Joke Writing vs. Character in Comedy — Ep. 005

Joke writing versus character is the test this episode runs on stand-up comedy: does a set live or die on the jokes themselves, or on the character performing them? Kelly, Robbie, and Kate of the Rose City Comedy Collective break down Louis C.K.'s delivery, Sebastian Maniscalco's physicality, and Stephen Wright's decades-old Johnny Carson bit to separate writing from performance, and borrow Bob Odenkirk's line that a dangerous performer can outshine a technically good writer. Kate and Robbie map their own stage personas on a "degrees of separation" scale — how far a character sits from who they actually are — using Larry the Cable Guy and Emo Phillips as the extreme end, and debate what happens when a character gets away from its comic or goes stale.