"The Tonight Show Challenge", a weekly Friday night stand-up comedy show, debuts September 14th, 8pm, at the San Diego Comedy Coop.
The stand-up will be all clean. One of the show's goals is to provide a safe experience of live stand-up for adults. The other is to help comedians work toward network television appearances, corporate comedy, and other clean comedy gigs.
The show's named refers to its two short-format contests. One is based on the 2-minute Last Comic Standing set length and the other on a 4-minute Late Show set length. The comedians will each do both length sets, and the audience votes on their favorite comedian in each set. Then there is a 15 minute feature and finally a 30 minute headliner. Interspersed will be a warm-up, monologue and top ten list.
"Too often, you see live stand-up that makes some people cringe or go home feeling guilty conscience about what they laughed at," says the show's producer, Brian Carter. "If you want comedy that's not sexually explicit, extremely crude, or profanity-filled, you have to go to network TV. For live clean comedy, we may be the only show in Southern California. We're only booking comedians on the basis of how many minutes of clean material they have. If they slip up during their set, they're going to hear about it immediately... we ding them with funny sound effects. Three strikes and they're out- we cut the mike."
Judging by the early response amongst Southern California comedians, this totally clean stand-up show is unique. "I've been booking a lot of comedians from Orange County and Los Angeles," says Carter. "I'm amazed how many of them are willing to drive down to do clean comedy. From what I can tell, it's not only because they love entertaining people, but also because there's no other show fulfilling this need."
Like most shows at the San Diego Comedy Coop, The Tonight Show Challenge is free of charge, for ages 18 and up, and BYOB- attendees must be 21 to drink and ID's will be checked. Carter adds, "What we do at the coop is try to help comedians develop and provide San Diegans with exciting and affordable entertainment they can't get on TV."
