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Bombs away! ‘51 Worst Jokes’ revels in terrible comedy

Bombs away! ‘51 Worst Jokes’ revels in terrible comedy
Photo by Louise Wateridge

It will be a heckler’s heaven!

Comedians will scrape the bottom of their barrels on New Year’s Day, revealing the least funny jokes they wrote in 2014 for the aptly-named “51 Worst Jokes” show at the Experiment Comedy Gallery. The show will offer 51 comedians a chance to start off they new year with a clean slate, says the show’s co-host and founder.“Giving your terrible joke a Viking funeral is the best way to see it go, I think,” said Justin Perez. “You give it a nice ceremony before it’s gone.”

The Prospect Heights comedian admits that his show is a “terrible knock-off” of the annual “50 First Jokes” event at the Bell House, in which 50 comics each tell a joke they wrote that morning. He came up with the idea last year, when he had a space booked at the same time as the “50 First Jokes” show. He decided to go for some counter-programming, replacing the very good jokes being told at the Bell House with very bad ones.Perez and co-host Corinne Fisher emphasize each bad punch line and terrible premise with sound effects like bombs falling, crickets, and boo-ing critics. The audience gets into the action, too, booing comics off the stage and yanking the worst acts off with a cane.

“We give comics s— the entire time,” Perez said.

Last year’s show was a hit with the comics who participated, said Fisher. It gave them a chance to truly mock themselves in a friendly environment, a blessing for comics who have all bombed and always worry about bombing out in the real world.“It’s sort of making a joke about the worst thing in a joke performer’s existence,” Fisher said. “It makes for this community-wide sigh of relief, like ‘OK, I did it, I can make fun of myself.’ ”Fisher said the crowd gets a rare experience too — a glimpse under the comedic hood.

“We expect to see comedy that is like theater — polished, perfect — but that’s not what comedy is about,” Fisher said. “It’s so much more interesting to see bad jokes, it’s like a behind-the-scenes for comedy.”

51 Worst Jokes at the Experiment Comedy Gallery (20 Broadway between Kent Avenue and Dunham Place in Williamsburg, www.theexcomedy.com) Jan. 1 at 9 pm. Free.

Reach reporter Dennis Lynch at (718) 260–2508 or e-mail him at dlynch@cnglocal.com.