(see also: top 3 best years of the year)

(upon re reading this I think I should have established that Sam's special is a lovely example of playing with the form & that's why i quote replied w/ that one as the starting point. oops!!)

opportunities, and they'll do something really fun with it.

also really liked the jokes in this one - might be slightly biased on that angle but i really think it's worth watching. its just a treat

I'm a fan of watching standard tapings too - sometimes I want to experience the joy of what was delivered in the room - but every so often a comic will come along and decide to consider a special as an opportunity to deliver something to a different audience, with different expectations, & different

I think Alice Fraser is another touch point of ppl who have done this, likewise Maria Bamford, Garfunkel & Oates. It's not super uncommon, but compared to the standard MO of taping this year's material across one or two nights, it's the lesser chosen route

a really beautiful way it's done is in Midnight Porridge by Josh Kingsford (an actual video essayist lol & v good stand up) - filming on different locations was less jarring b/c he decided to intersperse the clips with a short film of a teddy bear that complemented the arc of the show

in Stewart Lee's Comedy Vehicle he interspersed his stand up w/ interview clips of himself talking to an interrogate throughout

& it makes sense! he's taping a special, not just doing another date on his tour. Hanninal Buress (iirc) edited his special to bring non-diegetic distorted visuals while talking about an acid trip he had

in Bo Burnham's what. he tells the audience that he has a joke about video editors, where he says 'video editors are so fucking' / 'so this next bit is a poem' - it's a moment in the special where he is making jokes deliberately for an audience at home, rather than the ppl in the room

4. macklemore should do the ice bucket challenge

3. i like doing stand up because it means i get to wear makeup and dresees - it's super fun to wear makeup on stage! im just like Eddie Izzard

2. every woman i hook up with keeps coming out as gay

1. sometimes i see my reflection in shop windows and think im looking at a pretty girl and isn't that EMBARRASSING

here are the things i thought were relevant as a 19 year old boy:

before getting into stand up in my 20s i did a tiny amount of gigs as a teen and oh boy