It's an open mic, and for the third night in a row, you've heard a different comedian drop the "I recently came out to my parents... AS A COMEDIAN" joke. Woof. 

We recently watched Kentucky comedian Ricky Glore's DryBar comedy special and rolled our eyes when he started his version of that joke, but his was... actually funny. Why?

This the first episode of our "Is It Hack?" series where we take topics that have been done to death, and find comedians who have an original take on whatever it is: coming out as a comedian, "I know I look like Ellen," or an abortion joke they're keeping, there's always a way to make it funny.

In today's episode we discuss:

-How Ricky got his start in comedy

-Improv comedians' preconceived notions of stand-up comedians and vice versa

-Word economy

-Delivering news with cakes

-Transitioning from premise jokes to personal stories

-Is connecting with an audience hacky?

-Using theatrical blocking to drive home a joke

-How to build a world and the characters within it in the confines of a joke

-Comedian Mitch Burrow's "coming out as Repbulican" bit

-The importance of body language onstage

-The staging of Neal Brennan's "3 Mics" Netflix special

-Comedian Alex Edelman's "coming out at Thanksgiving" bit

-The stigma of potentially undercutting the seriousness of people ACTUALLY coming out

-How Ricky's dad almost built a 1960s Batmobile

-And more!

Produced by Golden Ox Studio | Music: Producedbyzip

Check out Ricky's DryBar special, "Dad Bod:" https://www.drybarcomedy.com/specials/ricky-glore-dad-bod

Get Ricky's debut stand-up comedy album, "Spitting Image:" https://circustrapeze.com/rickyglore/