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STOP ME IF YOU THINK YOU'VE HEARD THIS ONE BEFORE
For a hard-working comedian, hearing someone else ripping off your material is no laughing matter - and the internet doesn't help, writes Anthony Ackroyd.
Nothing causes more animosity in comedy circles than joke stealing, but it is a crime that is notoriously difficult to prove. Unlike music, where it is easy to demonstrate a specific set of notes in one song duplicate those in another - as the Federal Court found with Men At Work's Down Under and those two contentious bars of a flute riff - comedy is more nuanced. It is constructed from ideas, not notation, and you cannot copyright an idea, only the unique expression of that idea. And therein lies the rub: the ways in which that same idea can be expressed are virtually infinite.
After my first open mike spot in 1982, I received a phone call from an irate comic who informed me that the phrase "it's a personal thing" was his and that I must not use it. I was later told my accuser was the biggest joke thief on the circuit. It was my introduction to the heated debate over what constitutes plagiarism in comedy.
Within five years of telling my first joke in a comedy room, two comedians, one in Perth, the other in New Zealand, had started using huge chunks of my material. Both were eventually busted by comics who knew my act. One of them sent me a letter of apology.
Some years later I was accused of plagiarism by a histrionic American comedienne who insisted my gag about a sea slug was too similar to hers about a worm. At a highly charged meeting she brought along a copyright lawyer and I brought along a tape of another comedian doing some of ''her'' material long before she started performing comedy.
The truth is that much perceived plagiarism in comedy can be explained by coincidence, or perhaps more accurately by the synchronicity of creative minds seizing upon funny ideas. I once witnessed, within the space of a month, three comedians in different countries perform a routine about how funny it is to see someone on the street walk into a cobweb and react as if they were suddenly having a fit.
Also, comedians are drawn to similar subject matter - dating, relationships, childhood memories, sex, drugs, day-to-day frustrations and, increasingly, their ethnicity. Unpack any comic's act and you will find at least some jokes resonant of those attributed to other performers. Things get ugly when the similarities between routines are so substantial they seems to defy the laws of probability.
An infamous example is a routine by a US comedian who is dogged by claims of joke theft, Carlos Mencia. In his 2006 TV special No Strings Attached Mencia tells the story of a father who spends painstaking years training his boy to become a football player and is shocked when his adult son is interviewed on TV after his first big win and immediately acknowledges his mother. Bill Cosby, in his 1983 special Bill Cosby, Himself, performed a routine with the same premise, structure, and punchline.
When confronted with Cosby's routine, Mencia claimed he had never heard it. You can judge for yourself. Plagiarism fighters have now adopted video-sharing websites as their weapon of choice. Viewing the video on YouTube juxtaposing Mencia's routine with Cosby's, it's impossible not to notice striking correspondence.
The internet may be an effective tool to expose joke lifting but it has created another problem for comics: plagiarism by their own fans. Comedians' precious one-liners now frequently appear without attribution on joke-sharing websites, in email boxes and in tweets. A comedian performing live may notice that his jokes are falling flat because the audience has just recently read them. It's a no-win situation. When British comedian Gary Delaney demanded the removal of his gags from the online joke forum Sickipedia.org he was attacked for being a spoilsport by his own fans.
Comedians who have their lines lifted sometimes console themselves by saying ''they can steal my jokes but they can't steal me''. This is not always so, as Steve Vizard set out to prove in the early 1990s. Not only did Tonight Live With Steve Vizard replicate the format of Late Night With David Letterman but bizarrely Vizard adopted all of Letterman's mannerisms and speech patterns. When Letterman's show debuted in Australia, Vizard was off air and the similarities escaped scrutiny.
Sadly, while most comedians care passionately about originality, the vast majority of fans don't give a hoot. Dane Cook, one of America's hottest young comics, has sold more than one million copies of Retaliation despite it containing material many consider to be lifted from the comedian Louis CK. The attitude of Cook's fans is typified by a comment posted online: "Wow ya'll should just get over it. He's funny and a few stolen jokes ain't gonna hurt anyone."
David Letterman is said to treat the numerous appropriations of his comedy persona with wry amusement. Such a detached attitude is perhaps the luxury of a man on an annual salary of $45 million or so. For most hard-working comics, denied legal remedy and with an audience largely indifferent to the issue, the pain of plagiarism is no joke.
It's a personal thing.
Anthony Ackroyd is a Sydney comedian and writer.
