When Stand Up Stood Out (2006) User Reviews

The Rise and Fall of Boston Comedy

[geoffparfitt · 7/10 · 29 July 2006]

This is a movie/documentary whose publicity promises more than it delivers. All the same - as a student of stand-up comedy and its history - the DVD will be a welcome part of my collection and is one that I will repeatedly watch with interest.

The story told is the rise and fall of the comedy club scene in Boston USA, from 1978 with the opening of little clubs, to their closure in 1988 when the whole thing collapsed - in parallel with the standard of live comedy in the USA - brought about by the sudden saturation of bland boring stand-up on cable TV.

The culprits were the actors with slick presentation that started to take the place of performers with a true comic sensibility. This is something that is not clearly exposed or explained in the movie, but it is an issue that to a lesser extent is still with us, and has also resulted in a fall in the standard of live comedy in the UK.

BUT... Back to the movie! Along with the director Fran Solomita who also appears in the movie, the key players in this story are Barry Crimmins and Lenny Clarke - the main MCs from that period in those Boston clubs. Both of these guys remind me of characters from the UK comedy scene that I have known and seen. Barry is like the late Malcolm Hardee - always in relaxed control both on and off-stage by the sheer weight of his personality. Lenny is a wild man on stage reminiscent of Alexie Sayle in the early days of the London Comedy Store in precisely the same era.

I'd never heard of these two comedians before this movie, but there are a few big name comedians on board to help to tell this story, although I am not convinced of how big a part they really played in it. Dennis Leary and Jimmy Tingle have much to say in interviews, but we see less than a minute each of them on stage, and we never see them talking in company with the real players in the story.

There is more of Bobcat Goldthwait, both on and off-stage. I've never been a fan, and I'm afraid these fresh clips didn't convert me. Oh... and we see Kevin Meaney doing his "man in the street" routine - taking a mic and camera into the street, bus, restaurant, ladies toilet, etc... He's certainly daring, but there's not much wit on show.

The biggest star name comedian involved is Steven Wright, and at the heart of this movie is the story of how he went from nowhere to making his name on the couch of the Tonight Show with Johnny Carson. This, and the later dramatic rise of Bobcat to the Letterman Show were the events that revealed the rivalry and ambition that goes alongside the close working and personal relationship between comedians.

This leads to some of the most interesting and serious interview contributions in the movie. Unfortunately much of the interview material does not have the same substance, and makes you look forward to the next clip of stage work. Unfortunately again, many of these clips are of the journeyman comedians of the time who demonstrate why they have remained so anonymous. The occasional clips of open mic oddballs are far more memorable.

One part of this movie appears misplaced. The interviews with Paula Poundstone and Janeane Garafalo seem to be in the package simply to prevent this being an all-male movie. They clearly weren't of the same generation as the key players of this story and are not closely involved with the story being told.

The movie concludes with the present day reunion concert, and it is interesting to see how the key players have weathered over 25 years, including their stage presence. It makes for a fitting end to the story.

Needs To Stand Out More

[Xploitedyouth · 5/10 · 17 July 2006]

Fran Solomita's documentary WHEN STAND-UP STOOD OUT chronicles the rise of the Boston stand-up scene in the late seventies and early eighties, a period that produced such talents as Dennis Leary, Steven Wright, Don Gavin, Janeane Garofolo, Lenny Clarke, Bobcat Goldthwaite, Colin Quinn and Solomita himself. It follows the scene's conception, at a crummy little Chinese restaurant called the Ding Ho, to Wright's first appearance on Carson's TONIGHT SHOW, to the mainstream success comedians like Clarke, Leary and Garofolo have enjoyed, while confronting issues of inter-comic jealously, bitter rivalries, drug and alcohol excesses, and the elusive specter of fame. The film is constructed competently, and features some really eye-popping moments (the comedian who bashes a heckler with his guitar), but it never really feels like more than a slightly longer BEHIND THE MUSIC or TRUE Hollywood STORY. Since the director is a buddy of most of the subjects, the viewer feels like an outsider on an inside joke, robbing the film of it's objectivity. The major issues (the drugs, the jealously) are dealt with in brief montages, so most of the film is dedicated to showing early (and admittedly funny) clips of the comedians performing, and no real insight is made. Ironically, WHEN STAND-UP STOOD OUT really needs to stand out more.

Not as bad as the Aristocrats, but still...

