Thievery. In the comedy world there is no greater crime. Should you ever steal? The answer is simple: No. Never. Don’t do it. Except…
What if you come up with something on your own, only to discover there is something similar out there? What if you were doing something first, then a more popular comedian starts doing something like it? What if a comic has a great premise, but they are doing a horrible job of developing it? Can you go in like comedy child services, take it away and give it a better home in your act? And what about all those (alleged) joke thieves that seem to be doing quite well for themselves? Why should you play the game when crime seems to pay so well? We’ll talk about all of it in this completely original episode that is nothing like you’ve ever heard ever!
photo from flickr by cjkarr
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{ 6 comments… read them below or add one }
The difference between Williams and Mencia is Mencia until the Maron interview never admitted he stole material. Williams when confronted would take out his checkbook and pay the comedian. So it might have been ethically dodgy but at the very least the comedian got compensated.
And Williams has been a big supporter of small comedy rooms, dropping by to do sets and generally being a decent guy.
As for your friends who thinks his spec script was stolen by a sit-com. I’ve written for sit-coms, heard this before and if it ever happens it’s incredibly rare. What’s much much more likely is your friend had a plot the room of writers also came up with. This is why writers sending in spec scripts need to sign release forms because they think they got ripped off, all the time. Wait a minute I came up with that Three’s Company plot based on a misunderstanding.
It really doesn’t happen. Really. I’m sure you won’t be able to convince your friend of this but it’s true.
Enjoy the podcast!
Great topic, there is a fine line between two comics coming up with similar jokes and outright stealing. I saw Carlos Mencia rip the Black Superman joke that Richard Prior did almost word for word. That is wrong! Especially when you have made it to the height’s that Mencia has made it. The number one target you hear all the time is D Cook taking from Louis C.K. , I have not heard a word for word rip in Dance material before. Now as a standup comedian, there are only so many things we can all talk about! And if you take 100,000 comics and let them all sit down and write their 10 min show, I bet you more than two of them will come up with almost the same joke. I wrote a joke 10 years ago about grave robbing VS archeology that I never used. On the tryouts for Last Comic Standing I saw a comic do the joke I wrote almost word for word! There is no way I ever saw him nor he saw me before but we still came up with the same stuff. Dave Cheppel and Chris Rock both had bits about Hillary Clinton not taking care of Bill Clinton and it leading to Bill Cheating. They did not steal from each other! It was a hot topic! I think you have to realize today that if you are doing stand up, there is a very good chance that a joke you came up with has also been written and possibly used by another comic! If this happens, it does not mean they stole it! Try to get evidence first if you think a joke was ripped from you! As soon as I do a show I post it on Youtube that way it is time stamped! If someone wants to accuse me of stealing then show me a clip of them doing the same joke with a time stamp! In the end there is no real way to prove anything, unless it is a word for word rip of something that has been out for a long time, case in point Carlos M ripping Prior. If you find out that someone already used your bit, don’t give up! Take it home and rework it until you can make it your own!
I have come up with a joke or two based on another person’s premise and then turned around and asked for permission to use it. I explain the idea and make sure I’ll never tell it in a show we’re both in. Technically that’s not stealing, if you get permission but it keeps you from getting the joke thief rep.
As much as I want to make it big in comedy, I want it on my own stuff. I’m not even sure I could buy jokes and be happy. I couldn’t enjoy it if I was doing someone else’s bits and passing them off as mine. But if I see a joke premise or a witty punch I can adapt, I will negotiate for it. A friend gave me one and I owe her dinner. Technically I scored twice because I got a good punchline and a date but for now we’ll call it an even trade.
Now for those of you who think about stealing watch that clip on YOUTUBE of Joe Rogan calling out Carlose M in a club! It will send a shiver up your spine! I forget the comic who said this, but he said, Nothing new has been written, it has only been re written! I like to watch other comics and it is not to steal their jokes but to try and figure out how they approch writting a joke! There is a lot to learn from watching the greats! And stop making fun of Carrot Top! He made it!
I get nervous when theft accusations start flying because a lot of times it comes out of jealousy. Robin Williams, Denis Leary and Dane Cook have all been accused of stealing, but they have something else in common. They all got real famous, real fast. Accusing a comic of stealing is a great way to say “See? They don’t deserve it.” I’ve seen the videos supposedly “proving” Dane Cook stole material, and I didn’t find them very convincing. Yes, some stuff was thematically similar, but a lot of comics have similar premises. It’s what they do with them that matters. And Cook is still a relatively young comic. Most comics when they start out, their influences are very apparent. Denis Leary was attacked for stealing from Bill Hicks. Leary is a big star, and Hicks is an obscure comic known only to comedy nerds. To some people that doesn’t seem fair (it’s not, but that’s life) So people attacked Leary. One of the big examples I remember was both Leary and Hicks had a joke about Mark David Chapman shooting John Lennon, but not Yoko, who was standing next to him. I think two comics could come up with that same joke. I think a dozen comics could have come up with it. Hicks, when he was alive, always shrugged it off anyway, so why are bothering when the supposed wronged party doesn’t really care? That’s different from the two incidents involving Patton Oswalt that happened recently. One, those were word-for-word lifts, and two, it was the comic who was saying “Look, they stole from me!” And that’s all a different story from Mencia. I won’t wade into it, other than to say, I heard Mencia do the “Father of a pro football player” routine and thought “Wasn’t this a Cosby bit?” When you hear a whole routine that reminds you of someone else’s routine, that’s a sign of real trouble.
