The Nightmare Before Christmas
Mark Gross is a very funny comic that I had the pleasure of working with on one of my weeks at the Improv in Cleveland, OH. He told me this story....As always, all credit goes to Mark for the story....As comics, sometimes we get booked for private parties or functions. Mark was booked for a corporate Christmas party. He performs for 30 minutes and gets nothing! You can hear the silverware clinking, table conversation...but no laughs. And he wasn't being offensive or dirty...they just weren't buying his act. It can happen. He finishes up, "thank you and good night." Nothing. No applause, nothing. He walks to the back of the hall to the sound of his own footsteps where the woman who booked the show was standing.
"Tough crowd tonight", he says to her.
She holds out the check and says, "well, I hope you're happy...you've RUINED Christmas!!"
Not "you ruined our party" but he actually ruined the entire Christmas season! And apparently there were a few Jewish people there that wanted to have a word with him because of their not-so-spiffy Chanukah.
The Comic Who Stole Christmas.
(c) 1999 Artificial Horizons