‘Is This Thing On?’ Looks at the Story Behind the Stand-Up

In the Bradley Cooper-directed film Is This Thing On?, stand-up comedians discuss how often they perform their routines, work out the kinks, and try to make any number of people laugh. The level of commitment required to professionally make people laugh—often for little to no pay, sometimes while holding down a regular daytime job—is an obsession many people can’t comprehend. Comedian Sebastian Maniscalco has said that during breaks from his job as a waiter, and while still in uniform, he would try to squeeze in a set.

This is why so many films that involve stand-up comedians are hard to pull off. Stand-up is a craft that demands relentless work and repetition, and not everyone has the ability—or willingness—to put in that effort.

Writing a movie about stand-up comedians, or building a story around stand-up itself, may seem easy. But films like Funny People and Is This Thing On?, along with shows like Hacks, prove how difficult it is to capture stand-up on screen. Honing a comedic bit is labor-intensive, and it’s not something an actor can simply slip into.

Perhaps that’s why Is This Thing On? sidesteps this challenge by approaching stand-up comedy from a different angle: its protagonist is new to the craft.

Regarding training for this role, Will Arnett who stars as Alex Novak said in a NPR interview, “I went to the Comedy Cellar almost every night for about six weeks and performed under the name of Alex Novak, kind of in an attempt to understand what it was like.”

It didn’t hurt that the film is loosely based on British comedian John Bishop. Arnett, along with writing partner Mark Chappell, used the pharmaceutical rep-turned-comic as inspiration, which includes Bishop’s foray into comedy by attending an open mic night where he went on stage to vent about his crumbling marriage.

Writing a stand-up comedian as a protagonist isn’t enough to get the story going. There needs to be a reason why that profession matters, or else they could be a doctor, lawyer or soldier – the 1980s comedy, Stripes, is that same concept of two people who enlist in the army because they didn’t have anything else going on.

For Alex Novak, he was having a tough night, entered a comedy club for a drink and ended up on stage. He had no dreams of becoming a stand-up, but the few laughs he received while explaining his complicated personal situation was enough for him to want to return. For him, it was therapeutic.

Alex’s arc begins with the end of a marriage and his struggle to make meaning of his life. After 20 years of marriage, Alex and his wife have the same friends so it’s difficult to discuss marital-related problems with them. Instead, he deals with life through comedy, using it as an outlet. By doing so, he is finding the courage to be as truthful in real life as he is on stage.

Some other examples of stand-up comedians/protagonists include:

• Jerry Seinfeld in Seinfeld – Stand-ups were getting sitcoms left and right in the 1990s. Seinfeld was the rare comic who actually was a comedian on his show.
• Debra Vance (Jean Smart) in Hacks – Vance is a groundbreaking Las Vegas comedian who brings on board a young comedy writer. The show follows the often-tense dynamic between the established comic and a Gen Z comedy writer.
• Max (Bobby Canavale) in Ezra – Max is an ambitious, yet struggling, comic who embarks on a cross-country road trip with his autistic son to play a gig. The complications of traveling with a neurodiverse child and avoiding calls from an angry ex-wife is the conflict more than the stand-up.
• Jackie Burke (Robert DeNiro) in The Comedian – An aging insult comic struggles with his past and ends up fighting with an audience member, resulting in jail and community service.
• George Simmons (Adam Sandler) in Funny People – When a comic finds out he has a terminal condition, he tries to forge a friendship with an up-and-coming comedian while dealing with the idea of his own mortality.

When developing the character, it’s not enough to consider what they’re like on stage or even parts of their private life. Dive deep into who this person is when their set bombs, or who they are during the daytime when they’re developing material.

In Is This Thing On? Cooper stays in close on Alex’s face during his sets so the audience can see the sweat form when a joke doesn’t get a laugh. We also see Alex sitting at a table writing and hiding his folder of jokes and stories from his kids. One way that Arnett and Cooper help the audience empathize with the lead character is by showing the struggle Alex has in keeping his stand-up comedy life and his private life separate.

The stand-up act isn’t the plot. If a movie about a comic revolves around the character trying new jokes, it’s not going to land. It helps tell the story, but isn’t what the audience is there for. Successful films and TV series with comedians as main characters focus on the story behind the stand-up.

The plot should force the comedian to confront something they can’t joke their way out of, such as aging or irrelevance (Hacks), ego (The Comedian), relationships (Is This Thing On?) and death (Funny People). 

The stand-up scenes then become checkpoints along that journey. Each set should reflect where the character is emotionally at that moment, not exist just for laughs. In Is This Thing On?, Alex’s sets evolve based on the changes in his life.

The thing about stand-up jokes specifically is that they rarely work outside of a live context. Comedy relies on timing, energy and audience feedback. While stand-up in a movie often takes place in front of an audience, the context itself doesn’t work as well on screen because it’s trying to jam a comic act inside a story.

So don’t focus on the jokes. Instead, focus on what the jokes mean in the story. Alex’s jokes aren’t always that funny, but the movie audience appreciates them because we know the story behind it.

Finally, stand up is just one part of telling the story and is often used as a coping mechanism for the character. If you build the emotional truth behind the mic, it doesn’t matter if the jokes land, the audience will still want to be along for the journey.