Advertisement

Leave James Corden alone – even the best comedians steal jokes

Caught red-handed: James Corden says he 'inadvertently' told Ricky Gervais's joke on his Late Late Show - Terence Patrick/CBS via Getty Images
Caught red-handed: James Corden says he 'inadvertently' told Ricky Gervais's joke on his Late Late Show - Terence Patrick/CBS via Getty Images

Comedians, as a rule, want to be known as wickedly funny, not awful people who rip others off – they aspire to give the gift of laughter, not stand accused of blatant theft. Yet time and again, the issue of joke-nabbing and riff-recycling crops up in the comedy industry, generating everything from rumbling rumours to lawsuits and headline news.

The latest debacle involves James Corden being caught red-handed, in a now notorious bit of spiel on his US talk show, attempting to peddle material snaffled from Ricky Gervais’s 2018 Humanity set. Gervais, unveiling his new show Armageddon this week, had compared people being narked by his tweets to seeing a small ad for a guitar-lesson in a town-square and ranting “But I don't want f---ing guitar lessons!”.

Not just the premise, but the patter, was subjected to a cut and paste job: robbery effectively conducted in broad daylight, given that Humanity streams on Netflix. The world noticed and Corden – dumped in it, unwittingly or otherwise, by his script-writers – has made an apology.

In an age when it’s never been easier to compare and contrast comedy output, and call those suspected of wrong-doing out on it, you’d think “big fat” plagiarists would have gone the way of the dodo. Yet Corden has joined a club that even the advent of the internet hasn’t closed down.

There are ample examples from modern times, pre-digital revolution – US comic Denis Leary was hailed not so much as Bill Hicks’ successor as his underhand imitator; and Robin Williams was seen an incorrigible raider of comedy clubs for gags, passing them off as his own and sometimes writing a cheque (comics would often stop mid-set if they saw him in the audience). But notable recent instances include accusations of joke-theft lobbed in 2016 by a bunch of female comics at Amy Schumer (who proclaimed her innocence on Twitter). Again in the US, in 2019 there was an out of court settlement by talk show host Conan O’Brien with Robert Alex Kaseberg for alleged joke-pinching four years before.

Legal resolution is expensive and therefore generally avoided, and of course cuts to the complex heart of the matter in that, unless there’s been a verbatim steal, how can anyone prove that great minds don’t think alike? Yes, it’s grossly unfair when a big-name comic steals from those further down the chain, but the humiliation can rebound on them. And it can hardly be worth the adverse publicity too if a spat arises among lowly equals.

A palpable “lift” was alleged in the case of the gag selected to win Dave’s “Funniest Joke of The Fringe” award in 2015; Darren Walsh scooped the prize, only for another comic, Peter Cunningham to claim authorship – “I was using that when you were in nappies,” he reportedly told Walsh. Even so, it didn’t come to blows.

The paradox is that if a comic gets too hot under the collar about a joke theft it makes them look like the desperate one. The temptation to borrow something that works, when you’re reaching for laughs (jokes being so hungrily gobbled) is understandable if hardly condonable. But little less ignoble is the comic who trots out the same patter year after year, and jealously guards it at the expense of the ethos of comedy – the idea of people gathering to share in some relaxed mirth.

There’s a transactional element to jokes – set-up, punchline and in the laugh that follows a reflex desire to share it – that makes comedy more a forum of ideas than a fortress of conceits. And of course it’s not as simple as trading on others’ one-liners – credited, or otherwise; some innate skill is involved or we’d be all be raking in millions like Jimmy Carr.

Robin Williams, who would often pass other comics' jokes off as his own - HBO
Robin Williams, who would often pass other comics' jokes off as his own - HBO

Comics can be far more dog-eat-dog capitalist than caring, “share resources” socialists when it comes to ownership. But it doesn’t reflect brilliantly on them. Shock-jock Jerry Sadowitz does himself few favours expressing annoyance at critics, or others, who quote his act; after all, in his case, as in most others, it’s in the telling, his related persona, that the joke lands. The biggest kill-joy tendency at the moment is comics, wary of bootlegs, insisting on their audience handing in their phones before gigs.

There’s added enjoyment for us when the mask slips, and the guy, or gal, endeavouring to make some witty apercu sound off the cuff is revealed as a poor ventriloquist of others’ mind-burblings. Outrage too, yes. But as long as there are jokes, there will be rip-off merchants; while the matter can be serious, it’s hardly life or death.