© Anthony Ackroyd 2010
My latest articles published in Sydney Morning Herald, The Age, Brisbane times, WA Today. (More articles below)
A SORRY STATE OF AFFAIRS IN COMEDY
Anthony Ackroyd
April 30, 2011'Love means never having to say you're sorry,'' Erich Segal told us in the sentimental bestseller for which he is best remembered, Love Story. However, Segal was not only a writer of weepy romances but a distinguished scholar on ancient Roman comedy.
Lecturing one day at Yale he searched for words that could convey to his students the irreverent attitude found in the comic works of Roman playwrights. He finally exclaimed: ''Comedy means never having to say you're sorry.''
Segal made this declaration in the early 1980s when it was for the most part true, but in the past few years there has been a disturbing decline and fall in unapologetic humour. ''Comedy always thrives upon outrage,'' wrote Segal, yet today that outrage is starting to cause legal consequences that may see the thriving of comedy thwarted.
Take the curious case of Cornes v Molloy. A lawyer and one-time political candidate, Nicole Cornes, has alleged that the comedian Mick Molloy defamed her on a Channel Ten football show in 2008 by suggesting she had been unfaithful to her husband, a former AFL coach. Channel Ten's defence is that someone who is well known as a comic made the remark in jest and that it was not intended as a statement of fact.
Molloy's comment was prompted by a column Cornes had written extolling the virtues of the footballer Stuart Dew, including his devotion to his rose garden. On a live broadcast of Before the Game Molloy quipped to Dew: ''And apparently you slept with her, too.''
Molly's joke was a cheap shot but seemed to me little more than a throwaway line made in the context of creating comedy in the moment. The comedian eventually made a public apology to Cornes, which she did not accept.
Molly's joke was a cheap shot but seemed to me little more than a throwaway line made in the context of creating comedy in the moment. The comedian eventually made a public apology to Cornes, which she did not accept.
Molloy is not alone in being a sorry joker; in the past few years many comedians have added themselves to the list of the publicly contrite. Some of these apologies are justified. Russell Brand should have and did offer a mea culpa for making a prank call to a police station during which he pretended to be reporting a sex attacker.
But a worrying number of apologies by comics are a response to an oversensitive literalism that seeks to trample on the transgressive impulses that give much comedy its power.
Recently the comedian Denise Scott apologised for the following joke made during the TV broadcast of the Melbourne International Comedy Festival: ''I can't stand people who say they are alcoholic or have mild Asperger's or coeliac, when the fact is they're just plain old-fashion f---ed up people with a few behavioural problems.''
Viewers of the routine on YouTube expressed their disgust with comments such as, ''On behalf of everyone who has an autism spectrum disorder, that performance was a disgrace.'' Autism Victoria's chief executive officer, Murray Dawson-Smith, claimed Scott was attacking ''people who are not able to defend themselves''.
However, a clear-headed reading of Scott's joke makes it plain that the target was not people with autism but people who inappropriately label themselves in order to justify their behaviour.
Even more puzzling was the criticism Ricky Gervais received for his gags while hosting the Golden Globe awards this year. Wealthy, indulged celebrities claimed to be hurt by Gervais's barbs, such as his suggestion that the award for special effects should go to the guy who airbrushed the Sex and the City 2 poster.
Comedy's natural targets are privilege and pretension, and the perceived vanities of film stars should be fair game. Yet when Gervais refused to apologise, the Hollywood Foreign Press did, saying their awards host ''crossed the line'' with his material. But for the offended who want more than an apology the new frontier is litigation. Jerry Seinfeld was sued by Missy Chase Lapine, a cookbook author who had accused Seinfeld's wife of plagiarism. On the David Letterman show Seinfeld joked that Lapine was a ''three-name woman'' and ''if you read history, many of the three-name people do become assassins''.
The judge dismissed Lapine's claim that Seinfeld had damaged her reputation through his comments on Letterman and said it was obvious the comedian had been joking.
In another bizarre case, the veteran comedian Sundra Croonquist was sued by her husband's family for making ''false and defamatory'' jokes about them, including comparing her sister-in-law's voice to a ''cat in heat''. In a twist fit for a screwball comedy, Croonquist was represented in court by her husband's law firm. The judge ruled that Croonquist's jokes consisted of ''colourful, figurative rhetoric that reasonable minds would not take to be factual''.
