785: Open Mic Night

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Open Mic Night

Title text: Ever notice how the more successful observational comics become, the more their jokes focus on flying and hotels?

Explanation

Aphasia is the disturbance in formulation and comprehension of language. This class of language disorder ranges from having difficulty remembering words to being completely unable to speak, read, or write.

A heckler in the audience fired a yo mama joke at Black Hat (probably "when yo mama sits around the house, she sits around the house"). Black Hat's response is a little less direct.

The third panel is a reference to the Quine paradox:

"Yields falsehood when preceded by its quotation" yields falsehood when preceded by its quotation.

The sentence is another way of saying "this statement is false" but without the explicit self-reference. Named after the paradox, a quine is also a computer program which outputs its own source code.

The title text continues the riff on different kinds of stand-up comedians. Observational humor is a joke that presents a typical real-life situation humorously, often with a touch of exaggeration. (One webcomic that relies heavily on observational humor is Doghouse Diaries.) The title text is likely referring to stand-up comedians, like Jerry Seinfeld, who use observational humor. When an observational comic becomes more successful, the author will probably "go on tour" resulting in a great deal of travel. This gives him or her lots of experience with airplanes and hotels, and more jokes about them will show up in the routine. Furthermore, the title text is itself an observational joke.

Transcript

[Megan on stage, holding microphone, hip-hop stance.]

Megan: Yo, I'm M.C. Aphasia and I'm here to say that, I... uh... um... hi?

[Black Hat on stage, holding microphone.]

Black Hat: So I... oh? Does she? Well, when yo mama sits around the house, she finds herself wishing she'd finished her degree instead of having kids right away, maybe started that business. Then she might have created something she's proud of.

[Cueball on stage, holding microphone, fist pumping toward audience.]

Cueball: Yo, I'm M.C. Quine and I'm here to say, "Yo, I'm M.C. Quine and I'm here to say!"

[Beret Guy on stage, holding microphone.]

Beret Guy: Ever notice how men go to the restroom alone, while women go in hordes ten thousand strong, clad all in sable armor and bristling with swords and spears?

Audience member: Those are orcs.

Beret Guy: Oh.

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Discussion

Any clue about panel 4? Alpha (talk) 22:25, 22 February 2013 (UTC)

It's a WoW/LoR reference. 99.14.216.36 16:09, 29 March 2013 (UTC)

It begins like common notice "Ever notice how men go to the restroom alone, while women go ..." and you would expect it continued with "in pairs" / "in groups", perhaps "in hordes"... and then you get description of "hordes of Orcs" (tongue-in-cheek explanation) --JakubNarebski (talk) 16:34, 4 June 2013 (UTC)

I think it's much more likely that, in the title text, "observational comic" refers to a stand-up comedian who uses observational humor, like Jerry Seinfeld. Comedians are often called comics, and a stand-up comic often travels to different cities in the course of his or her job. More so if the comic in question is successful. I also note that the text refers to "their jokes" rather than "its jokes." Greenbandit (talk) (please sign your comments with ~~~~)