One reason why Gervais has been decent to Corden – besides both being too rich for this to matter much – is perhaps because, if you look at Stewart Lee’s website, and his nook of shame, “Plagiarists’ Corner”, you’ll find parallels between Gervais’s 2016 patter about the IRA and Lee’s own material (2005). Let those free of any taint of prior recycling cast the first stone.

Mind you, the spectacle of comic material being rehashed can itself lead to new gems. Lee himself produced a riff about Joe Pasquale and his supposed filching of the opening line from an unknown comic (Michael Redmond). And this week, lesser known funnyman Bennett Arron went viral with his quip: “James Corden has said that’s he’s apologised privately to @rickygervais and that he will apologise publicly in his new stand up show Armageddon.” Perfect - I hope he doesn’t mind if I use that.


Stop me if you've heard this one before: the comedians accused of recycling jokes

Conan O’Brien on Late Night With Conan O’Brien (2015): “Yesterday surveyors announced that the Washington Monument is 10 inches shorter than what’s been previously recorded. Yeah. Of course, the monument is blaming the shrinkage on the cold weather. Penis joke.”

Robert Alexander Kaseberg (2015): “The Washington Monument is 10 inches shorter than previously thought. You know the winter has been cold when a monument suffers from shrinkage.”


Amy Schumer at the Oscars (March 2022): “Leonardo DiCaprio, what can I say about him? He has done so much to fight climate change and leave behind a cleaner, greener planet for his girlfriends. Because he's older and they are younger. Okay, you get it.”

@NicoleConlan on Twitter (December 2021): “Leonardo DiCaprio is so passionate about climate change because he wants to leave a better wor[l]d for his girlfriends.”


Darren Walsh at the Edinburgh Fringe (2015):  “I just deleted all the German names off my phone. It’s Hans free.”

Peter Cunningham claims he first performed the joke as his alter-ego Frank Sanazi around seven or eight years earlier: “I’m surprised such a poor gag won [Dave’s Funniest Joke of the Fringe] and I was surprised it was mine. The joke is I have a phone in my pocket and I say, ‘Make sure your phones are turned off’, and I say my Jewish agent, Harvey Goldberg, always tells me to take German names off my phone as this ‘makes it Hans free’.”


Trevor Noah (2015): “Before I came to America, I thought I knew all kinds of racism. I've always considered myself something of a racism connoisseur. I appreciate the finer racism [...] Charming racism in America changed my life. I discovered it in a place called Lexington, Kentucky. Probably one of the most wonderful places I've ever been – charming, friendly people. Racism with a smile and a tip of the hat. ... I was walking through the streets, a man walked up to me, didn't know me from a bar of soap, came straight up to me and looked me dead in the eye, and he was like, ‘Good afternoon, n-----.’ ‘Good afternoon.’ I’ve never seen racism with a smile. I didn't know what to do. He just said it like it was a fact. As if I fought him, he would have been like, ‘What, didn't you know?’”

Trevor Noah on The Daily Show with Trevor Noah - Evan Agostini/Invision/AP, File
Trevor Noah on The Daily Show with Trevor Noah - Evan Agostini/Invision/AP, File

Dave Chappelle (1998): “Travelling has made me a racism connoisseur, if you will. You know, it’s different region to region. Anyone ever been down South? So you guys know what I'm talking about. The racism down there is […] it's perfect. Stewed to a perfection. It's conformable. It’s out in the open. There are no secrets in Mississippi. Everybody knows the deal. ‘Morning, n-----!’ ‘Morning, sir!’ Not up here. Here in the big cities, it's a secret.”


As part of a gag about smart fridges:

Kae Kurd on Jonathan Ross’ Comedy Club (2020): “I’m not married for a reason. I don’t want to be out with the lads, suddenly I get a message, and my friends are like, ‘is that the fridge again?’ [...] I'll get a text message, like she's texting me, ‘When are you home? Where are you?’”

Darius Davies (2015): “I’ve got a girlfriend, I’ve got a wife, I don’t need no needy fridge texting me on my mobile phone like, ‘hey Darius it’s 11.30pm where you putting your meat tonight’. F– off fridge! ‘Hey Darius I’ve got eggs but no sausage – when you coming back? Hey Darius, you left the freezer door open, I’m dripping wet.’ My girlfriend’s like, ‘who’s Smeg, she’s liking all your Instagram posts?’ I don’t even know, it’s the fridge.”