Bombing is only the beginning at the Banana Phone comedy show at the Creek and the Cave.
“There’s a lot of division in this country,” co-host Michael Ridley told the crowd on a recent Sunday night. “But there’s one thing that unites us: basking in the cringe of someone else’s failures.”
The comedy show doubles as a form of masochism. Comedians go on stage, do one minute of material, and after they’re done, the hosts and the entire audience heckle and roast them.
“People every Sunday yell the most insulting, horrific, terrible things at me, and then I go to work on Monday,” said comedian Trent Bradley, who has done the show dozens of times. “People last night were calling me an unfunny loser. You can’t hurt me at this staff meeting.”
There’s no time limit on the roast portion of the set. It goes on for as long as the crowd has jokes to make. Almost nothing is off limits. Jokes about race, gender, ethnicity, height, weight, age and the quality of the material are all fair game.
“They make fun of my hairline,” Bradley said. “They say it looks like the McDonald's logo. They say it looks like a V-neck T-shirt.”
Banana Phone is one of the most popular weekly comedy shows in Austin, drawing a live audience of more than 100 people each week.
Comedians put themselves through the controlled cruelty to toughen themselves up for hostile and unfriendly audiences.
“If you can do this, you can do anything,” Bradley said.
Unkind love and ego death
Banana Phone has been running for nearly five years now and has undergone many iterations.
"When I first started," creator Kandace Medina said, "I would throw bananas at people if they went over their time."
Medina kicks off every show by going on stage herself, trying out material and putting herself through the process. She’s also joined by a panel of veteran comedians who lead the heckling.
Performers are allowed to fire back at the crowd, but the blinding stage lights and barrage of punchlines is incredibly disorienting.
“It’s scary,” Medina said. “It’s the worst-case scenario as a comic.”
About a third of the audience each week is other comedians, many of whom have been on stage before. That means most of the time, the people heckling the comics are their peers.
“For me, it's this level of connectivity and community that we are able to bring together through this crazy level of clowning on each other,” Medina said. “It is very Lord of the Flies-esque.”
When comedians get off stage, they get a chance to bond and network with the people who just heckled them.
“There's something very human about connecting with people in a way that is love,” Medina said, “but is not kindness.”
Visiting comics often go out of their way to get on the show.
“It's like an Austin-specific thing in the comedy world,” said Jamil Linton, a Los Angeles-based comedian who's been on twice.
Good comedy requires self-awareness and as it turns out, getting in front of a bunch of drunk strangers who want to hurt your feelings is a great way of learning what people notice about you.
“I wore these boho overalls,” said Linton about her first appearance, “and Kandace [Medina] told me that I looked like I was doing standup comedy for a Lamaze class.”
Most of the heckles shouted at performers are vulgar, offensive and juvenile, which means the crowd occasionally goes too far.
"Somebody called me a b---- and I was kind of like whoa and the audience backed off," Linton said, "but then I clapped right back, and I didn't know I was capable of doing that.”
Banana Phone’s hosts walk a tightrope.
The point of the show is to simulate a comedian’s nightmare scenario, which sometimes looks indistinguishable from simple name-calling.
The show’s panel addresses bullying from the audience by turning the crowd on whoever crossed the line.
"I can't control what a hundred people are going to do," Medina said. "We self-police by bringing back public shaming."
They also try their best not to let somebody suffer on stage for too long if it becomes clear the response is spiraling out of control.
“If I ever see someone go up and that person's face is clearly shifted to where this is actually making them sad and they’re not enjoying themselves, then I try to get them off,” co-host Nick Cox said. “Because if somebody gets upset for real, it kind of changes the temperature of the room.”
Cox has helped heckle and roast hundreds of comedians over the years. He says the only way to survive the show is to accept the things you cannot change.
“You have to be able to go up there and just surrender to whatever is going to happen,” he said. “It’s like ego death.”
Freeze under fire
Near the end of a recent show, Medina welcomed a newcomer.
“Give it up for Freeze the Comedian,” she shouted as he walked on stage.
Freeze, whose real name is Chris Winfrey, is originally from North Carolina and has been doing standup for a year. He’s a heavier-set gentleman, which is what he focused his entire set on.
“Wherever I go, it takes all of about 30 seconds for somebody to talk about Ozempic,” he told the crowd. “I asked my doc, how do I get diabetes so I can get it cheaper? He said, just give it a minute.”
Rolling laughter kicks up.
“I don’t got that kind of time, man,” Freeze went on. “I'm one brisk jog away from heart failure.”
After his set, Freeze received a standing ovation from the drunken crowd.
“Thank you. Thank you,” he said. “Now let me f------ have it.”
The audience and hosts immediately began to rip into him. Almost all the jokes are about his weight.
“Oh, Lord Jesus, I ask that you give us an ocean big enough to baptize this man,” Medina said.
“Lord, I ask that you keep the butter away from this big old boy,” co-host Michael Ridley said. “I hope you clear a path in the arteries of sin that flow through this body.”
Freeze sat back in the audience after getting off stage.
“I was shaking a little bit when I first went up, but I mean that's just your nerves,” he said. “That's going to be natural. I have anxiety disorder but don't let that affect me whatsoever.”
He spent nearly 10 minutes on stage – far longer than the average comic who signs up.
“I'm so glad that they chose to roast me more than some of the other comics,” he said. “It lets me know they care more.”
Comedy is cruel.
The rejection is constant, the pay is nonexistent and most comedians never break out. The only way to survive is to find your people. Banana Phone helps.
“I just got to Austin,” Freeze said. “I just want to put my mark on and let people know and I'm here to f------ stay.”
The comedians brave enough to go on stage come away with thicker skin and access to a community.
All it costs is their dignity.