[cosbyshowfan · 5/10 · 28 September 2006]

What up with the quote on the back? It says something like this movie is the antidote to Jerry Seinfeld's Comedian. I don't get it. The documentary Comedian is a more focused film, basically just showing a year in the lives of two comics. When Stand up Stood Out is a long winded, unfocused historical documentary about some pretty irrelevant comedians in Boston. Steven Wright is the only comedian in the whole lot who anyone cares about whatsoever. Lenny Clarke is an annoying, unfunny idiot that thinks he is edgy because he says rude, inappropriate things. Wow. Not impressed. The guy who made this movie is obviously pretty narcissistic and lame for making such deliberate self-promotion. There are plenty of great comics to come from the Boston scene (Conan, Leno, David Cross, Steven Wright, Janeane Garafalo) but this doc mostly just focuses on the director and his friends. Not as bad as the unwatchable Aristocrats, but not nearly at the same level as Comedian.

Funny, interesting, insightful .... and sweaty.

[gareman2 · 8/10 · 16 August 2007]

I enjoyed this film, finding the latter part of it quite accidentally one night while channel surfing. A few nights later I sat and watched it from the beginning and consistently enjoyed myself even if I didn't agree with the dark alleys some of the talent went through in their lives. Those dark alleys, though, make their survival today, their perseverance and the fact that some are putting up quality work, all the more interesting.

I laughed quite a bit and enjoyed seeing people in their beginning years before weight was gained and hair was lost. I did not recall or even consider that so many comic minds came from the Boston area. (I grew up in Attleboro, MA and went to college in Amherst from 78-82.) There are quite funny bits from all, notably Lenny Clarke and Steven Wright. There are also shocking moments like when Clarke tells a story of almost killing a fellow comic/club owner for short changing him on the night's take. There is also a comedian getting so frustrated with a heckler that he smashes his guitar on the heckler. I don't believe we've heard of that comedian since then. Come to think of it, probably not the heckler either. Not that he was drawing a lot of fans.

The film really gives you the feel of being in a smoky, sweaty, really sweaty club. Much of the archival footage is from video tape, some black and white. I get the feeling that it was as if these tapes were their "vaudeville" document. A short clip of Denis Leary has his long hair drenched with perspiration. While moments like this did not make me wish I was there, I certainly was glad that I got to see people working in the trenches as sometimes that is where some of the best work is born.

My one criticism had to do with how the film follows a timeline of sorts, beginning in '78 or thereabouts and traveling into the '80s. I felt clearly at one point the film refers to the mid-to-late eighties and then notes that the death of John Belushi (circa 1981) is what got some people to shape up (or not). Soon after that we see a clip from 1989. It just seemed like odd placement given the way the story that was being told (unless people were going into rehab for 6-8 years).

All in all, I'd recommend this film to anyone who has an interest in stand-up or particularly, in Boston comedians.

There Is No "There" There

[tillzen · 3/10 · 9 December 2008]

As someone who WAS there, this film is merely a compilation of old video, brief talking heads, and the pure chance of a reunion concert. Something DID happen in Boston at this time, but the director missed it by a mile. Instead he built a film around the footage he had, instead of doing the real work of a documentary. The focus on Lenny Clarke exemplifies this laziness. There was the most old footage of Lenny, so Lenny gets a lot of play here, that should have gone to others with far more talent and impact. The women get short-changed, as do the Emersonians. Before there were comedy clubs, there was improv, and except for Denis and Steven Wright, none of these drunken hacks could have created anything but the testament to chemical courage this film documents. The director missed the chance to illuminate the perfect storm that was Boston in those years. Instead he wallows in nostalgia instead of linking how those years rewrote comedy AND punk music, just as Greenwich Village did in the 1960's. Perhaps someday a filmmaker will correctly connect the dots, and link Boston '75 to '85 with the earth shaking cultural changes that we not only witnessed, but managed to live through!

Happy to finally see this movie

[funnyterri · 10/10 · 21 August 2006]

From a comedy junkies point of view, I found this movie to be insightful. I did not discover the magic of comedy until the late 80's, early 90's and have been hooked ever since. I have seen all of the comics featured in this film and was lucky enough to be in that Ding Ho for the reunion. Having worked behind the scenes from 1990-1993 for Boston Comedy in Alston, I had heard the stories about the Ding Ho and Play It Again Sams, I would pine to hear more to know these comedian's more, so to have a chance to view the old days as portrayed in this movie was treat. I had no idea that all of these talented maniacs would make it as far as they did. This was my first job out of college, working in Alston in basement so I was not thinking beyond the fact that I needed to find a job that was above ground. The honesty and the way the comics were so candid about their jealousy was fantastic, because that was how I viewed the scene during my brief tenure. When I entered the scene it was over-saturated with the folks getting stage time who were NOT talented. The comics in this movie are the rocks of Boston Comedy. I continue to go to Giggles and attend every Comics Come Home Show. I loved When Stand Up Stood Out and will recommend it to all.

