We're ten days straight, probably about one hundred and fifty shows still counting. We're still adding, we're still putting people together, so still announcing new shows coming up, twenty two theater shows. So we're very very happy, Carolyn.

I just had family in from Texas, and you know what they did. They did a bunch of things around New York. It was a short weekend. They went to a comedy show. People want to experience things. How did you guys think about that? Are you seeing increased demand or a lot of demand coming out of the pandemic of people just wanting to go to things like comedy shows.

Well, I think the general people want to go to live events, and I think live events are like the big thing right now. So look when we put tickets on sale. We got a really really robust kind of reaction to it. So ticket sales are really really good.

That's good.

It's good. It's good for New York.

Okay at Madison Square Garden.

Ok. Shane Gillis at Carnegie Hall, Mateo Lange and a car Anthony just like all at Carnegie Hall. And you know what happens that you know, people go to Carnegie Hall and then they'll go to the restaurant across the street. Right. So what we do is bring this stimulus to New York City, which we're always happy to do, and we have a lot of fun with doing it. And then we have you know, we we have Britt Goldstein. Do you know him from Ted Lasso? So he's doing three a lot of him at the beach.

Wait can we all say what he says? Oh no, we can't say.

That on air?

Can we You can? You can't, you can't show.

We do say it a lot of the but go ahead. He's so great.

Yeah. And then we have you know, we we have a big event which is Stand Up for Heroes kind of opens up the festival this year on November sixth, So we have Jimmy Carr there, Tracy Morgan, Rita Wilson will be singing, Shane Gillis, Ronnie Chang, John Stewart who's a constant there, and also Josh Grobin and John Mellencamp. So that is quite a show.

Are they doing comedy? Are they singing?

Yeah? This thing?

Okay?

This that's oko.

How do you think about when you put it together? Seventeen years and running? Talk to us about like how it's evolved.

Oh, it's nineteen years. Oh forgive me years and seventeen years for the standard for heroes, but it's nineteen years. Next year we're having a big, big blowout the twentieth year in New York City. Wow. You know we start the day after we finish year. We start for next year. Actually, we're trying to secure venues ready for next year, you know, our big shows at Madison Square Garden. So we do that constantly.

You know, it's we don't often because we have a global audience here on the program. Really yeah we do.

I had no idea that's some comedy for you wedding.

Looking into the control room, you see if you can see they're not laughing in there.

I know to day job.

But we do, and we you know, we have a national audience as well. So why are we talking about something here in New York. Well, because a lot of people from all over the world and all over the country come to this. Talk a little bit about who this attracts and and sort of where New York is right now in the comedy scene, because you know, there are people who are saying, you know, okay, l A is,

You know, you can never negate New York.

You can't.

You can't take the New York a good New Yorker. No, it's here, It's here, It's Here's where it starts. This is where you get the creative juices. This is where you get the ideas. They you know, the whole thing with La was that, you know, which is not so quite in fashion right now, is to go out there to get your sitcom. That's that's not really happening anymore. Now.

It's happening the last five months without the writer's strike.

I can tell you that I guess they're about That's a really.

Good point because you did see a lot of comics for a long time, right, get a series and then just move to television.

It's kind of not happening now, the touring that goes on when you have a great special that's on TV, you take that and you go on the road, and that's your millions of dollars that these people, you know, comedians are making on the road. When you're selling out Beacon Theater's, Carnegie Hall, when you're selling out the Garden, this is this is like this is big bucks, you know.

Can we talk about the business of comedy? And I think about you know, last December, your iconic club, right, you did not renew your lease it's spot in Times Square. How hard was that?

You know? I wanted to stay, and then there was a part of me which did not want to stay because of the way. And I don't want to put down Time Square because I went there thirty years ago to build it up and I was part of that, the renovation of Times here and the renewal of Times Square, So I'm not going to put it down. But things were changing there. The city was changing there. I felt that after COVID, the whole seascape there was changing. And I said, let me step back. I own the brand.

Okay, yeah, give us some of those other ideas.

Yeah, well, you know, we're taking the Carolines brand and you know, kind of producing content and putting it out there and specials and everything else that we do with comedy on a grander scale.

I mean, it really was the end of an era for you not to renew your leaves there.

Well. Yeah, I was lived thirty years in Times.

Square, so I mean Time Square changed a lot in thirty years, and it changed a lot just in a few years because of the pandemic. Talk to us a little bit about the you know, what happened and the decision making process, and the external factor is there too.

Okay, So obviously I went to my landlord, I go, listen, we need some relief here. You know, things have changed a lot, so can you He goes, no, Actually, we really want to raise the rent. So I said, oh, but you know, there are so many repairs that have to be done. I'm here for thirty years, you know, air conditioning, electrical work, just things needed to be upgraded. And he said, well, that's just what the deal is.

Did you have other things to do you? Did you look for other physical spaces?

No? But I have to tell you that we had so much press when we closed that so many real estate developers called me and said I have spaces for you and I will help you build it out.

So why didn't you do it?

Well, we're in the I'm in the process of taking it all in and deciding what the next big move in. It's not it'll be four walls, but it'd be something very different.

What a great field.

That is pretty cool?

