Do Your Characters
This is a piece I wrote for Face the Current Magazine back in 2017. It’s based on an episode with Comedian Becky Robinson on my storytelling podcast, “Punched Up” which you can listen to by clicking here. Enjoy!
It’s 2 a.m., and Becky just got called into the office… Well, sort of. See late-night emails and writing jokes until sunrise is just the norm when you’re a cast member of MTV’s Wild’n’Out, a fast-paced comedy sketch, and improv show.
Becky is one of the newest on the Wild’n Out team, where she frequently shows off her improv skills in comedy and rap battles. The shooting schedule much like the show itself is kind of off the cuff so Becky usually doesn’t find out about what segments she’ll be performing until the night before they film.
This particular night’s call to action? “The Hating Game.” The 2 a.m. email informed her she’d be playing with Jay Leno. It’s a parody of the old game show, “The Dating Game.” And Instead of giving Becky a role, the email simply said, “Becky, just do your characters.”
You may already know Becky without realizing it. Sometimes she wears a brunette, bull-cut wig as ‘Alan Ginsberg, the world’s youngest billionaire tech guru.’Or you may know ‘Deb, the androgynous tour guide,’ another of Becky’s most popular. During the 2016 election season, I watched Becky dressed as ‘Young Hillary Clinton’ twerking on stage with rapper Nelly on my Snapchat feed.
That is not fake news. That actually happened.
So, being told to ‘do your characters’ wasn’t alarming — but the lack of direction certainly was. Becky manically pours over her joke book until sunrise. She’s writing what she thinks the producers of the show would want her to write. Roasting jokes, you know, jokes about Jay Leno’s chin, or his matching denim outfits. The normal stuff people bag on Leno for.
The following morning during rehearsal Becky starts delivering all of her roast jokes she had prepared. They fall flat. Not even a chuckle. Nick Cannon and Nile Evans, the executive producer, walk over to Becky and tell her jokes were too mean spirited. That they needed to make sure Jay didn’t feel bad.
“It was just the worst feeling… like, I had the worst pit in my
stomach.”
The episode films in an hour and Becky now has to start from scratch.
On the verge of a panic attack, Becky throws the rules book out the window. She stopped writing what she thought the producers would think was funny and started writing what she thought was funny.
She transformed herself to “Ziggy,” a Southern woman who’s politically incorrect, racist rants would make Donald Trump blush. Armed with only a notebook of untested jokes and southern charm, Becky’s “Ziggy” was created just in the knick of time. The ink had hardly dried in her notebook when she was summoned to run jokes with Jay Leno.
“I just remember thinking, say the punchlines to him how you’re going to say them in the sketch, ya know? So that he gets the joke. So that he really gets what I’m trying to do with this character.”
Jay starts running lines for the sketch with questions for “The Hating Game.”
“What would you do to get me to fall in love?” Jay asks.
In her thickest Southern drawl, Becky croaks out, “Ohhh that’s easy. I’d bring you right on back to my trailer… Lay you down real soft like on my extra spring air mattress and boy, I’d make you cum so hard that you’d have to put on a Nick Cannon movie to fall back asleep!”
Silence.
Then, the shock wore off and an explosion of laughter hit the green room. Jay loves Ziggy! Each answer gets dirtier than the last, and soon it’s showtime.
The transformation has happened, she is no longer Becky Robinson, she is ‘Ziggy.’ She patiently waits backstage for the commercial break to end wearing her overalls and snug brunette bull cut wig. Little does Ziggy know, she will have one more obstacle to face before hitting the stage.
A fellow cast member sees her standing in the wings and says, “Hey, we don’t wear wigs on this show. You should take that off” in a dismissive tone.
Ziggy quickly snaps back, “Shut up!”
“Shut. Your. Mouth. I am doing this, and this is what we’re doing! This is what we planned on doing! These are the jokes I’m doing! This is a character piece and God Dammit, I’m doing it as a fucking character piece! So, shut up.”
The lights come on, cameras start to roll and Becky’s performance proceeds to receive giant applause breaks. Laughter was crashing in like tidal waves. Even Leno a hard time keeping it together.
Comedy isn’t one size fits all. It’s challenging, and tough to swallow sometimes. As a comedian, I know how easy it is to get wrapped up in worrisome thoughts like bombing. My suggestion? Be like Becky.
Focus on your x-factor. Don’t try to squeeze into what you think other people want from you. What happens if you don’t bomb? What happens if that idea of yours is on the verge of something spectacular. I’ll tell you what happens. You get a phone call from your management the next morning saying, “I don’t know what you did last night, but I’ve been getting phone calls all morning from agents and networks that all want to meet with you.” At least, that’s what
happened to Becky.
Stay true to yourself. Don’t be afraid to be different… And for God’s sake, do your characters.
