Name: Bill Burr on his FIRST Time doing Stand Up | Bill Burr & Carol Leifer
Uploaded: 2025-08-31T18:00:53.000Z
Description: Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Bill Burr on his FIRST Time doing Stand Up | Bill Burr & Carol Leifer' from Bill Burr Clips on Comedy Buff. Published 2025-08-31. Transcript available.

Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Bill Burr on his FIRST Time doing Stand Up | Bill Burr & Carol Leifer' from Bill Burr Clips on Comedy Buff. Published 2025-08-31. Transcript available.

Yeah, no, my audition night at the comic strip,
Jerry Seinfeld was the emcee,
and it was me, Paul Reiser, and Rich Hall.
And he put us all through.
So I literally go back to like day one.
Jerry passed you, or was it Lucian?
Jerry did.
Wow.
I know later on, Lucian used to pass, not pass.
Lucian had the little, not even walk-in closet.
He had a broom closet, and you would go in there.
And he would just be like, you're not funny.
I don't know why you would ever think.
He would just go in there and crush your dream.
That never happened to me.
Fortunately, what happened to me was I went down to the club,
and I met him, and I said, hey, Lucian, I'm a comedian.
He was like, I already have enough white guys.
I don't have any of you.
Your dream is over.
Go fuck yourself.
He did the usual thing that he said.
He didn't say that exactly.
So you didn't pass at the concert?
He didn't even fucking want to hear from me.
Oh, God.
But I knew what he was saying.
Yeah.
Because there was a lot of other white comics.
People were like, that's like racist.
It's like, dude, do you know what he's saying?
Yeah.
There's 800 white guys wearing fucking sweaters in this thing.
I don't need another guy going up there going,
what's the deal with fucking putting Mickey Mantle baseball cards?
You know, whatever the fuck.
But where's the first time you went up?
Because I'm always intrigued by the first time people had the balls to go up
anywhere.
Oh, where's the first place I did stand-up?
Yeah.
It was a comedy competition.
Nick's Comedy Stop in Boston.
Okay.
Had a competition, Find Boston's Funniest College Student.
It was a marketing ploy.
Oh, wow.
To get it filled with a bunch of college kids drinking beers.
Yeah.
Did you do it while you were at Emerson?
I was still at Emerson.
Wow.
So I had made a New Year's resolution.
This is how walled off I was.
It was 1992.
I made a New Year's resolution that at some point in 1992, I was going to do
stand-up.
I didn't know when, so I set it.
You just set that year.
I set that, and literally, like, in January, a couple, two, three weeks later,
in the Emersonian,
I saw it, and I was like, oh, my God, there's the opportunity.
And I felt like I was going to chicken out, so I was a commuter, you know, paid
my way
through college working and everything, you know, Bruce Springsteen's song on
its way.
So I took the train home, and I went home and set my book bag down.
It went right over to the phone and immediately called before I chickened out.
Wow.
And then I remember they were like, the last Monday in February of that year
was the Emerson
night, and so many people signed up that they had to have a second week.
So they said, is there any way you can go on the week after?
Yeah.
And I said, yeah, sure.
Yeah, like you're going to go, no, I'm busy.
Yeah, no, I'll delay it a week.
And then I kind of felt, I beat myself up a little bit, like I should have said,
no,
I need to go on.
And then, yeah, and then the night came or whatever, you know, I forgot
everything I was
going to say.
I was supposed to do five minutes.
I could only remember three and a half minutes of it or whatever.
But I've always told, you know, people who are doing standup, I go, like the
first 10,
15 times you do it, it's not about how you did.
Yeah.
It's just about having the balls to go up there when they, you know, please
welcome Carol
Leifer.
Yes.
And you being like, I am Carol Leifer and I am, I don't know what the fuck I'm
doing.
Yeah.
And you just go up there and just start talking in its, um, it really is, uh,
one of the most
amazing things where it's the only thing where, you know, you can practice all
you want at
home, but you can't.
Exactly.
It's like, can you imagine learning how to play guitar in front of a crowd?
I know.
Twinkle, twinkle.
The thing I love that-
And God bless the people that go to open bikes and have to sit through that
shit.
Oh, oh God.
Oh my God.
Yeah.
But, um, that's the thing that, I don't know if you get this question as a
standup,
it always cracks me up when people say, do you practice in front of a mirror?
Yeah.
Oh, I've tried it.
It doesn't work.
Right.
No, you need people and the, uh, scary part of going up in front of drunk
strangers and trying
to make them laugh.
I mean, I remember at the beginning of my career, I really, and I'm sure every
standup
has a story, a real streak of a lot of not doing well.
And-
Yeah, what's that like?
Yeah, that never happened to me.
But a big streak, Bill.
And I remember I was at the bar at the improv and Stephen Wright, who of course,
you know,
came over to me and he said, you got to do standup every night for three years
and not
judge yourself to become a really good standup.
You have to just go on and go on and fall in your face and bomb and that's what
it takes
to get good.
Yeah.
And there's nothing to, don't listen to anybody that tells you that you shouldn't
do that.
Yeah.
Because if, if, especially when you're a young comic, if you're feeling doubts,
um, don't
listen to anybody unless they tell you to keep going.
Yes.
You know what I mean?
If you really want it, that's what you have to do.
But if you're looking for a way out, there'll be plenty of people to be like,
yeah, man,
I don't like, you know, God bless Lucien.
But like the amount of fucking people that he, that like that early on.
Told them no.
To say that stuff.
I never understood it.
He got wrapped up in the power of it.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
He got wrapped up in the power of it.
He got wrapped up in the power of it.
He got wrapped up in the power of it.
He got wrapped up in the power of it.
He got wrapped up in the power of it.
He got wrapped up in the power of it.