No one heckles quite like hecklers at a comedy show. You wouldn't hear someone yell their opinions at a solo jazz performer or a ballerina, but when an audience sees a funny person standing on stage with a mic, there's often one or two people who demand to have their voices (usually drunk voices) heard.
The recent Daniel Tosh incident reminds us that the way a comedian responds to a heckler can become an issue outside of the club. There's also a great documentary about hecklers on Netflix that highlights the many ways hecklers can be dealt with, and a wealth of video evidence on YouTube.
Below you'll see 19 examples of how comedians can handle a heckler, including brutal takedowns, full-on breakdowns and some ridiculously witty retorts. From Mitch Hedberg's gentle chat to Bill Hicks' expletive-filled rant, there's more than one way to handle a heckler -- some more effective than others.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/07/21/comedians-confronting-hecklers-video_n_1690606.html?utm_hp_ref=comedy#slide=more239501
Here are two of my favorites:
Jamie Kennedy
A heckler finds it really important for Kennedy to know that a waitress should actually be called a "server." "Well, I'd like you to serve your mouth shut," he responds, among other things.
And here, of course, is my all-time favorite, Bill Hicks, having a complete, unhinged meltdown at a woman who says he sucks:
I've never understood why people think they should speak at someone's show. Back when I played that shithole in Orlando, I'd just throw the microphone down and leap off the stage and scream in the heckler's face.
Times have changed for me. I'm movin' on up. Most of my hecklers these days are United States prosecutors who smooth their hair and clear their throats and tell me they want to indict me for quoting myself. So in this high-class shithole I play these days, my methods have changed too. I've mellowed. I'm more seasoned. I've become more Zen-like in my acknowledgement that I am doing a high wire act that could all go so terribly wrong at any moment. I call it my "iron hand in silk glove" approach:
"Sweetheart, you know there's a nuclear weapon under your seat, right? Yeah, this country's been used like a hooker for decades. And to compel her compliance, the intelligence agencies who conquered your nation have planted nuclear weapons in various American cities, including the very city where you go to work every day, Washington.
"This is a very delicate operation. It's push/pull: first this way, then that way. Over and under, slowly but surely unraveling that tangled ball we find ourselves in. But, see, you're throwin' me off my game. Every time I have to respond to some cockamamie nonsense out of your mouth, I get flustered. And then I have to get back on track. And if I fat-finger something or fumble something and say the wrong thing, that towering spire of competing, interacting political considerations that we call this colossal fuckjob of a mess we're in comes crashing down, thus calling into being a sequence of events that causes those weapons to detonate.
"So with your permission, I'd like to finish my routine in peace, okay? Trust me, I got it all figured out. Let me work."
