CringeHumor

For years now, Cringe Humor has been the home of stand-up comedy’s best and up and coming performers. Cringe Humor is now running a monthly interview with comedians worth watching. That’s why this month we are introducing New Jersey-based comedian Ted Daniels.

Daniels agreed to be our “guinea pig” and talk about his career and the mechanics of telling a joke.

QUESTION: Hey, Ted, thanks so much for kicking off Cringe Humor’s first ever interview column.

Can you give a little bit of background on yourself?

TED DANIELS: I have been married for 25 years and I have two daughters, 21 and 18 and I work for a leading mutual insurance company and you know what is funny, my stand-up has become useful for my job. I meet a client and I am able to put him at ease with a joke or two.

When I was growing up, I was not the class clown, but I took a class in stand-up comedy at Brookdale Community College and I wrote a one-hour special, like it was my own HBO Stand-Up Special, I pulled the best jokes from that and I performed.

While I was in New York City, I had the chance to meet comedian Steve Marshall and it led to other gigs and I was booked at the Riviera in Las Vegas. 

Since 1999, I have been performing, but I have been pursuing it earnestly for the last six years, and currently I work with James DeBenedetoo, from JJ Comedy. I met him one night when comedian Joe Conte told me to perform at the 88 Keys in Woodbridge, New Jersey. I had the chance to meet James DeBenedetto and I have been working with him.

He really has helped me and helped my career out in a major way.

QUESTION: Focusing in on the process of where a joke comes from, how does a joke originate with you?

TED DANIELS: A lot of comedians will talk about how they write stuff down as it happens, but I keep a note in my head. Later, I will sit-down, write the joke and figure out how I can make this funny to a hundred other people besides myself.

QUESTION: When you get the joke on paper, how much will it change?

TED DANIELS: It can change a lot.

For example, I have a joke where someone will ask, “What’s it like being a father to a teenage girl?” I used to say, “It’s like being locked in the trunk of a car with a pitbull.”

Well, one night I was watching “MonsterQuest” on the History Channel, and they did a story on wolverines. In the episode, hunters were trying to catch wolverines and the traps they used contained a piece of one-inch plywood, and the wolverines would eat right through the wood.

Well, add to the fact that the wolverine is just a funny word to use, I thought, “Screw it!” and I retired “pitbull” from the joke for “wolverine.”

Mix this with the allusions to the Wolverine character in the “X-Men” movies and comic books and it just adds another element.

QUESTION: Using this joke as an example, do you practice how to annunciate “wolverine” or where the emphasis of the joke or the wording of the joke goes?

TED DANIELS: To be honest, that is not who I am. Some comedians might do that, but not me. That does not play to my style.

I want the way I say “wolverine” to be conversational and spontaneous for the audience. I find for me it is more natural and I am more at ease with letting the annunciations come out on their own.

QUESTION: This leads me to ask, do you try to elevate certain parts of your personality when doing a routine?

TED DANIELS: I try to just be me because I don’t want to be someone I am not.

I have to just be me. Basically, everything that I am, I just let it hang out. Other comedians can get away with doing characters and that is fine for them, just not me.
I want people to look at me and say, “That man is a miserable father” because that is what I am.

QUESTION: Do you ever worry you may take a joke too far?

TED DANIELS: You know it’s funny, I wish I could be like comedian Geno Bisconte. Whenever someone complains he took his act too far, he will just say, “So.” My problem is I have a wife and two daughters who act as my conscious and they have a say in my act.

I’ll tell you a quick story, I used to have a joke about a retarded girl working at a Home Depot. One night, I had a father come up to me and say, “You know I have a retarded girl.”

“Does she work at a Home Depot?” I responded.

While he laughed at it, my wife suggested I take it out.

QUESTION: You seem like you’re open to talk to your fans and other fans of stand-up comedy.

TED DANIELS: Yeah I am.

People can reach me at my web site http://www.teddanielscomedy.com , and I am on Facebook as well and I love to talk to people about comedy and my shows.

To be honest, I love it when people say, “I saw your act and you were funny.” It just bugs me when people say, “Hey, you look like Cheech Marin.”

- Don Everett Smith Jr.

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Don Smith is a comic book writer and author and has been published at Patch.com and InvestComics.com. Visit his site at donsmith74.wordpress.com

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