Nick Cannon Can Suck My Balls
So... Yesterday, I had the opportunity to saunter down to Hollywood and see a taping of "Wild N' Out." For those of you that don't know, "Wild N' Out" is a MTV produced "improv" show that bills itself as sort of young, fresh, 'hip', and not tied-down by conventional tv censorship because it's on cable. I'd never seen it since I don't have cable myself, and I wanted to see what the kids were doing with the form - so off I went with some friends.
We arrived early, like they suggested, and were pretty close to the front of the line that had formed in front of the studio. So we settled in and waited.
And waited.
And waited.
An hour and a half later - well past the time taping was supposed to have started - they got around to letting us in. But hey - we were at the front of the line, right? So at least we'd get floor seats and be able to rest our feet...
Wrong-o. Evidently, my friends and I weren't 'hip' enough, because they promptly funneled a ton of sideways-baseball-cap wearing jackasses and their hoochie-mammas (all *well* behind us in the line) down onto the floor where the seats - and complimentary drinks - were, and sent us up onto the balcony. Where we had to stand. For the entire 2 hour taping. Oh, and for us - $12 per drink. Fuck you very much.
But hey - that's Hollywood, right? At least we were going to see a good show. I mean, this thing's been on for 4 seasons... it must have *something* going for it.
Five minutes into the show, I wanted to stab my eyes out. *This* - this is why people hate improv. I finally get it. Worst of all, we couldn't even leave.
The taping begins with them recording us laughing. Yup. No jokes - a performer hasn't even stepped out on stage yet, but they make the audience laugh for the cameras. *That's* how fake the crap on tv is now. Say what you want about the hit-and-miss nature of stage improv, but at least we *earn* our laughs. They are organic, and come from an audience that - wait for it - actually thinks we said something funny.
So after several "laugh takes" and audience reaction shots, Nick Cannon actually comes out on stage. The guy - who's claim to fame is the craptacular "black drum major" film *Drumline*, steps onto stage like he's the gangsta' Sidney-fucking-Poitier, and proceeds to say a bunch of unfunny shit that people still laugh at.
Then he brings the improvers out, divided into two teams. There's a red team - that Nick's on - and a black team. There's two white guys, a chinese guy, and seven black guys - including the kid from "Roll Bounce." The white guys are dressed exactly like the black guys, who are dressed like Detroit thugs. Which one of them - a dude named "Spanky," evidently was. My friend James - who happens to be black - begins mocking them instantly. We know instinctively that middle-aged white Hollywood wardrobe people spent hours backstage trying to make them look like this. Except for Spanky, who I have no doubt just brought his own clothes. Don't fuck with someone from Detroit, yo.
Anyhow, here's the deal. They did *no* scene work. None. They played exactly three games: Questions Only, Party Quirks (with only celebrity endowments), and a game called "Hip Hopera" where they sang an opera hip-hop style.
They sucked. Hard. Half of the things they said in "Questions" weren't questions, but nobody buzzed them out. Also, one of them - a dude named "Tiny," was very, very drunk. He found everything he said to be hilarious.
Even better, Nick Cannon actually cheated - blatantly and un-apologetically looking at the monitors to see the names of the celebs he was supposed to be guessing. I didn't laugh *once* during the show, and I literally had a splitting headache by the time it was done.
Oh, and what did they do to fill the rest of the taping, you ask? After all, three games is maybe 15 minutes of actual improv, and this was a two hour show... They did something called "Wild Style." And what *is* Wild Style? It's 20 minutes of "yo' momma' " jokes. Seriously. And they also did "Trash talk," which is 20 more minutes of yo' momma' jokes, except often without the cleverness of actual punchlines.
The very best part came at the end, though, when Nick Cannon and the producers filmed his team "winning" without actually asking the audience first. They asked the audience who *really* won *after* taping Nick winning, but made it clear that what we said was more-or-less irrelevant. Nick really didn't need to cheat earlier, because he was going to win anyway. He's Nick Cannon, after all.
