ChuckleDumper.com is a humor website that delivers the freshest content and funniest viral videos in sketch and stand-up comedy. Launched in 2006 by two Long Island, NY natives, stand-up comedian Brian McGuinness and comedy fan, Jack McCloy, ChuckleDumper.com is fast becoming one of the hottest online destinations for comedy.
What is the inspiration behind ChuckleDumper?
Jack: It was one of the things that we noticed that there was really no vehicle for viral videos and the stuff that gets emailed around to be introduced to stand-up comedy. There are a lot of great sites that cater to people who are already big comedy fans or comics. We wanted to bring those elements together.
What is the criteria for selecting content and videos for the site?
Jack: We have a bunch of sites that we check out. We have hundreds of subscriptions on You Tube, MySpace, Google Alerts and we check the other big comedy websites. Deciding what gets posted is the easy part. If it’s funny, it gets posted. If not, then it doesn’t. But going through all the stuff to find what’s funny is really time consuming.
Brian: That’s really the whole point of the site. We do all the dirty work. It’s weeding out the crappy stuff and posting the best content. Jack is really good at finding stuff where it has a couple hundred of views, and a week later, it will have a few million. So we’re really at finding content early on.
Jack: We also have an advantage that we are not really hosting a ton of stuff. We’re linking to a lot of stuff, and because of that, if something hits the Internet before a company wants it to, it doesn’t hurt us.
What are your goals for ChuckleDumper?
Jack: Our mission in the beginning was to provide something that comics like and also give good comics an outlet to get their content exposed to a wider audience. We want to increase our audience among comics and non-comics enough to where we can get deserving comics exposure.
What do you think about the current state of sketch and stand-up comedy?
Brian: I think sketch is seeing a little boom with The Whitest Kids You Know and Human Giant, in particular leading the way. There are tons of sketch troupes, especially here in New York City.
Jack: I think in a lot of ways, sketch has a better infrastructure setup for young people. There are sketch programs like the Upright Citizens Brigade. They have a more supportive structure for people to get into it than stand up, where it’s more a solitary, “you’re on your own” type of experience.
Brian: I think the state of stand up in the city is saturated and people are so immune to it. It’s kind of stagnant.
Why do you think the stand-up scene is stagnant?
Brian: It’s so many comics that have been doing the same thing for years – doing open mikes for 10 years and they’re complaining that they’re not getting anywhere. As far as Times Square being tricked into seeing a crappy show at a sh*tty club, they’re going to have a bad taste in their mouth. People aren’t trying to really get better.
I really work hard at it and I try to look at it from the business side. If you want it to be a career, you have to treat it like that. I think a lot of them are doing it as a hobby.
Jack: The other thing is that the comedy clubs, at least in New York City, are much more corporate than places people go for sketch comedy, where bringer shows and open mikes where they charge the comics are now something that a lot of clubs rely on to make money. So it lets comics who aren’t necessarily funny or not working to get better stay at that level as long as they have the money or the friends showing up at the shows.
That’s not really part of the sketch comedy business model. It’s easier to weed out the bad sketch troupes. You can go to a real good sketch show and have a good time almost every time because you’re seeing rehearsed, really good bits.
What advice do you have for new comics?
Brian: A lot of comics watch comics on their level instead of seeing the best guys do it. My advice would be to watch every pro that you can.
– Tasha A. Harris