A Fabulous History

[raycruddas · 1/10 · 29 July 2007]

REspose to the review prior to this titled: "The Rise and Fall of Boston Comedy." This review is disqualified. The writer simply doesn't get it mostly because he's from the UK. This film is a fabulous chronicle of how the Boston area and specifically two little places helped to spawn a business boom and provided a boost to comics everywhere in the US. Prior to 1978 there were two places in the US to really do stand-up. N.Y. and L.A. Boston was not on the map. Yes, Chicago had 2nd city but as an individual art form, L.A. and N.Y. were it. It chronicles the rise and fall (and follies) of local comics and many that went on to much acclaim and continue to work very successfully. Of course the local guys aren't well known. D'oh! that's why they're local. But they plug away and continue to make money, albeit less than the more famous brethren, but they're still at it. If this dies in May of '78 like the founder of the comedy connection expected, half these guys would be doing construction or dead.

The 16mm/Beta or VHS cam shots by someone are fantastic. The bit's are still hilarious (this guy's country brought us Mr. Bean and Benny Hill. Yes, yes they brought us Python too and we **all** thank them very much.)

I had forgotten Lenny Clarke's show on TV38 (Yes, I am from the Boston area and was a high school freshman in 1978)

My 14 yr- old laughed at every old bit and I cringed at the language halfway in but

*******She laughed in the right places!!********

and I did not have to explain **Anything!**

See This Movie!!! (but not with your 14yr old.)

More "Old Home Week" than documentary

[MBunge · 5/10 · 29 April 2010]

When Stand Up Stood Out purports to tell the story of the Boston stand up comedy scene from the late 70s through the late 80s, but it really never rises above a guy looking back at his glory years.

Fran Solomita was one of those Boston comics and he starts out this film by justifying it. Solomita references the comedy club explosion of the 80s and says it was due to the emergence of an aggressive comedy sub-culture in Boston, but he never provides any evidence or reasoning for that assertion. The film never really examines its subject matter in any real way, or tries to actually tell us what Boston stand up comedy became in that era and why it did and didn't succeed. There's no real narrative or insight to this documentary. It's just the collected reminiscing of the comics from that span of time.

When Stand Up Stood Out focuses on a few individual subjects and intersperses that with brief asides. The main subjects are the Ding Ho, an infamous Boston comedy club that operated out of a Chinese restaurant, and Lenny Clarke, who is cast as the heart and soul of Boston comedy. If you want to hear a lot of stories about those two things and the people who orbited around them, you'll get it. If you're looking to understand any of it, you'll be left out in the cold. Watching this film is a bit like going to your spouse's high school reunion. You watch a bunch of other people tell a bunch of stories that you've never heard, and you feel excluded.

There are a few moments in the film when it seems like Solomita is trying to get beyond the "Old Home Week" stuff. Janeane Garafolo shows up a few times and tries to get under the surface of Boston comedy, but she clearly wasn't a significant part of the era being focused on and her inclusion seems like Solomita did it just because he got to interview her.

Ultimately, the film raises more questions than it answers. Why did Boston stand up comedy become such a potent force so quickly? What sort of an environment produces both the cerebral Stephen Wright and the boorishly aggressive Lenny Clarke? What role did the overwhelmingly white, male, catholic nature of Boston stand up comics play in shaping their material and performing style? Why did some Boston comedians succeed nationally and others not?

When Stand Up Stood out is almost like a prologue to a better documentary coming at some point in the future. It doesn't do much on its own but it does whet your appetite for even more.

Insider look at the Boston Stand Up Comedy scene in the 70s & 80s

[gortx · 12 September 2020]

Comedian Fran Solomita's look back at the Boston Stand-Up Comedy scene of the late 70s and early 80s amounts to a collection of his home movies (much of it captured on VHS quality tape). Solomita was part of a group ranging from Steven Wright to Jeneane Garofalo to Lenny Clarke, the latter is portrayed as the ringleader of an unruly herd which ran wild in places like the Ding Ho and the Comedy Connection. There isn't much of a neutral perspective on the scene, but, the clips and interviews are of interest. Other than Wright and Garofalo, others like Denis Leary, Paula Poundstone and Bobcat Goldthwait also sustained careers after leaving for 'Hollywood', while others remained local (with various degrees of jealously and acceptance). Jay Leno is barely mentioned, but he was technically the first to break out.