The History of Za, Part III
Well, no-one bit, but I'll try it out anyway, since I'm still positive that no one will be able to take my crown on this one.
"Most Out-There, What the Fuck?! Joke Ever To Be Told During a Show", anyone? (Come and have a go if you think you're hard enough...)
"Most Out-There, What the Fuck?! Joke Ever To Be Told During a Show", anyone? (Come and have a go if you think you're hard enough...)
posted by Toby Miller at 11/20/2004 06:03:00 PM
8 Comments:
I'll take the bait.
Basement Tapes 1995.
Skit: Ann Pacquin gets her ass kicked.
Premise: Well, Anna Pacquin (played by Sean Kelley on his knees) is giving an acceptance speech. Members of Za walk up on stage one at a time and beat her up while providing an insult. [Note: I objected to this skit from the outset -- violence against little girls really isn't funny.] A sample joke:
Sean: It will no longer go from here to there; there will be no there (from the famous MCI commercial).
Goose: That's me kicking you here and there and here and there (or something like that).
Good taste, right? How could it go any lower? Well, Betsy Moore '96 (the girl we axed the day she baked us lemon squares) found a way. Betsy walks on the stage, breaks Anna Pacquin's arm and says, "Brainless cunt."
Seeing it written doesn't really capture the shock value in person. The (sparse) audience was generally receptive to the skit and a collective gasp escaped the lips of horrified veiwers. The few friends I had at the show (signifying both my loner status at Williams as well as Za's lack of prominence) talked about it for weeks afterward.
Don't ask me why it is out of bounds to call a ten year old a "brainless cunt," but it is perfectly acceptable to beat the snot out of her. Violence against women can be hip as long as no dirty language is used?
Another great Betsy moment was during First line. She took the prop (a big floppy canvass hat with chin strap, I believe), hung it between her knees and explained it was for women with really "heavy flow." Every woman I know who saw the scene thought it was absolutely disgusting (guys didn't have the same reaction for some reason). In fact, two of my female friends refered to Betsy as "Heavy Flow Woman" for the rest of our college days. When I showed the tapes to my post-college girlfriend, she also independently coined the name and asked how many more shows would have "heavy flow woman." Apparently, that was out of bounds as well.
In retrospect, I think both jokes are funny (within the context of an offensive scene), but sure scandalized some members of the audience.
I'll take advantage of this thread to clear up the "cum on my titties" nonsense. I cannot remember the phrase being uttered during my four years in the group. I recall no stories of the phrase being used prior to my tenure.
What I do remember is during the 2000 reunion, Channing used the phrase "cum on my titties" during History of. The audience laughed, but there were many among the older cohort who were taken aback by the use of a phrase that none of us would ever have dared to utter on stage. A couple of obvious take away lessons:
1) A different set of jokes can be used when there are multiple women in the group;
2) Standards of decency had changed in both the group and the audience. We were obviously old and out of touch.
The line made Dirck Fuller's reference to oral sex during the 1995 reunion (in Voies) seem pretty tame. One of the characters got down on his knees in front of the other character, so Dirck came out with "Here, let me please you." That joke might have received the biggest laugh of the night.
Now that I explained the story, I see no more reason to use the phrase C.O.M.T.
Didn't Betsy Spear drop the c-bomb in some skit between 1997-99? Even if she did, it had to be prior to the "Cunt Cake" skit that we did in Basement Tapes in 98 or 99, which I only vaguely remember.
It is very true that tastes change. In no less mainstream a movie as Mean Girls from this spring, rated PG-13, there is a joke about a girl who has a heavy flow because, in the movie's words, "I have a wide-set vagina".
So things change.
I just remembered another unfortunate skit moment: some show probably in 97-98, we were performing Styles, and Dave Taylor is performing and given the style "Blaxploitation" which as we all know refers to such movies as Shaft and Foxy Brown. Unfortunately Dave is not up on his cinema history and proceeds to go into a full-out D.W. Griffith stereotype of black people, doing a southern accent and probably including watermelons and the word "Massa" into the scene.
It was rather painful.
blacksploitation was the most uncomfortable i have ever been in combo za's presence.
and i was in the audience.
apparently there's a reunion or something? i haven't gotten any emails or nuthin. rtrumbul@wso.williams.edu.
what the fuck?
"I'm too much of a gentleman to call you cowards out (you know who you are)." Hmm . . . could it be the guy you pinned up against the wall as you screamed, "This is all your fault, Nickerson!" I admit that I initiated the move to axe Betsy. I've given the decision a lot of thought over the years. I'm certainly not proud of the decision, but I'm not wholly apologetic either. I offer the following as an explanation of the events and my thinking, I submit it to the court of public opinion.
Why did I want axe Betsy? First and foremost, she had no stage presence. It almost always comedic death when she was on stage. The audience just did not respond to her. It's not because she wasn't funny. She was (and I assume still is). I am particularly fond of her discussion of "that homemade cheese that I do" during Evil Avenger. Watching over the tapes, her jokes have aged well and are funnier than many other crowd favorites in Za. Watching over the tapes, one also notices the distinct absense of laughter from the audience. Betsy was funny (in a quirky type of way), but sucked the energy out of a performance. It works on the TV, but not on stage.
The second reason I thought she should leave is that she didn't fit in socially. Betsy was super nice: she brought us baked goods for christ's sake. But did she have anything in common with the rest of us? Conversations with her were awkward once it got past classes. Not drinking had nothing to do with my thoughts -- I wasn't drinking with the group either.
