Unfair advantage

Last Saturday’s “It’s Showtime” cut the number of finalists in the show’s “The Funny One” search for new comedians down from eight to six—and confirmed our worst fears: Of the three acts up for elimination, the lone solo finalist, TJ, was booted out, while the two duos, Crazy Duo and the Iskubi Duo, remained “alive.”

Thus, this week, the tilt has for its competing finalists only two solo comedians, Ryan Rems and Gibis, while all three of its group acts including the trio, No Direction, are holding on.

This proves that group acts have an unfair advantage in the competition, so solo artists and their cadres of fans should protest.

Last Saturday’s telecast was particularly frustrating to TJ, who put up a bravura show that was truly creative and very difficult to pull off, but lost to the less remarkable performances of the two group acts he was unfairly pitted against.

TJ and another “loser” in the tilt, Bob, should be given a third chance to make it in the biz by other shows’ producers, because they’re good.

REMS. Savvy mix of “masa” cracks and insightful humor.

Gambits

It’s just that “The Funny One” and its three celebrity and 51 other judges didn’t “go” for their more artistic and conceptual comedy, and instead went for the group acts’ slapstick-y schtick and the surviving solo acts’ more masa-friendly gambits.

We should note, however, that frontrunner Ryan Rems comes up with a savvy mix of masa cracks and insightful humor—which makes him unique in the tilt—and, this early, our bet for running away with the competition’s top plum—in only a few weeks’ time.

To do that, however, he has to singlehandedly counter the combined comedic firepower of the group acts—and, given the jurors’ “indicative” verdicts in the past, that’ll take a lot of doing.