(Reprinted with permission from http://www.buddyflip.com )
OK let’s start with the title cause most of you under 40 probably don’t even know what I’m referring to. ‘They Shoot Horses, Don’t They?” was a depressing film from 1969 about a group of desperate people in 1930′s depression era America who enter a dance marathon to win money. As the film progresses, the characters get more depressed until one asks another to kill her and he does. When they asked him why, he replies, ‘They shoot horses don’t they?”
Which I don’t know if they still do or not but in the ‘old days’ if a horse was injured, broke a leg for example, they would shoot the horse since he was of no value to whoever was using him.
So with that out of the way, let’s talk about what this article is about: What do comedians do over 50?
I ask that question because standup comedy, like everything else in entertainment, is ruled by youth. You don’t see a lot of comics over 40 making their debut on The Tonight Show. You won’t see a comic over 50 suddenly showing up in their own new sitcom. It’s never personal, it’s business. The comic is a product and the ‘industry’ wants products with the longest shelf life possible.
I was 30 and so excited to be a comedian. I was gonna make it big and become a big star. I think most comics starting out think that (by the way, starting to be a comedian at 30? a little old already). Eventually for most comedians (like 99.999999%) you don’t become a big famous comedy star and while that sucks, if you’re lucky, you can still work as a comic and maybe even eak out a little living doing so. I stress ‘little’.
So you keep on going (if they let you) and now you’re 40 and you still think you got a shot a being big but you know somewhere in the back of your head that the odds are diminishing as you age. So you go out and do those gigs you been doing for a while but now you notice something strange, you’re going back to gigs you’ve done over and over and it looks like the audience isn’t aging but you are. There’s a club in Hartford CT that I work at. I was there as the feature act (the act in the middle of three acts) for about 5 or 6 years and then was moved up to headliner for another 7 or 8 years. I would notice as I got into my mid forties that the crowd at this club was STILL mostly in their 20′s but I was aging. I also noticed that some of my material wasn’t going over with 20 somethings as some of my material was designed by and for people my own age.
I could scan TV & Music and try to add references to pop culture that 20 somethings knew. I’ve seen other, older, comedians do that but I wasn’t going to do that cause i thought it was ridiculous.
So is there life after 50 for the comedian? The answer is yes.
If you’ve been a comic for 15, 20, 25 or more years, you’ve probably have an experience and know how that a younger comedians doesn’t have. This will come in handy for some of the new gigs you can be doing:
1) Private Parties - This is a big one for me. Since 2008, I’ve performed at almost 200 private parties. The vast majority of these private parties tend to be for people in my own age range. You have to remember as people get older, get married, have kids, buy homes, they tend to go out ‘partying’ less and start to have more affairs at home. So instead of going out to see entertainment, you get a lot of people hiring entertainment to come to their home. A lot of birthday parties, retirement, anniversary, Halloween and many other kinds.
2) Corporate Events - These are tough to get cause they usually pay very well so lots of comedians are competing for these. These shows are usually very clean and non offensive.
3) Auctions - I’ve done a few of these. When I got the first one, I just said sure I can do it (although I’ve never done one before). I figured I’d seen a bunch on TV and how hard could it be. Well it wasn’t that hard but it wasn’t like it was on TV. I went in with my preconceptions and, as usual, the reality was different so I worked with it.
4) Casinos - Las Vegas and Atlantic City are the homes for live entertainment. In any one audience you will find people from all over the country so you know you better have something in your comedy arsenal for everyone. Also that means you’ll have to make sure you don’t offend anyone if you’d like to appear there again in the future. The same goes for ….
5) Cruises - Most of you may have some idea how much a cruise costs, a LOT. Thousands of dollars for a week of living in a rocking closet. But you get the high seas, all the food you could ever eat, a mall and of course, entertainment. This is even more emphasis on being clean than at casinos, so if you don’t want to ‘walk the plank’ (young people look it up) you better be clean. Odds are if you’re an older comedian, you’ll have a better chance of booking this gig. Couples celebrating their 50th wedding anniversary who are spending $10,000 on this cruise do NOT want to hear a 20 something talk about their adventures on facebook.
And that’s what makes the older performer more valuable, their experience. A younger comedian will not have the experience to know not to be offensive or dirty. A lot of these affairs may even have children (which by time you’re older, hopefully you will have dealt with a few children in your life) and younger comics have too much material about how they don’t like or how useless children are. I completely understand that attitude at 22 years old but your private party clients won’t.
So to wrap it up, getting older as a comedian may mean that you’re not gonna play ‘young’ clubs as much or your ‘window’ for your sitcom maybe just a crack by now, but the reality is there’s a whole new slew of opportunities for you and your unique experience that you’ve build up over the years doing what you love to do, make people laugh.
Good luck and go get ‘em.