There seemed to be two aspects of Za: performance and social. She didn't fit in well in either aspect. The solution seemed obvious. But perhaps it was only my perception. Maybe others thought differently. So I took an informal straw poll of members of the group. Guess what, almost everyone shared my opinion. Some people pointed to additional problems. For instance, some of the drinkers were made uncomfortable by Betsy during after show festivities (and perhaps she was judging the drunken foolishness ... y'all weren't exactly at your finest). Other people pointed to a string of shocking statements made on stage (a couple of which I mentioned above -- and I didn't personally find inappropriate). The bottom line was that people felt that Betsy didn't fit in. Combo Za is an improv comedy group: why keep around someone who doesn't seem to fit in on-stage or off?
So we met in Heather's suite in Greylock to discuss the axing just before auditions. I don't think we had practiced yet. Fagan excused himself from the conversation since he had been in Japan the year before. Julie defered a bit as well since she had been in Chile fall semester. Jason, you were the only one who spoke out in Betsy's defense. You even suggested a plan where Betsy would only go on stage with you and Fagan -- big stage personalities. Everyone else agreed that scenario wouldn't work well. The concensus very quickly formed that we needed to axe Betsy. I'm not sure why. Perhaps it is like Pandora's Box -- once the group has admitted that a person is not well received by the audience and not fun to hang out with, then there is no going back.
So then it came time to choose who would give Betsy the bad news. The only part of your description that I disagree with is that you were nominated. I initially volunteered. Heather, Julie, and Steve thought it was a very bad idea for me to tell Betsy. I guess I was deemed insufficiently sensitive and the news should come from a senior member of the group. Heather thought she should go because she had pre-med classes with Betsy. You and Sean also volunteered. We sent three of the most sensitive members of Za to do the dirty deed. In retrospect, it was probably not the ideal composition for the committee.
I reject the notion that I unilaterally decided to give Betsy the boot and then made you do the dirty work. That version of events defies credibility. I cannot think of a social organization where a member in low standing (sophomore, whose stage performances were spotty his first year) could somehow trump the opinion of a high standing member (senior, beloved by the others, and a favorite of the small, but devoted Za audience). Moreover, the low standing member forced the high standing member to do something? I might be a manipulative son-of-a-bitch you have no respect for, but it wasn't only me -- I was just the one willing to say what most of the group was thinking.
The auditions went well. We snagged Peter, Felipe, and Rich. Fagan was back. The group came together socially and artistically your senior year. Would these events have happened were Betsy in the group, probably, but history wasn't written that way so we could never know for sure. I am fairly confident when I say that the biggest reasons for the success were the new members (including Fagan) and not Betsy's expulsion from the group.
As I said, I have given the events a lot of thought over the years. In retrospect, why did I put people through emotional turmoil because Betsy had no stage presence and made social gatherings a little awkward? It's not like Combo Za was important in the grand scheme of things. Things like audience appreciation or singing "Hard to Handle" after a show that seem important at age 20, have a way of appearing pretty minor ten years removed. Since I work at a university, I see the same dynamic played out all the time. Students invest so much emotional energy into otherwise inconsequential groups. Lots of sturm and drang occur, feelings are hurt, and for no good reason. So I am often left with, well, we crushed Betsy and it wouldn't have hurt us to keep her in the group. So the shows would have more dead spots and hanging out would be slightly awkward; big deal. We shouldn't have hurt Betsy like that over something so minor.
But you know what, the logic works the other way as well. If Combo Za was so inconsequential, Betsy should be able to get over it and her life would go on. A college improv group has two primary functions: a) performing; b) hanging out. She didn't fit into either one.
What lessons did we take from the event?
Lesson 1: I'm an asshole. Fine.
Lesson 2: Don't take people with no stage presence during tryouts. If you can't fill a room in Bronfman, good luck in Courier or Brooks-Rogers. Since Betsy was part of my entering class, I obviously wasn't party to the negotiations. However, one of the things that came out during the expulsion discussion is that Betsy was viewed as a project by almost everyone who supported her admission. The group recognized that stage presence was going to be a problem at auditions. Guess what, it didn't improve over the year. As a result, we openly discussed stage presence during every audition thereafter. We turned down many funny individuals because we were uncertain how the performance would look on a bigger stage.
Jason, the success of the group during your senior year shouldn't be a guilty pleasure. You worked hard and were a big reason for the capacity crowds, laughter, and fun. You stood up for someone you liked. You also wanted the news to come from a sympathetic shoulder. Good stuff. You're a nice guy.
You used this post as a way of clearing the air. Fine by me. Glad you got it off your chest and wish you had done so at the 2000 reunion. I offer this as a fuller explanation, not an apology. I might have been calous and too instrumental in my thinking. I'm older and wiser now. If I had it to do over again, I am not sure what decision I would make.
The David Taylor blaxsploitation moment happened during spring of 1997 in a show at Spencer. Might have been the Wheel of Doom (since Steve, Peter, and I lived in Spencer, we hosted several shows in the living room -- easy to have the President and Treasurer agree when they are in the group). The skit was Styles and blaxsploitation was the genre. David Taylor had never heard the term, so he did use a alot of "Massa" and "watermelon." I think Jeff is right that it might be the most uncomfortable moment I've ever seen on stage. Just to re-iterate, the souce of the problem was that David Taylor had never heard the term before. He's not racist and was more embarassed than anyone else by the entire episode.
In retrospect, a bunch of Williams students shouldn't be doing blaxsploitation in any case. Pimps, players, and private eyes just doesn't seem to sound right coming from upper-class honkies.
Was wondering when someone was going to get this -- to this day, I'm a little shocked, yet also more than a little proud of my own line regarding the Stones' "Sympathy for the Devil", proud since that's the spirit of a performing comedian, to go out there and do what you think is funny, no matter what, and shocked for the very same reason. People didn't really grok to my vibe as you did WB, so I can't say whether it is indeed to most bizarre joke ever told on stage...but nothing so far said leads me to believe that my self-designation is in error on this one.
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