The thing about standup comedians that kind of bothers me...

[Mister Obvious]

They go on tour and they tell THE SAME JOKES in each place. I know, it's like a concert, it's all the same songs. It's no different in that way. But, there's something that just strikes me as kind of sad about it. I feel like jokes should be spontaneous. If I was a standup comedian, I'd go on tour and freestyle the whole thing, no plan ever. If I didn't feel like being funny one day, I'd just go out and stare at the crowd. I bet the awkwardness would eventually be funny. If not, I'd go down as the worst stand up comedian in history, which is also pretty special.

[Luscious Atari]

If I was a standup comedian, I'd go on tour and freestyle the whole thing

Josh Johnson does that. He has a new set every week. I'm pretty sure he's the first person to have success doing this. I think it's important to have good timing and also be able to turn pretty much anything into a narrative, and, whatever you think of his politics, he is as close to a genius as it gets--in this capacity, at least. I think he does it to stay topical, not unlike South Park. 

People in the audience, who have come to know him for using a story from his life as a lead-in to current affairs, go crazy when he does the "tie-in moment". 



He also does straight-up bits; there's one where he feels like he would fail on both ends of the zombie apocalypse -- he'd be too grossed out by the decaying faces to run from them, and then he'd be too effeminate as a zombie to fit in with the undead fellas, lol. 

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Most comedians do learn to improv, though, or come up through improv, and it's important in terms of bantering when being interviewed.