Popping My Comedy Cherry

My First Time Doing Stand-Up (Sort of)

by: David Levin

My first time performing stand-up comedy was in 2014 at Helium Comedy Club in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. How did I feel? Not nervous at all. You might say, I made stand-up my bitch. I was hilarious and I crushed it. However, maybe part of the reason I wasn’t nervous was because I’d already embarrassed myself on national television. Everything seems easier once you’ve done that!

January 2002: An 11-year old me went with my mom and my little brother to Universal Studios in Orlando, Florida. It was a magical amusement park that had very few roller coasters and didn’t have anything Harry Potter-related – yet. But, it did have an attraction based on Twister. Yay? Just what every kid loved. We were big Helen Hunt-heads back then. We were all mad about her. However, at the time Universal also had something that every kid with access to cable TV wanted to visit, Nickelodeon Studios.

Every afternoon, Nickelodeon would put on a show called Slime Time Live outside of the studios and kids got a chance to try out for it. So, of course, I went and auditioned. My miming of rubbing slime all over my body, and I mean all over my body, must have impressed the top brass, middle brass, and even the brass section, because I was told I would be on the show later that day. I was excited and my brother was jealous because he was too young to audition or know about brass but sucks to be him. Slime Time Live had competitions, and I knew that with my zero athletic talent and even less shame that I would do great.

Later that day, I went back to the studios. I was told that I was going to be on the Red Team. Commies, nice! The other team was the Blue Team, and they were a garbage team. Yeah, like their parents actually worked in sanitation.

This particular week, Nickelodeon was premiering their reboot of All That, the kid’s sketch show that brought us the likes of Kenan Thompson, Amanda Bynes, and Josh Server. Yes, that Josh Server. Of course, the reboot would be utter shit, but no one knew that at the time. Two of its cast members were there to help promote the show. Shane Lyons, who would later go on to lose The Next Food Network Star, and Kyle Sullivan, who later would go on to star on The War at Home, while future Oscar-winner Rami Malek would play his gay best friend. I saw Kyle after I got done changing into my team outfit, and I had a quick conversation with him where I asked if he was on Malcolm in the Middle. He replied that he was, as Dabney. It was magical.

The movie Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius had premiered the month prior, and thus my competition was Jimmy Neutron-themed. As such, I had to have a soft rubber headpiece of his swirly soft-serve chocolate ice cream hair placed on my head. Believe me, if you ever see the movie it might make sense! I saw Shane Lyons when I had this headpiece on. I went over to him and said, “Taht lla,” which is what he said in the commercials promoting All That. “Taht Lla” is All That backwards, and I just blew your mind. Before he had a chance to respond to my ingenious linguistical skills and no doubt form a lifelong friendship with me, my bastard teammates called me over to them because my headpiece was crooked. Assholes.

For the competition, I had to dip giant foam rings in an inflatable kiddie pool filled with green slime and then try and toss them around my partner’s hard plastic Jimmy Neutron headpiece. The cameras were on me and children nationwide were watching as I dipped and threw, dipped and threw. Dipped, threw up, dipped and threw again. In the end, the Blue Team got a grand total of 9 points for nine rings successfully dipped and tossed, while I got 0. Zip. Zilch. Nada. Kids in the hospital dying of cancer watched this and were glad they were not me. I left the park saddened and humiliated. Slime Time Live ended the next year and Nickelodeon Studios eventually shut down I assume because they couldn’t wash the stench of me off of them.

And that is why I wasn’t nervous on stage my first time doing stand-up comedy. Because I had already embarrassed myself in front of the nation and even worse, Shane Lyons.  

David Levin is a comedian, writer, and regular contributor to thecomedyconsultant.com. For more, check his page out on YouTube.