Comedians are loath to follow a better act. But musicians not so much. Definitely not academics. Why?
- Comedy is more vertically differentiated. It’s really funny, just a little funny, or not funny. The subject matter adds another dimension but that’s not so important for the ultimate impact. Music is more horizontally differentiated. So the opening act can be really good at what they do, but you can still please the audience if you’re not quite as good but do something different. On this score academics are more like musicians.
- Laughs are physical. You only have so many of those to give in a night. Wheras good music has the effect of putting you in a mental state that makes you more receptive to even more music. Here academic talks are more like comedy. The audience gets taxed.
- Headlining musicians always degrade the quality of the opening act by giving them less stage space and limited lighting and other effects. In large conferences academics do the same thing by distinguishing the “plenary” talks from the rest. (Get this: in Istanbul this summer I am giving a semi-plenary talk.) There is no obvious way to do this for comedy.
- Music is played by groups, comedians are always solo. Somehow the head-to-head comparison is less exact for groups. Solo singers are probably more reluctant to follow better singers than groups are when following other groups. Academics get to blame their backstage co-authors.
Cheap Talk 
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January 12, 2012 at 11:20 am
David Pinto (@StatsGuru)
That is a somewhat recent development. Comedians used to team with a straight man, something that is rarely see these days. The straight man often was paid more, since his was the tougher job, even though the comic got the laughs. Abbott and Costello, Burns and Allen, Martin and Lewis were the classics, but where I was young, Rowan and Martin, the Smothers Brothers, and Burns and Schreiber each had their own television show, The Smothers Brothers might be the only team like that still in existence.
June 10, 2013 at 6:06 am
Sitie
Do you proI saw the article in THE this week about brihgt club and wanted to find out who’ doing one near me to find out about participating at some point. Do you run the workshop, etc to help you get onstage? If not, do you know where I can get that part? Or have you found it’s not needed? Anyways, want to know more. Does it matter if I’m up in Aberdeen? Oh, and can someone fix the form so that it’s not white letters on a white background, or is that just a safari thing?
June 10, 2013 at 10:40 pm
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September 7, 2013 at 1:55 am
Jorge
It’s become sowmheat an oddity to find superior article content these days. I was pleasantly surprised to find this well written article. There are many logical points made that made me reflect on this topic.
January 12, 2012 at 1:35 pm
Donald A. Coffin
“…comedians are always solo…”
Nichols & May. Reiner & Brooks. Homer & Jethroe (to mix music and comedy).
Maybe “comedians almost always work solo…”
January 12, 2012 at 3:16 pm
Jonathan Robinson
My thoughts on this are simple (at least for musicians):
1. Comedians can do much more improvisation, therefore they are loathe to have to work much harder to follow a truly great act.
2. Musicians for the most part (excluding jazz and jam) have a static set list…maybe they can throw a guitar solo in there but they are set in their ability to change their performance. So either they are confident in their ability because much of the comparison is predetermined or resigned because there is not much they can do.
January 13, 2012 at 9:42 am
o
I’m not so sure it’s true about academics. I definitely do not like presenting right after a good paper or performer. I once had to present immediately after Ed Glaeser. Not fun.