6 Halloween Jokes That Bombed on Stage

Dedicated to my stand-up mentor, the great Kristen Stark

Public speaking has never been my forte. It took me years to do a barely decent presentation at work, and I thought it was the best I could do.

But recently, I got inspired and decided I should try again to improve.

Kristen Stark shared her experience in a Medium article. She bombed her impro and never went back to the stage. It was brave to go there and, even more so, to share her failure afterward.

If she could do it, there was no reason I couldn’t — I had to try!

I looked around and found a club for totally amateur impro in my neighborhood. I went there last Saturday. (They have open mic nights starting at five where anybody can come before the ‘full’ show, the more professional one, begins at eight).

These are the jokes I told

• Do you know what the three most powerful people on the planet will look like for Halloween? Joe will be a mummy, Kamala a ghost, and Nancy will be a trader. They should be fantastic because they’ve been wearing their costumes already for a few years.
• I heard the trend among billionaire kids is to dress up as a rocket this year. They want to be loved by their dads.
• I have good news for Martha’s Vineyard locals. It’s usually empty for Halloween, but this year will be different. I just talked to Ron DeSantis, and he has a plan(e).

At this point, I understood the audience wasn’t much into politics and ditched my joke about Trump’s hair and pumpkin spice. I thought some childish humor might work better and decided to go with jokes inspired by my (second) daughter.

• Do you know how kids who are stuck in the anal stage call Halloween? => The scary poo-poo caca.

The silence that followed was really scary. As a last resort, I pivoted to Tinder jokes.

• My little sister, who’s 22, recently discovered Ann Rice and vampire novels. “So, you’ll be a vampire for Halloween this year?” I asked her. “Nah, I’ll do the same as last year. I’ll stay at home and ghost men on Tinder.”
• Do you know why vampires aren’t on Tinder? => They’re too old for this shit. They use OkDracula instead.

And with that joke, I saw myself out and didn’t look back in the mirror.

Well.

You can’t be successful in everything you do. But I’m grateful for the experience. And I’m not afraid of work presentations anymore!

I’d like to thank one of Medium’s funniest, Kristen Stark, for the inspiration. Read her jokes — they’re funnier than mine. (That was my best joke so far).