 Dan Cummins has gone through many incarnations since the
year 2000, when he started doing stand-up. He has run through musical parodies,
sketch comedy variations, characterizations and vitriolic rants. His pathway
through the comedy circuit has landed him a prime piece of property on Comedy
Central as their latest Comedy Central
Presents... showcased talent. His career is one that is full of searching,
refinement and finally achievement.
I was recently able to talk with Dan at some length, curious
about the evolution of his act as well as the intricacies involved in preparing
for such a large production.
J.T.: Now, correct me
if I'm wrong, but I remember seeing you sometime in 2002...2003 at God only knows
what venue...were you billed as The Singing
Comedian?
Dan: I don't know...well, you know what? Early on, I did
songs, like original guitar songs and stuff, but I was never billed that way.
J.T.: O.K., because
for some reason that stuck with me and also a bit about little yipper dogs and...
Dan: Oh my God! You did see me early on! I forgot about that
bit! Yeah, I bet you are thinking of me because I used to do songs and I had a
bit about Corgi, the neighbor's crazy dog. Man. I started in late 2000, so you
probably saw me a year or two in.
J.T.: Now, in your
bio it says that you started out in stand-up in 2000. Was it like an open mic
gig? What prompted it?
Dan: Yeah, yeah. I started more on a whim here in Spokane. I
went to Gonzaga University from '95 to '99 and majored in psychology. I didn't
know what I wanted to do and I and several little jobs. My wife, we were dating
at the time...had heard about this amateur night, Sunday nights at this local
club...and that was the first time I had ever walked into a comedy club to try an
open mic night. I never really watched stand-up like most comedians who were
huge fans of the genre and then tried it. It's not like that for me
J.T.: Yeah, I don't
know how anyone can perform at an open-mic and actually come back
willingly."
Dan: (Laughs) "Yeah, yeah! It can be really rough. I kind
of loaded the audience my first time, so I knew what they thought was humorous.
I think I lucked out in a way, because I did open mic here in Spokane, where
there wasn't a lot of touring comics doing it. Nothing against the other guys
doing it, it's just the talent pool was not outrageous like New York or LA or
something.
J.T.: Just people
whose mom's said they were funny.
Dan: Exactly. Exactly...so in contrast...
J.T.: What kind of
processes go into the production of a Comedy Central special from your perspective?"
Dan: You mean like the whole 'from start to finish'?
J.T.: Well, like your
end of it. Like selecting and dry running material...
Dan: Well, I guess like what I did was...the process of that
one is just submit a tape, through your management or whoever, to Comedy Central. I remember the month or
two before submitting it, just going through my act, figuring out...part of it
was I did things here (Comedy Central)
the year before, so I couldn't use that material. So I had to figure out what
material I had left and what I thought would be the best. First of all, I don't
have that many dirty things, but I
have a couple of things that I knew wouldn't fly, so those you cut immediately.
So out of the rest, you know, what are my favorites? What do I want to showcase?
And I put those together on a tape in Detroit at a club called the Comedy Castle and sent it in. Then, like
by the time I had been notified, a couple of months had gone by, and it's like
the end of May, the end of June, and they let me know I got it. By then, I
actually ended up changing probably a third to a little more than a third of
the material I submitted. Once I knew I got it, that whole summer, I really
tried to refrain from working on too much new material. It's kind of hard for
me to do and stay focused on making the bits that I had selected like...like
toning them up.
J.T.: After watching
some of the comedy specials after they have come out on DVD, I...when you're
watching it on television, it seems so seamless, but in the outtakes they show
all of the re-takes. Do you or the audience lose momentum if there are
re-takes? How do you bring back the energy? Is there like a comedy fluffer
waiting in the wings to get the audience back up?
Dan: You know, I was kind of aware of that. There is a guy
that warms the audience up before you go out and he was fantastic. He did great
crowd work. He got the audience really excited and in a good mood and he also
didn't burn any topics. He was like the ideal guy. He did such a good job of
getting the audience hyped. I didn't
even know you could do that, stop (the show) like that. But I was aware that
when I would stop (the show), I would
try and still make a joke, kind of rhythmic and funny, keep the energy up. You
don't want to just have it be like completely dead and mess it up bad and then
you get frustrated and create a weird energy. But for those re-takes...I only
actually had to come back out once. There was a couple of moments where I
restarted a joke, maybe I fudged a word right at the start and I just paused
and started without making a comment about it. I think that only happened
twice. I only had to come back... they're kind of watching you because they want
you to do stuff, but they might have a problem with the censors, so... I only had
to redo...I name my jokes...it's kind of a running gag I guess...and I had to redo
one of the names. I had heard of one person that had to redo like fifteen
minutes. Man, I'm glad I didn't do that. It would be pretty awkward for the
performer and the audience.
Comedy Central Presents
Dan Cummins premiers Friday, January 11th, 2008 at 10:00 EST and will run
ad infinetum until our quaint yellow sun runs out of fuel to burn and we are
set adrift to float through the blackened abyss of space, a tiny,
inconsequential frozen ball. On a completely different and slightly cheerier
note, from seeing Dan's stand-up first hand, albeit through a drunken haze, I
can say that the comedy special as well as Dan's future incarnations are well
worth watching. I just wish I could clearly remember the bit about the little
yipper dogs. It almost made me pee on myself...well, that and the cause of the
drunken haze. I do, however, truly hate yipper dogs.
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