The Hollywood Reporter: In early January, comedian Katt Williams went on Shannon Sharpe’s Club Shay Shay podcast and took aim at Cedric the Entertainer for stealing “my very best joke.” The bit in question — which involved a pantomime of driving with music blasting — was first performed by Katt in a 1998 appearance on ComicView, then reproduced by Cedric (according to Katt) for his set in Spike Lee’s The Original Kings of Comedy. Cedric called the accusations “revisionist history” on Instagram.
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Stealing jokes is taboo, but people will always do it. The thing with comedy is it is incredibly difficult to come up with your own content and keep it fresh for our audiences, especially if you are a renowned comedian who does multiple shows a week. I feel as though in everybody's career they have to have at some point used a joke or format or something that another person has already done. Now I'm not saying I approve of stealing other people's creative work, but I am saying I can appreciate how difficult it is to be original. However, this does not mean that you can just take other people's work because it's hard to make your own. I'm sure there are many cases of misunderstandings and just general unknowingness of taking other people's work, but it is when people intend to harm and steal, that it is harmful for the entire comedy community.
In the world of comedy, I think it can be tricky when deciding if something is truly plagiarism or not. I think the distinguishing factor is whether or not it draws from the original, and builds upon it in the comedian’s own style, or if it is simply a reproduction of their work. A full stand-up routine takes an extremely long time to develop, because there's the process of writing, but then before it can be taken to a big stage, it has to be performed for an audience to test drive the jokes and reactions from the audience. When someone hijacks that process, and simply takes the work of someone else, the delivery can be off, as they’re not the ones who have gone through the process of testing jokes for the stage. It’s a kind of instant feedback that you need to understand to be a successful comedian.
I found this article to be very enlightening. The comedy world is one I’m not very familiar with, and it explained the history of joke stealing very well for a comedy novice like myself. I find it so interesting that joke stealing has been going on for so long. One would think that comics would learn from each other's failures. However, the fact that comics are never really punished for joke stealing makes me wonder if being caught for joke stealing is a failure in the first place. I don’t like the concept of joke stealing, I view it as lazy artistry, but one could defend that the delivery of the joke is what makes it a good joke, not who wrote it. The article is right that jokes are not owned or copyrighted in any sense; this is the case for most art. The lack of copyright laws is a bit terrifying as an artist, however, the lack of laws makes sense. How does one define originality with such a creative form? It’s quite a tricky balance.
I have thought about the topic of this article a lot over the past couple of years. I love stand-up comedy and I have gone to many comedy shows and watched an egregious amount of comedy specials on streaming platforms. I would be very surprised if there was a big-name comedian who hasn’t had a joke stolen from them and I would bet money on the fact that a good portion of comedians have stolen jokes themselves. My moral opinion comes more from the lens of being yourself. If you steal a joke and don’t put even the tiniest amount of effort into putting your own spin on it or changing up some of the punchlines, then I lose respect. Most people like the comedians they like because of their ability to tell a joke about a topic they never thought you could tell a joke about.
Throughout history people have been stealing things from each other. From belongings to ideas to friends and also jokes. While it is less common for someone to steal someone else's joke than it is to hear of someone robbing a person's house it still happens. Whether it was intentional or someone is just riffing off another person's joke, no idea is truly original, they are all derived from some experience or story. Even in an episode of the Television show Friends there is a plot line where Ross supposedly stole a joke from Chandler and had it published as his own in Playboy. It still is not decided who’s joke it is because there really is no way to prove who came up with it first. This happens in real life too and it is a very real frustrating thing to have someone steal your idea, story, or joke. Because unless you recorded saying it somehow that is irrefutable evidence, there is no way to prove that it was your thought first.
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