Fuck you, Nick Cannon, and fuck "Wild N' Out." You tools get paid $5,000 per episode to destroy a theatrical form that I love. You're not funny. In point of fact, you suck.
End rant.
We arrived early, like they suggested, and were pretty close to the front of the line that had formed in front of the studio. So we settled in and waited.
And waited.
And waited.
An hour and a half later - well past the time taping was supposed to have started - they got around to letting us in. But hey - we were at the front of the line, right? So at least we'd get floor seats and be able to rest our feet...
Wrong-o. Evidently, my friends and I weren't 'hip' enough, because they promptly funneled a ton of sideways-baseball-cap wearing jackasses and their hoochie-mammas (all *well* behind us in the line) down onto the floor where the seats - and complimentary drinks - were, and sent us up onto the balcony. Where we had to stand. For the entire 2 hour taping. Oh, and for us - $12 per drink. Fuck you very much.
But hey - that's Hollywood, right? At least we were going to see a good show. I mean, this thing's been on for 4 seasons... it must have *something* going for it.
Five minutes into the show, I wanted to stab my eyes out. *This* - this is why people hate improv. I finally get it. Worst of all, we couldn't even leave.
The taping begins with them recording us laughing. Yup. No jokes - a performer hasn't even stepped out on stage yet, but they make the audience laugh for the cameras. *That's* how fake the crap on tv is now. Say what you want about the hit-and-miss nature of stage improv, but at least we *earn* our laughs. They are organic, and come from an audience that - wait for it - actually thinks we said something funny.
So after several "laugh takes" and audience reaction shots, Nick Cannon actually comes out on stage. The guy - who's claim to fame is the craptacular "black drum major" film *Drumline*, steps onto stage like he's the gangsta' Sidney-fucking-Poitier, and proceeds to say a bunch of unfunny shit that people still laugh at.
Then he brings the improvers out, divided into two teams. There's a red team - that Nick's on - and a black team. There's two white guys, a chinese guy, and seven black guys - including the kid from "Roll Bounce." The white guys are dressed exactly like the black guys, who are dressed like Detroit thugs. Which one of them - a dude named "Spanky," evidently was. My friend James - who happens to be black - begins mocking them instantly. We know instinctively that middle-aged white Hollywood wardrobe people spent hours backstage trying to make them look like this. Except for Spanky, who I have no doubt just brought his own clothes. Don't fuck with someone from Detroit, yo.
Anyhow, here's the deal. They did *no* scene work. None. They played exactly three games: Questions Only, Party Quirks (with only celebrity endowments), and a game called "Hip Hopera" where they sang an opera hip-hop style.
They sucked. Hard. Half of the things they said in "Questions" weren't questions, but nobody buzzed them out. Also, one of them - a dude named "Tiny," was very, very drunk. He found everything he said to be hilarious.
Even better, Nick Cannon actually cheated - blatantly and un-apologetically looking at the monitors to see the names of the celebs he was supposed to be guessing. I didn't laugh *once* during the show, and I literally had a splitting headache by the time it was done.
Oh, and what did they do to fill the rest of the taping, you ask? After all, three games is maybe 15 minutes of actual improv, and this was a two hour show... They did something called "Wild Style." And what *is* Wild Style? It's 20 minutes of "yo' momma' " jokes. Seriously. And they also did "Trash talk," which is 20 more minutes of yo' momma' jokes, except often without the cleverness of actual punchlines.
The very best part came at the end, though, when Nick Cannon and the producers filmed his team "winning" without actually asking the audience first. They asked the audience who *really* won *after* taping Nick winning, but made it clear that what we said was more-or-less irrelevant. Nick really didn't need to cheat earlier, because he was going to win anyway. He's Nick Cannon, after all.
Fuck you, Nick Cannon, and fuck "Wild N' Out." You tools get paid $5,000 per episode to destroy a theatrical form that I love. You're not funny. In point of fact, you suck.
End rant.