Enjoyed the podcast, but strongly disagree with the stuff said about Dennis Leary ‘s supposedly false accusations of ripping off Bill Hicks “without stealing a word” .
Well – I think he did actually. The amount of identical material Leary did on No Cure For Cancer compared to earlier Hicks bits is jawdropping. Check out the evidence below (Leary’s use of “whining *beep* maggots” also showed he was happy stealing whole phrases too!)
“PROOF THAT DENIS LEARY IS A THIEF.
As you seem to think there are only fruitless accusations with regards to this matter I can easily prove they are more than just that. What follows are the earlier words of Hicks, followed by Leary’s “borrowing”…don’t tell me it’s not stolen because “the words aren’t exactly the same”. Some of what Leary does is only paraphrased from Hicks (but the general idea is stolen), while a goodly portion of other routines are shamelessly stolen word-for-word and delivered in the same exact tone as Hicks, and passed off as Leary’s own:
JOHN LENNON/BARRY MANILOW
Bill Hicks:We live in a world where John Lennon is murdered, yet Barry Manilow continues to make albums…if you’re gonna kill someone, have some *beep* taste. I’ll drive you to Kenny Rogers’ house.
Denis Leary: We live in a country where John Lennon takes six bullets to the chest, Yoko Ono is standing right next to him, not one *beep* bullet….bring me the head of Barry Manilow, I want to drink beer out of his empty head, I wanna have a Barry Manilow skull-keg party at my apartment.
JUDAS PRIEST/THE UNIMPORTANCE OF THEIR FANS
Bill Hicks: You know the story about the two kids that were big fans of this group Judas Priest, and they committed suicide, and the parents of the kids sued the band? First of all, two kids, big fans of Judas Priest, commit suicide. Wow. Two less gas-station attendants in the world. What, I don’t mean to sound cruel here, but I don’t think we lost a cancer cure. They weren’t that important. “Bill, you sound so cruel,” *beep* them, they were idiots, get it?
Denis Leary: Judas Priest on trial because kids commit suicide, what is that about?…Heavy metal fans are buying heavy metal albums, listening to the albums, then blowing their heads off with shotguns. Where’s the problem? That’s an unemployment sollution right there folks, it’s called natural selection…I say we put more messages on the albums, kill the band, then your parents, then yourself.
JIM FIX/SMOKING
Bill Hicks: Remember Jim Fix, that health-nut who died while jogging? Used to write BOOKS about jogging…what do you jot down about jogging? “Left foot, right foot, hemorage.” *beep* Jim…we’re gonna need a happier ending, buddy. Heart-attack while jogging, that’s heavy *beep* I’m glad I stayed inside instead of jogging. I was too busy smoking.
Denis Leary: Remember Jim Fix, the big famous jogging guy? Did a jogging book, did a jogging video, and dropped dead of a massive heart attack WHEN? When he was *beep* jogging, that’s when…it’s always the yogurt, sprout-eating *beep* get run over by a bus driven by a guy who smokes three and a half packs a day. “Sorry officer I didn’t see him, I was too busy smoking.”
LOTS OF MARLBOROS
Bill Hicks: I’m a heavy smoker, I go through about two lighters a day. I lost track of the packs, all that math.
Denis Leary: I love to smoke. I smoke seven thousand packs a day…
SHAMELESS THIEVERY
Bill Hicks: (on nonsmokers) Bunch of whining *beep* maggots.
Denis Leary: (on depressed celebs) Whining *beep* maggots.
ANNOYING NON-SMOKERS
Bill Hicks: Nonsmokers say the stupidest things. “What about second-hand smoke? It’s not just the smoke that you smoke, but the smoke that comes out of you, that’s called secondary-smoke. That’s not good smoke just cause it came out of you.” Shut the *beep* up, right now. Dammit, if I dont smoke, there’s gonna be secondary BULLETS coming your way.
Denis Leary: …you got all these little facts that you dig out of a newspaper or a pamphlet somewhere, and you store that little nugget in your little *beep* head, and you see us light up and you spew ‘em out at us, dont you? (Delivered exactly like Hicks portrayed a nonsmoker): “Well you know, smokin…takes ten years off your life!”
LEARY LIKES THE BOAT LINE
Bill Hicks: MC Hammer, there was another boat that left me on the island. “You wanna get on the Hammer boat with us?” No thanks, I’d rather stay here and eat my own flesh. You could sit and explain it to me from now until the end of time, and I’ll go, *beep* don’t get it, man.”
Denis Leary: …explain it to me, I missed the *beep* point some place, the boat left and I wasn’t on the boat.
AND THE CAPTAIN LINE
Bill Hicks:Everybody, this is your captain speaking. I’ve got some good news and some bad news. The bad news is, we’re going to crash. The good news is, there’s enough time to smoke a cigarette before we do.
Denis Leary:Folks, this is your captain speaking, look uhh, light ‘em up, cuz we’re going down. I got a carton of Camel non-filters, I’ll see you on the ground.
Also, Leary stole the “voicebox”/tracheotomy routine from Hicks, so It is proven beyond any doubt that Leary has stolen. AND ALL FROM THE SAME FRICKIN’ COMIC!!!! “