The Pun Is Mightier
I promised you a pun-related update in an episode that was meant to drop yesterday and then I never did it.
And then I never did an episode today, but I can’t go two days without an episode that’s unacceptable.
So here is the slightly delayed, but not too late, episode about puns.
Your Daily Lex I’ve mentioned some of this before, but by way of reminder.
There was a, uh, you know, when comedy sports first came to New Jersey, I didn’t audition because I was nervous about the rule about puns.
You’re not supposed to pun.
There’s a foul called the groaner foul and they throw that flag.
If you make a pun and then you have to apologize to the audience and if the audience doesn’t accept your apology, you lose points for your team.
And when I heard about this and saw it, my assumption was they didn’t want you to pun and I was talking to myself.
I don’t know if I can do improv without punning because that’s a key part of my improv work, I guess.
Only later did I come to realize one that I can improvise without punning and two that although that penalty is a real thing that happens in comedy sports, they like when that penalty happens.
So you know, comedy sports is two teams.
It’s the red team versus the blue team.
I, um, you can be on either team depending on the night.
The teams don’t really matter.
The points don’t really matter.
I mean, there is a competition and you want to win when you’re playing, but ultimately it doesn’t matter if you win or lose.
The goal is to have a funny show and to be funny and for the audience to be entertained.
Sometimes you get a big crowd.
We did this past Saturday.
Sometimes you get a big crowd that has a lot of fans for people on the other team.
That was also the case this past Saturday, uh, about 85% of the 90% full house.
So you can do the math, uh, was there to support the other team.
One of the two players on the other team, which had three players.
And although some things are scored objectively, like, can you get your teammates to guess certain things?
Uh, can you, uh, you know, um, uh, that’s basically it.
Um, or, uh, can you cause, can you not be eliminated in elimination style games that are, you know, judged by the ref, but many other games are, uh, audience score, right?
It’s based on applause.
Who do they want to have win the points for that round?
So it became clear pretty early.
We had no chance, although we could win some of the objective points, uh, any subjective points were going to the other team, uh, because they were the ones with all the vans.
And so at halftime, my team, the three of us got together and we were like, I think we should shoot the moon.
And so we said, let’s just go crazy with punning.
And boy, did we, uh, there was a scene where the three of us were experts.
One of us was an expert in butter churning and, uh, the referee asked the butter churner whether he could do some of the same things with margarine.
And of course the butter guy was offended and he’s like, no, can’t do that.
And I said, yeah, there’s very little margarine for error.
And so got a flag thrown on me.
Uh, then, um, I was, I was playing dentures in that scene, not a dentist.
Not a dentures expert, but dentures.
Uh, and somebody in the audience asked, um, you know, what my favorite flower was.
And I told that person that they did this to me, but that of course, as dentures, my answer was two lips.
Uh, so I got a second flag in the same scene.
So then after that scene, I had to first apologize for the margarine.
And I was like, I’m sorry that I made that pun about margarine.
I should have known butter.
So then I got a flag during my apology.
Um, and they got really crazy.
So we, we started losing lots of points.
Uh, others on my team joined in.
Um, there was a point where he’s like, you’re not even, we’re not even going to have you apologize anymore.
We’re just going to deduct the points.
And, uh, I said, well, sometimes Lex is more, so I got a flag on that.
And, um, my teammate, Joe, who is also very funny was like, I like that.
I’m saying that the way that implies.
I think I am myself.
Very funny.
Which I guess I do.
Uh, Joe said to the ref, who was Scott?
Uh, Lex thought he might get off Scott free.
And I thought that was very funny.
Uh, we ended up with, uh, I think single digit points, which is basically unheard of, uh, but it was a lot of fun and the audience was into it, right?
If the audience doesn’t like it, then you got to just stop.
But the audience was very into it.
The final round of most comedy sports matches, uh, including ours is a pun achievement round.
And so by the time we were actually encouraged to pun, the audience was very stoked because they had been, they had been waiting for us to get rewarded for our bunny.
So it’s a lot of fun.
Anyway, that was my pun story.
Uh, enjoy what’s left of your Wednesday.
If you happen to listen to this, you know, the night I’ve recorded it, but we’ll catch up soon.
Somehow Lex.