Right? So this is like it to be continued. You'll come back in like two months, three months, four weeks.

A hotel owner.

No, but that's a really good thing, you know, because it's funny. We we look even around our environment and the retailers that aren't here anymore, and I remember one retailer leaving and he was a pottery barn or Williamson Noman. I said, why are you guys leaving? This is a great location. They're like, no, it's really expensive for us

Well, it's things crazy changed. Things have changed. You know, we heard about Target closing, you know, so it's it's it's it's it's bad. It's bad. But then again everything's kind of shifted online. Things have changed, you know, thank god we still have bergdofs here.

Well, we changed cose new opportunities and like you say, there's probably things obviously you can't talk about. But you know when things when they talk to you know, when you get lemons and make lemonade, like you find new opportunities. Caroline is on the show right now. Can I ask you what are you you find funny today? Are oh my god, oh my god, we need laughter. What do you find funny today? You know what it is?

You know, what I find funny is that it's almost the point when a joke is it reaches the point where it it is such a great joke that it hits the point that it's almost politically not correct.

And those kind of shows want to talk about those.

Kind of jokes are brilliant to get to that line. Make your point, but not go there.

Remember where we could say it's a joke people, So you can still say that, No you can't.

It's tough.

Ye, it doesn't matter if you know Netflix staff walk out over, you know your your special, You're still selling out arenas across the country. I'm talking about Dave Chappelle here.

That's truth. Yeah.

Is it tough for comics today though.

I don't think so. I just think I just think that they need to stay on a steady straight path, and I think that they do realize that that things could be offensive. And I think that Look, I've seen a lot of male comics change a lot of stuff. What they used to say, they wouldn't dare say that. I mean, they get strangled by every woman in the audience.

That's a good point.

It was a joke.

Don Rickles, d mart and all those guys like you.

Think self censorship is real.

I think it. I think it is. I think it is. But but to a good self censorship not not anything like I think it's good, but but it's that brilliant joke that may cross the line but doesn't. And those are the greatest.

Those are the still get away with stuff who can really push it. Are there certainly?

Well, Dave, Dave Schelle can, ali Wan Can. That's a woman that can can hit that mark of not crossing the line but cross on the line.

Going my turn, where you're going?

Okay, go. I want to know your opinion, Caroline, about the role of comedy clubs today. Given that there's YouTube, there's TikTok. They are all these places where comedians, up and coming comedians can post their content and build a following there.

That's a good thing. That's a good thing for clubs because when they build the following, then they get booked into the club and they make really nice money and everybody's happy because they sell out. So it's also still that live experience. People still want it. They want to go in that room with you and me and all laugh together. That's what they want. That's the thing about what makes a joke, It's that the community is sitting there saying, oh God, that happened to me too, and

It's a huge thing.

But they want to go out and see them. The same thing that happened when years ago and you had that great HBO special that built you up so that when you toured around you would sell out, right, So that's all money in the bank for the performers.

The nineteenth annually. How many festival this November. I'm giving you a shameless plug. Hey, listen, take us back, because you've been doing this a long time. Back in the early eighties you began, i mean, Jay Leno, Jerry Seinfeld, Pee Herman, Billy Crystal, Robin Williams, Sandra Bernard, I know, Chris, right, I know it breaks our heart right, Like these are people that were funny like no other and changed I

Well you see, you know we were just talking about Bill Maher So you know Bill started at my little club on eighth Avenue. But of course you grow over the years, Jerry Seinfeld, you grow over the years. Jay Leno grow over the years. But Jay has always still been this menshi guy.

What j tours like Ford is a week now probably.

Every weekend yea of doing something, you know, And so Jerry's eifel you miss every weekend, He's probably somewhere doing two or three shows back home again during the week and that's really his life because he loves what he's doing.

What do you remember from these guys in the early days, you know.

We were all so new to it. It was like, you know, when I opened Carolines, it was like the first headliner club in New York City. It was like a yuppie that word yuppie. We're going back to the eighties yuppie nightclub that opened up. And it was the day It was when David Letterman was at twelve thirty at night. Jay Leno would be at my club and he'd say like, oh, I'm appearing at Carolines. It gave us this national play around the country, and that kind

Right, so I as make references to Seinfeld.

I've seen them all. I gotta tell you. Okay, so we only have a minute left, Caroline, But comedians who have made it love to say that in order for comedian to make it, you've got a bomb. Give us some stories of some prominent bombs that you've witnessed in your pain.

How about Larry David and he would say, oh, it's the audience, they're just terrible. And he didn't do that well to twy that.

All over see, I can see the they're terrible.

They're terrible.

I gotta say. And what you've done for women comedians right when they were just so far and few, and just to see everyone out there today, it's incredible. You are incredible. Come back anytime. Let us know the news. If you land somewhere, okay, you can share it with us, and good luck again. Remind us when the festival.

Is November third to the twelfth. Go to New York Comedy festival dot com and you would be amazed to see how many shows are listed there to go see and have a great time.

Thank you so much, Good luck, be well, Caroline Hursh, founder of Carolines of Course on Broadway. Here in our Bloomberg Interactive Broker Studio, Carol Masser, Tim Stanevek. We're not funny, but she is and her lineup. This is Bloemberg