Karl Chandler is 100 Jokes Per Hour : Interview

Karl Chandler is back with a clumsily titled show, and 100 clever jokes. Don’t believe there’s 100? Well, come along and count them…and not concentrate on the punchlines… and miss the funny bits.

WATCH OUT FOR | COMEDY’s Sean Lynch and Lisa Dib caught up with the Melbourne comedian who has appeared on Channel 31’s “Studio A” and written for “Rove” and Channel Seven’s “The White Room”.

Tell us about yourself Karl Chandler, old mate.

Well, I’m doing my second solo show this year, called “Karl Chandler is 100 Jokes Per Hour”, so I’m guaranteeing you a heap of short jokes, if that’s your thing. Most of them are pretty good I think. I generally don’t use the ones that no one laughs at.

Your Comedy Festival show is called “100 Jokes Per Hour”… 25 jokes less than last years “125 Jokes”… is that laziness, or you’ve just started slurring your words so much now that you can’t fit as many in?

Well, I had a stroke early this year, so thanks a lot for reminding me of my recent disability, and failed attempt to adjust back into the comedy world without anyone noticing. But no… “Mr. Watch Out For” HAD to tease the cripple.

On a seriouser and less-lying-about-a-stroke note, this show DOES have less jokes than last year… but to be honest… last year I made up that number at the start of the run, and it didn’t fit the hour show format. So we shortened the number of jokes down until it did fit.

So if there was a two-part joke, we counted that as two jokes rather than one.

OK, you read it here first. Mike Munro couldn’t get it out of me, but you could. Satisfied?

Considering the comedic trends lately of avoiding jokes, and opting for “whimsy”, what made you decide on this type of traditional “gag and punchline” show?

It’s all I can do. I don’t even know what “whimsy” actually means. It’s a noise a horse makes, right?

Who are your comedy idols?

Standup-wise, probably the obvious short joke writers that you’d expect: Steven Wright, Mitch Hedberg, Demetri Martin, Zach Galifiniakis, Ugly Dave Gray.

Will your girlfriend be returning this year, or has she gone all “Destinys Child” and going solo?

Well, she got the biggest laughs in the whole show last year. So obviously, no, she won’t be returning.

I told her the Comedy Festival isn’t on this year. And that every night for a month, I’ll be going out at 7.15pm, to Fight Club. And she knows better than to ask questions about that.

You quite often get labelled “clever”. How do you tackle the notion of intellectual division in comedy (ie; toilet humour being “better” than the New Yorker cartoons)?

There’s room for everything. I like a great toilet humour joke better than a bad joke about algebra. If it’s a good joke, I guess it’s a good joke. Personally, I’m just trying to think of ideas I haven’t heard before.

Can you give us a preview of the kind of gold we can expect in your show?

Didn’t you read that awesome “whimsy” joke I did a couple of questions ago? Sheesh. OK, how about a joke that didn’t get used on the show I was writing for:

I relate to Deal or No Deal. Because I also carry around a suitcase containing only fifty cents.

You also have a hand in the Monday night comedy at Spleen bar in Melbourne. Tell us about it.

Well, myself, Steele Saunders and Pete Sharkey have been running Comedy@Spleen on Mondays for nearly two years now… and we’ve seen it go from our first night, when not even the comics turned up, to it being completely filled every week, 30 minutes before showtime. And having great acts asking to be on, like Pete Helliar, Charlie Pickering, Fiona O’Loughlin, Frank Woodley and more.

But mainly what I’m trying to say is: I still remember those comics that didn’t turn up the first night, and I will tramp down the dirt on their graves.

You’ve ventured into TV in the last year. Explain what your experiences were like, how did you deal having to write jokes for others? Is it an odd sensations to hear someone else saying your words?

I like thinking of funny stuff for a living. The oddest sensation is when the jokes are changed, or performed in the wrong way. And the joke dies. Then I feel bad, but it’s kinda like me selling someone a car, and them taking a wheel off, and then remarking it doesn’t drive that well.

Yes kids, if you can make a simile that well, you are bound for big-time showbiz.

We love our Viral Videos at WATCH OUT FOR | COMEDY, Do you have any particular favourite internet viral videos at the moment?

Hmm… now that I’m not in an office job, I don’t get to waste as much time with internet videos, so I’m not up on the latest ones. My all-time favorite was the ugly Scottish woman from that talent show, singing a song. Haha, she was so ugly.

You’ve just come back from New York, what’s the comedy scene like over there compared to Melbourne?

I guess it’s a lot healthier, in that there is a ton of clubs, and it’s an expected thing for comics to get regularly paid. Whereas here, it’s a lot harder to make a living purely from standup. As for the quality… I saw plenty of good acts and plenty of bad acts.

I’m sure it’s like that the world over.

Who else should we “Watch Out For” at this year’s Comedy Festival?

Well, I’m contractually-bound to big up my old Studio A cohorts, or as I call them “The Biggest Little Dickheads in the World”. That is, Dave Thornton, Tommy Dassalo, Tommy Little, Oliver Clark and Tom Ballard.

Particularly Ballard, as he’s been struggling for recognition lately.

Finally – a question we ask everyone – if you were about to die a horrible graphic history making death and the last words you heard was someone yelling out to save you… what would you like this unfinished sentence to say “KARL, WATCH OUT FOR…..??? “

Christina Hendricks from Mad Men with her horrific-death-fixing-sex that she’s about to do to you! And by “Watch Out For”, I mean, “enjoy”.

Karl Chandler is  100 Jokes Per Hour

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