I learned so much about rhythm from Tompkins. I attribute most of my comedy taste and style to this routine. It culminates in a lengthy section where Tompkins becomes a naive recipient of the can, oblivious to the prank within.

The skit is completely perfect, flowing seamlessly between observations about the stupidity of the product and impressions of execs trying out new fonts for the can to keep the product relevant. The entire routine is about those novelty cans labelled peanut brittle that actually contain spring-loaded snakes. My most listened-to track was Peanut Brittle. My favourite was the 2007 album Impersonal by the US comic Paul F Tompkins. When I was in my teens, big acts rarely travelled to New Zealand, so I enjoyed most of my standup through comedy albums I borrowed from the library or CDs bought from the shop. Rose Matafeo: Paul F Tompkins’ Peanut Brittle Watching that clip, with its glaring light and distant sound, one gets the pleasure of a niche discovery – of something unique, daring, clever, silly and gloriously vague.īudPod, Phil Wang’s podcast with Pierre Novellie, is available on Apple Podcasts, Acast and Spotify. From a nerdier technical perspective, it’s amazing to see that standup, stripped entirely of any actual content, can still be recognisable as standup. The routine is not just very entertaining, though.

It’s a detail-free jaunt through every classic standup subject, running on gusto alone. There’s a YouTube clip of a bootleg recording tagged: “Jerry O’Hearn (Andy Daly) at MaxFunCon 2011.” Daly is quick to establish O’Hearn’s outlook: “All this stuff that’s going on in the world today? You gotta be kidding me!” What follows is ambiguous, meaningless standup that is nevertheless delivered with the self-righteous bafflement of a man convinced he is setting the world to rights. I first saw the routine about eight years ago. And somehow he is able to create five incredibly funny minutes without once actually saying anything specific.

The US comic, a regular on shows including Conan, steps into character as bland-but-confident observational comic Jerry O’Hearn. Jerry O’Hearn (Andy Daly) at MaxFunCon 2011Īndy Daly’s mock standup routine about nothing at all has a cult following among comedy fans.

Comedian eddie izzard