Demetri Martin

Demetri Martin is easily one of my favorite comedians, and in my opinion one of the funniest around. Other comedians on the top of my list are Jim Gaffigan, Daniel Tosh, and Katt Williams. The one thing I think makes Demetri Martin stand out from the rest is the drawings he uses to aid his standup. The video I chose is a long line of jokes that Martin puts together to accompany his “large pad”. With every one of his ideas, he flips the page to show another depiction to help the audience understand. He is not in any way a great artist, which I think may actually make all of them more humorous. Most of them consist of charts, diagrams, and other ridiculous pictures. If any random scrub off the street came and tried to draw pictures and tell jokes, I do not think it would be successful. So it is not some formula that he discovered that works for anyone; Martin is extremely clever when thinking of material for his standup. All of his jokes are incredibly creative, and his delivery helps his humor. He does not do any extraneous movements, as other comedians do, he simply moves on to the next joke as the audience rolls around. The clip of his performance I chose for class is very short, but the entirety of this special is unbelievably funny. He first brings up the old saying “people in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones”, and brings a complete 180 degree turn to it. Martin does this with many of his jokes. He will take common sayings or parts of life, and turn them into a clever spin like no one else. A lot of people have negative opinions of him because of the god-awful television show he came out with, but I’m sure it has made him some cash, so who can complain? His standup is great, and one of my favorites.