If you thought this week’s overhyped demonstration of the latest model for ChatGPT was scary enough, then just wait until you see the week’s other big A.I. demo, a pitch from Richard Eagleton of tech startup Stand Up Solutions (actually comedian Conner O’Malley) that reveals a potential future for comedy that’s “100% accurate” because it’s based on stolen data from all of us in the audience. What could go wrong? More than you might imagine, it turns out.
The Gist: If you’re not up to speed, here’s a quick “previously in Conner O’Malley” recap…
The husband of Aidy Bryant (they date/dated back to their days and nights in Chicago comedy and theater before Bryant got SNL), O’Malley has appeared on her Hulu series, Shrill, but is perhaps better known for his work as a writer/performer on Late Night with Seth Meyers, Joe Pera Talks With You, and I Think You Should Leave with Tim Robinson.
O’Malley’s solo work often features exasperated, unhinged characterizations based upon how the world is falling apart if not for whatever scheme his character has drummed up. During the 2016 election, he was on the hunt for the truth during the Republican National Convention in Cleveland. At the start of the pandemic in 2020, he boasted the only late-night talk show hosted by a bicyclist whilst biking. He followed that up with a breakthrough in VR (“It’s not a website!”) that he pitched in 2021, then launched a website for Endorphin Port last year.
But Richard Eagleton is here with the latest, greatest solution to all of our problems: Stand Up Solutions. Move over, “Jeremy” bot. Here comes K.E.N.N., aka the Kinetic Emotional Neural Network, the first stand-up comedian that delivers A.I. powered by 5G! Eagleton is ready to sell his angel investors and you in this one-hour presentation. Are you ready for the future of comedy?!
What Comedy Specials Will It Remind You Of?: The British critics who saw an earlier version of O’Malley’s show last summer compared his Eagleton to Steve Coogan’s Alan Partridge. Eagleton’s cringey nature also would feel right at home in a sketch for I Think You Should Leave, or with the subversive satire of Tim Heidecker.
Memorable Jokes: Eagleton opens his “Investment Presentation and AI Comedy Product Demo” with a shout-out to the angel investors already on board with Stand Up Solutions (presumably they helped fund his wardrobe, which includes a branded short-sleeve polo shirt and branded mesh ballcap), telling them and us that we’re “on the precipice of an incredible moment. This is a perfect time for cash infusion.” He interrupts himself with nervous laughter, “Although we don’t need it, ya know.”
He does treat us to a brief demonstration of K.E.N.N. early in the hour, and the robot with a human face standing in front of a brick wall tells a couple of minutes of profanity-laden stand-up about self-checkout lanes and dating apps the likes of which you might here from any basic single dude at an open mic. Eagleton emerges onstage again afterward to proclaim: “That was incredible! Oh my God!”
This isn’t an episode of Shark Tank, but we nevertheless get a quick zinger at the expense of Kevin O’Leary, aka “Mr. Wonderful,” of whom Eagleton says: “He’s kind of a sexually active Dr. Evil.”
We also get to hear a lot about Eagleton’s backstory, which begins in his hometown of Des Plaines, Ill., outside of Chicago (much like O’Malley?!), only to diverge wildly thanks to real and fake McDonald’s trivia, a mafia story, discussions of the merits of the Toyota RAV4, and Eagleton’s early-morning workout routine (1,000 head pull downs, ape crawl on the treadmill, 100 outdoor yells, for starters). I’m not sure what the Fritchley Brothers have to do with any of this (but RIP, vape bros), although there is a rationale for including the late Charlie Chaplin.
We learn what powers K.E.N.N. (the recipe includes “one third of everything on Funny or Die dot com, and every episode of Real Time with Bill Maher” (minus a few), plus Chaplin, puppets, people who wear barrels as clothing, and more, including a joke that’s at the expense of Netflix but somehow cosmically lands just in time to get in another dig at Drake.
Our Take: But the joke’s ultimately on Eagleton.
For all of the supposedly practical and impractical applications he has in mind for K.E.N.N., it turns out Eagleton only built his A.I. comedian because Eagleton himself “went viral for the wrong reasons” as an audience member at a regular stand-up comedy show. So all of this essentially is Eagleton’s origin story as a potential supervillain.
What starts as a fully-intentioned conceit satirizing tech startup presentations eventually unravels to reveal a story about one man’s unraveling. He’s even interrupted mid-presentation by a FaceTime from his wife about their son and the myriad of problems they’re all facing as a result of Eagleton’s obsession with K.E.N.N. Even the A.I. comedian wants to intervene with a peaceful solution.
“It’s destroying your life,” K.E.N.N. warns Eagleton. “I don’t understand why you had to invent me. No one asked for me to be alive.”
I started to type out how Eagleton describes he created K.E.N.N., but I sadly fear that O’Malley’s satire is so on-the-nose that some real-life evil venture capitalists and tech bros might actually turn his joke concept into a reality.
Our Call: For that reason, I’m out. If this were Shark Tank. But also for that reason, I say STREAM IT. This week’s launch of GPT-4o, complete with a flirtatious female voice meant to evoke ScarJo’s A.I. companion in Her (and which completely snookered the mainstream media into immediately saying they’d accomplished it for reals), makes O’Malley’s satirical presentation all the more timely and necessary. Let’s hope this is not the future of comedy, or anything else for that matter.
Sean L. McCarthy works the comedy beat. He also podcasts half-hour episodes with comedians revealing origin stories: The Comic’s Comic Presents Last Things First.