So far reasonable minds have prevailed in defamation cases brought against comedians. Judgments have concurred with the position taken by Gervais: ''Just because you are offended, it doesn't mean you're in the right.''
But whether things come up roses in the Cornes-Molloy case remains to be seen.
Certainly the outrageous potential of comedy as an art form should not be thwarted by demands for apology or the pervasive threat of litigation. Otherwise, the title of Segal's final book might prove factual rather than figurative. It's called The Death of Comedy.
© Anthony Ackroyd 2011
FIZZ IS GONE - TIME FOR A TASTE TEST TO FIND REAL THING
Anthony Ackroyd
The numbers were worrying. A drop from 60% to 24% was inspiring the type of panic that causes men to utter those portentous words “something has to change”. With popularity plunging and the traditional competitor gaining traction it was determined that swift action was essential. Indeed action so radical it had never been countenanced before.
Overnight the old model would be cast aside and replaced immediately with a new product that was sure to change the fortunes of a venerable brand whose history stretched back to the late 19th Century yet now was ailing.
Clearly Coca-Cola’s decision to launch New Coke as its flagship beverage in 1985 has some interesting parallels to the Labor Party’s decision to launch Julia Gillard as its new PM in 2010. Both decisions were brought about by an alarmed reaction to a loss of market share. Both were based on the results of sample testing and focused consumer research that supported the need for urgent change and stoked confidence in a positive outcome once that change was made.
And both Coca-Cola and the ALP gave their customers no say in a decision that saw the sudden removal of something they had once liked very much. It all went flat for Coca-Cola but will Julia Gillard prove to be the New Coke of politics?
By 1985 Coca-Cola’s share of the soft drink market had dropped 36% from its high after the USA’s victory in World War II. Coke was a good drink that had lost its way. Faced with a growing number of consumers now preferring the sweeter taste of Pepsi, Coca-Cola’s new CEO Roberto Goizueta instructed his marketing department to develop a response as rapidly as possible.
A sweeter Coke formula was created and market researchers were instructed to conduct taste tests. The feedback was overwhelmingly positive with most people preferring the taste of New Coke over both Pepsi and regular Coke.
Just as some twenty-five years later Labor researchers may have asked sample groups “Would you vote for Labor if Julia Gillard was Prime Minister?” Coca-Cola asked “Would you buy Coca-Cola if it tasted like New Coke?” When the answer was a resounding yes the flavouring dye was cast.
Like the ALP Coca-Cola was initially very pleased when its new brand was launched. Labor’s poll results went north after Gillard became PM and so too did the sales of Coke after New Coke was released. Mission accomplished, as George Bush might say a little prematurely. It wasn’t long before things started to sour.
Despite the initial enthusiasm for New Coke a vocal minority resented the fact that the drink they felt so attached to had been taken from them. Within a short time these dissatisfied customers had exploded in number. Over 400,000 upset cola drinkers flooded Coca-Cola headquarters with angry phone calls, Coke ads were booed at sporting events and talk show hosts mocked New Coke in their monologues. The backlash grew so large that in less than three months after the introduction of their new wonder product Coca-Cola caved in and announced the original Coke would return.
Like the release of New Coke the decision to install Julia Gillard as PM must have made so much sense on paper. Labor hardheads were convinced brand Rudd had reached its use by date and in her role as Deputy PM Gillard shone as a warm, smart human being who could communicate much more effectively than her boss.
However, recent taste tests in the polls indicate that Gillard is losing her fizz with voters. Her identity crisis during the election campaign, the perceived woodiness during the Queensland floods and now the broken promise on the carbon tax have people wondering if Julia is the real thing after all. And there is little doubt that her predecessor still believes he can convince the population that things go better with Kevin.
The prevailing view of political pundits is that the Labor caucus would rather swallow arsenic than stomach Rudd leading the party again. But it’s at least conceivable that if polls continue to deteriorate Labor backbenchers might eventually play a role similar to Coca-Cola’s bottlers in the New Coke saga.
The bottlers initially celebrated the announcement of New Coke, seeing it as the solution to their diminishing sales. But when sales actually worsened they brought pressure to bear on Coca-Cola executives to reverse their decision, with some even threatening boycotts if the old Coke formula was not restored. This was the tipping point that finally forced the resurrection of the old Coke.
"The simple fact is that all the time and money and skill poured into consumer research on the new Coca-Cola could not measure or reveal the deep and abiding emotional attachment to original Coca-Cola felt by so many people" stated Donald Keough, Coca-Cola’s president, when the New Coke saga ended.
