Comedic tilt pares down its finalists

“SHOWTIME’S” STRUGGLING COMICS. No easy task!

LAST SATURDAY, “It’s Showtime’s” search for new male comedians held its first elimination round, in which the five acts that lost in the past week’s daily square-offs competed anew—and were pared down to three.

The two comics who were eliminated were far off the mark because they were too loud and livid in their comedy, “pushing” jokes to the max that really weren’t all that inherently funny. In fact, it was both a wonderment and a puzzlement how they ended up among the tilt’s 10 “finalists,” after an ostensibly “national” search.

The panel that did the “extensive” search should raise their standards, because the two (eventual) rejects simply didn’t cut it.

Genuinely bemusing

As for the week’s survivors, their jokes were more genuinely bemusing, so they have what it takes. Why did they lose in last week’s daily rounds? Perhaps the comic they were competing against was especially talented, so they lost out only on points. That’s why last Saturday’s “second chance” round for the first week’s “losers” was a good move.

As for the strongest bets in the tilt, we haven’t been watching the contest all that regularly, but we surmise that “handsome Bob” is a frontrunner. We were able to catch his performance in the daily rounds, and can report that he isn’t just “not ugly”—but also funny!

Even better, to get a loud laugh, he was ready, willing and able to use his facial features and body in unorthodox ways that some other goodlooking performers may balk at or think “beneath” them. Well, not “handsome Bob.” He did everything to make viewers laugh—and he succeeded!

Hearty laughs

—Which is not to say that the other surviving acts are pushovers. Some of them cracked jokes that got hearty laughs, because they were keenly observed indications of how stuffy, self-important people behave.

One of the jokes that delighted viewers and the studio audience was a satirical observation, to wit (paraphrased in English): “It’s a good thing that the Pyramids were built in Egypt. If they were constructed in the Philippines, after only a few years, they would smell of—urine! —And, to make things all the more ironic, only a few feet away, there would invariably be a sign—‘Bawal ang umihi dito!’”

Original jokes

We hope that, as the tilt keeps paring down its finalists, the survivors will continue to come up with original jokes and satirical observations to keep us jovially delighted.

That won’t be an easy task, because the minute they crack a new joke on TV, many viewers will hear it, and the comics can’t use it in their acts again!

Well, that’s one drawback of joining a TV competition for new comedians—but, the tilt’s huge prizes are there to make up for it!