We gave them a mountain of imaginary cash to pitch the comedy special of their dreams.
Todays Specials
All jokes aside, stand-up is getting artful onscreen.
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All you need is a comic, a mic, and a willing audience.
Thats right up there withChris Hemsworths paycheckforThor: Love and Thunder.
So what would a stand-up special with a Marvel-movie budget look like?
Will comedians of the future don capes and blow up metropolises?
We asked nine comedians to spend $250 to $400 million on the stand-up special of their dreams.
Heres what they came up with.
The city of Palm Springs is run by Republicans, and they will sell out a government for anything.
I do my entire act as incidental conversations with strangers.
Giving as much primacy to them speaking back to the joke as to the joke itself.
theyre going to be worried that they dont look hot enough.
But then theres also the fact that I am astoundingly sweaty and this is Palm Springs.
Were going to need a team of people working on that front, starting six or nine months beforehand.
Except so much of my material relies on my persona.
So were going to need a couple of Pulitzer Prize winners.
You know, Spielberg has Tony Kushner.
Lets see if Margaret Atwood is around and have her do some live reality-show producing.
Were also going to make two of your three Chriss be gay for pay for the weekend.
Evans, Hemsworth not Pratt Pine if he wants to, even though hes DC.
Its for the community, you know?
You have to be able to capture everything.
Essentially we want every frame to be a Renaissance painting.
You do have to build to a crescendo.
Possibly my closer is delivered to Lizzo and then I have an organic and cataclysmic interaction with Lizzo.
And theyre like, We cant.
He owns Palm Springs for the weekend.
The audience is entirely made up of these puppet creatures.
Id want a lot of the budget to go to that.
Id also want the ability to fly in and fly out, as a punch line.
Henson co-directs all the production design, which is expensive, obviously to resurrect Jim Henson.
But we have to.
It would be a Greek-theater-level production with crazy pyrotechnics and an amazing full-synth orchestra behind me.
I would also train the whole year to be a JLo-level pop star.
In addition to being really funny, Id love for people to be like, Whoa!
Shes such a good dancer and shes such a good singer!
And shes so hot!
Id also want a lot of money to go toward craft services.
Ive never been to Nobu, so the whole audience gets Nobu.
And we have poffertje pancakes flown in.
Theyre a Dutch pancake theyre like the lovechild of a pancake and crepe.
Actually, Id want the audience to be half puppets, half comics.
And anybody that has to sit through 90 minutes of comedy should be compensated.
So everyone that comes leaves with a $1,000 check.
Because at this point, were just hemorrhaging money, so who cares?
I would want it to be so over-the-top that somehow it feels underground and effortless.
I feel like the budget is a little too much for me.
I could probably do it with $80 million.
Can I pocket the rest for all my other passion projects, just?
I mean, I could build an empire.
I wont get Donald Trump because thats too much of a lightning rod.
You get someone on the other side.
You bring the American political system back together.
Youre the great unifier.
The next big-budget item would be locations.
Somewhere youre not supposed to be.
Id bring up drone strikes.
Id do it all.
It would be like a fever dream of aRick and Mortyepisode with a very good special in between.
It would be as if cutaways in cartoons could happen in real life.
Imagine having a bit about velociraptors and then someone in the crowd is mauled.
I want to double-check everyone in the crowd laughs, so everyone who does gets a $100 bill.
Id do that scary crowd-work bit where its like, Do you think youre ready to get married?
and the couple goes, We dont know.
And I go, If you ask her to marry you, she will get this $100,000 ring.
But if you dont ask her to marry you, both of you are kicked out of the show.
Id probably pay Oprah to show up and do a live cameo and maybe laugh a little.
Id pay to bring Quibi back to life and put it up on Quibi in ten-minute increments.
Itd be a lot of money for a great prosthetic one too, if youre not blessed.
So I think Id get naked at one point.
Jo Firestones Golden Disney Early-Bird Special
I made this specialGood Timingfor a very, very low budget.
And then she kind of giggles to herself for a while.
I think that would be really awesome in the middle.
Itd be pretty much remade shot for shot but then I would want to end with a flight scene.
And Id want it to be clear that we would all be heading south like birds.
So we see the Washington Square Park arch and then we see the Freedom Tower.
This is obviously a huge departure, but Im a big fan of the Disney-as-an-adultphase.
And Im thinking that maybe its a two-part special.
I think that would be really good.
You see them eat the dreamsicle churros, the polenta corn dogs.
We shoot it on a cruise ship, and theres a lot of pyrotechnics.
The philharmonic orchestra plays throughout.
Its almost like a wedding.
Imagine avery elegantdining experience.
Everyone that worked on this special would be treated like a king and fed the most luxurious Michelin-quality food.
So at a certain point the jokes wouldnt really even be personal to me.
They would be broad which I think is also very Marvel.
I think at a certain point, theres a medical emergency and then I leap into action.
She was going into labor and then he was about to deliver the baby right there.
But then it was clear to him that she needed to have an emergency C-section.
Luckily, he was thinking about pre-med for a long time, so he was able to do it.
I would hire one of those insane, mean personal trainers.
I think it also costs a lot of money to eat properly.
I was just informed that LeBron spends $1 million on food every year.
So I mean, look, thats a chunk of the budget right there.
And I would use it for special effects.
Imagine the act-outs that you could have if you had a live CGI budget.
I could do a very graphic act-out of a sexual experience with a faceless hologram.
LikeGodzilla vs. Kong; I couldGodzilla vs. Kongmyself.
Thats the thing that stand-up needs: a giant puppet version of myself, ten stories tall.
Id also want to get the audience involved, so Id make it a theme-park ride, almost.
That sort of thing.
It would be a 4-D comedy special.
Its basically about me as a little girl and all the mischief I got into.
Any little girl thats been onAbbott ElementaryI want.
Honestly, I want the whole cast ofAbbott Elementary.
I want Quinta Brunson to be a teacher.
I want Janelle James as my principal.
You know when youre on a stage and theres kind of like a treadmill?
I want my whole stage built like that.
So Im constantly walking or making sharp turns, or running.
Id want it to be like inEuphoriawhen they did the play.
At the end of my special, I start talking about the actual fire.
I want that, but in a building.
I want everyone in the audience to feel like theyre in an actual fire.
I would like to donate whatever money is leftover to help aid seniors and their caregivers.
Theyre sort of impromptu, and the comedians improvise scenarios along with the audience.
If I had a Marvel-movie budget, I would escalate that: Heres a helicopter.
You have to fly it.
Im like, I have this idea for a show.
Its just something Joe Rogan did 15 years ago.
Maybe I should change my answer to blowing my budget on the biggest celebrities.
It would be likePunkdmeetsFear Factor.
But, of course, the celebrities get roasted.
Thats in the spirit of the Korean comedy show.
Okay, can I say this?
On day one of the premiere, I would not be recognizable.
I would just have the biggest lips like to the point that its uncomfortable, thats how much filler.
My butt would lookso amazing.
There would be no room onstage for the celebrities.
Id BBL myself to inches away from death.
Atsuko Okatsukas Multiverse of Reality-TV Madness
$250 million?
I mean,should I attempt to solve world hunger with that?
Beyonce and I do the #dropchallenge together.
I have a diamond-covered mic not blood diamonds, the conflict-free kind.
Then, Oprah-style, I start giving out gifts starting with my grandma.
At the same time, the cast ofQueer Eyeis also there.
Lets get LL Cool in an episode ofNCIS: Los Angeles.
So LL Cool J solves the mystery and finds the intruder.
I call itEverything Everywhere All at Once,and lets get the Daniels to direct it.