Julia Gillard may well recapture her effervescence and avoid the fate of New Coke. But as she experienced back in June last year anything is possible in politics. Classic Kevin versus Malcolm “Old Pepsi” Turnbull in 2013? Consumer research says it couldn’t possibly happen.
Overnight the old model would be cast aside and replaced immediately with a new product that was sure to change the fortunes of a venerable brand whose history stretched back to the late 19th Century yet now was ailing.Clearly Coca-Cola’s decision to launch New Coke as its flagship beverage in 1985 has some interesting parallels to the Labor Party’s decision to launch Julia Gillard as its new PM in 2010. Both decisions were brought about by an alarmed reaction to a loss of market share. Both were based on the results of sample testing and focused consumer research that supported the need for urgent change and stoked confidence in a positive outcome once that change was made.
And both Coca-Cola and the ALP gave their customers no say in a decision that saw the sudden removal of something they had once liked very much. It all went flat for Coca-Cola but will Julia Gillard prove to be the New Coke of politics?
By 1985 Coca-Cola’s share of the soft drink market had dropped 36% from its high after the USA’s victory in World War II. Coke was a good drink that had lost its way. Faced with a growing number of consumers now preferring the sweeter taste of Pepsi, Coca-Cola’s new CEO Roberto Goizueta instructed his marketing department to develop a response as rapidly as possible.
A sweeter Coke formula was created and market researchers were instructed to conduct taste tests. The feedback was overwhelmingly positive with most people preferring the taste of New Coke over both Pepsi and regular Coke.
Just as some twenty-five years later Labor researchers may have asked sample groups “Would you vote for Labor if Julia Gillard was Prime Minister?” Coca-Cola asked “Would you buy Coca-Cola if it tasted like New Coke?” When the answer was a resounding yes the flavouring dye was cast.
Like the ALP Coca-Cola was initially very pleased when its new brand was launched. Labor’s poll results went north after Gillard became PM and so too did the sales of Coke after New Coke was released. Mission accomplished, as George Bush might say a little prematurely. It wasn’t long before things started to sour.
Despite the initial enthusiasm for New Coke a vocal minority resented the fact that the drink they felt so attached to had been taken from them. Within a short time these dissatisfied customers had exploded in number. Over 400,000 upset cola drinkers flooded Coca-Cola headquarters with angry phone calls, Coke ads were booed at sporting events and talk show hosts mocked New Coke in their monologues. The backlash grew so large that in less than three months after the introduction of their new wonder product Coca-Cola caved in and announced the original Coke would return.
Like the release of New Coke the decision to install Julia Gillard as PM must have made so much sense on paper. Labor hardheads were convinced brand Rudd had reached its use by date and in her role as Deputy PM Gillard shone as a warm, smart human being who could communicate much more effectively than her boss.
However, recent taste tests in the polls indicate that Gillard is losing her fizz with voters. Her identity crisis during the election campaign, the perceived woodiness during the Queensland floods and now the broken promise on the carbon tax have people wondering if Julia is the real thing after all. And there is little doubt that her predecessor still believes he can convince the population that things go better with Kevin.
The prevailing view of political pundits is that the Labor caucus would rather swallow arsenic than stomach Rudd leading the party again. But it’s at least conceivable that if polls continue to deteriorate Labor backbenchers might eventually play a role similar to Coca-Cola’s bottlers in the New Coke saga.
The bottlers initially celebrated the announcement of New Coke, seeing it as the solution to their diminishing sales. But when sales actually worsened they brought pressure to bear on Coca-Cola executives to reverse their decision, with some even threatening boycotts if the old Coke formula was not restored. This was the tipping point that finally forced the resurrection of the old Coke.
"The simple fact is that all the time and money and skill poured into consumer research on the new Coca-Cola could not measure or reveal the deep and abiding emotional attachment to original Coca-Cola felt by so many people" stated Donald Keough, Coca-Cola’s president, when the New Coke saga ended.
Julia Gillard may well recapture her effervescence and avoid the fate of New Coke. But as she experienced back in June last year anything is possible in politics. Classic Kevin versus Malcolm “Old Pepsi” Turnbull in 2013? Consumer research says it couldn’t possibly happen.
© Anthony Ackroyd 2011
The following articles written by Anthony Ackroyd were published in Sydney Morning Herald, The Age, Brisbane Times, WA Today.
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