Everyone has been talking about Michael Richards’ (Kramer from Seinfeld) tirade over the weekend when he went off the deep end at some hecklers during one of his stand up routines. I finally got around to watching a clip of the spectacle on YouTube and really couldn’t believe what I saw. I’ve never found the guy that funny to begin with, but it seems to me that if you’re able to go off like that then man you’ve got some stuff buried deep in your psyche that you’ve got to work out.
Like many others have commented elsewhere, I really don’t understand this whole “heckling” thing during stand-up comedy. I don’t think I’ve ever been to a Broadway show where an audience member stood up and started participating in the play by yelling lines from the audience. Not once can I think of an instance where a customer stood up at Bertucci’s and yelled at the folks behind the counter, “Honey, throw some cheese on that pie. Yeah, yeah, throw some cheese on that pizza. Dude, that ain’t cheese, throw some really cheese on that pizza.” I mean, c’mon on now. You can laugh out loud at stand up comics but yell things back at them without being spoken to first, well, that’s just wrong.
That being said, I think Michael Richards went away off the deep end there. He wasn’t living up to “The Laugh Factory” sign behind him on the stage. It seemed more like a “Destruction Factory” as whatever was left of his career is probably sitting like a puddle on the stage now.
If it hasn’t crawled into the corner.
