Transcript
Speaker: Hello everyone, it's Alex Hooper and we're back with another episode of Dirty Briefs.
Speaker: And this week, I want to talk about my most controversial joke.
Speaker: The joke that still upsets people to this day.
Speaker: The joke that has garnered me more attention than I ever thought I would receive from a single line of comedy.
Speaker: And that joke is about Heidi Klum.
Speaker: In my very first America's Got Talent, I said the following joke.
Speaker: Heidi Klum, you are magical.
Speaker: Four children, and yet your body looks as though you haven't paid attention to any of them.
Speaker: Let's break that joke down.
Speaker: Why does this joke affect so many people in a negative way?
Speaker: Why does it give them this visceral reaction of loathing?
Speaker: A lot of people, if you read the YouTube comments, which I do because I am a narcissist, a lot of people say it's because I'm calling Heidi Klum a bad mother.
Speaker: They said, how dare you call out a parent on their skills to raise their children?
Speaker: But that's not what that joke is doing.
Speaker: That joke is a compliment about Heidi Klum's physique.
Speaker: Think about it.
Speaker: What's the first thing I say?
Speaker: Heidi Klum, you are magical.
Speaker: What an adjective to apply to a person.
Speaker: I'm seeing them beyond their physical appearance.
Speaker: I'm seeing their soul.
Speaker: They're magical.
Speaker: They create an atmosphere that doesn't even seem possible.
Speaker: Well, that seems like a pretty nice thing to say.
Speaker: The next part of the joke, four children.
Speaker: That's a lot of kids.
Speaker: A lot.
Speaker: She has been pregnant four times.
Speaker: Four times.
Speaker: That means that four times her stomach expanded.
Speaker: Her boobs grew.
Speaker: Everything in her body went through a metamorphosis before it could get back to the status quo that we know as Heidi Klum.
Speaker: Four times.
Speaker: Four.
Speaker: four children, and yet your body looks as though you haven't paid attention to any of them.
Speaker: And people get angry about that.
Speaker: It's a veiled compliment.
Speaker: All I'm saying is that you look so good that I can't believe you were able to raise four children and still get your body back to being a victorious secret model that is still walking the runway today with 20-year-olds.
Speaker: That's incredible.
Speaker: And yet, people get upset.
Speaker: But that's what a good roast joke does.
Speaker: It compliments a person.
Speaker: When you're thinking about a great roast joke, you don't just want to go, this Heidi Klum, you're an ugly bitch.
Speaker: Because she's not.
Speaker: You want to compliment the person.
Speaker: You want to truly show them that you see them.
Speaker: As a person, you see them in a deep way.
Speaker: That's what a good roast is.
Speaker: Jeff Ross, one of my greatest mentors in comedy, especially in the roasting world, his book is called We Only Roast the Ones We Love.
Speaker: Because there's no point in roasting somebody that we don't enjoy their company or we don't like what they do.
Speaker: That's just making fun of them.
Speaker: Roasting somebody is about truly seeing the person for who they are and expressing how much –
Speaker: You recognize them as a human.
Speaker: That's what a good roast joke does.
Speaker: When it starts with a compliment, it's a sandwich of compliments.
Speaker: And yeah, there's a little bit of evil in the middle.
Speaker: But that's part of the fun.
Speaker: That's why this joke affects people so much is because they think it's about her parenting skills.
Speaker: It's not.
Speaker: It's about her amazing transition, her ability to go from being a pregnant person four times to having this incredible swimsuit figure that all guys want to look at.
Speaker: She is a marvel of humans.
Speaker: achievement.
Speaker: Absolutely amazing.
Speaker: And that's what a good roast joke will do.
Speaker: It will show you the person who they are.
Speaker: It will make them feel lifted up.
Speaker: If a joke makes you make them want to punch you in the face, that's not it.
Speaker: You went too far.
Speaker: They should recognize it in themselves.
Speaker: That, oh, this person really saw me for who I am.
Speaker: They went beyond just my physical appearance and they made a joke that really had something to do with who I am.
Speaker: A good roast joke should do that.
Speaker: It should sit with you.
Speaker: It should make you really go, wow, God, they saw me.
Speaker: They really did.
Speaker: And that's what I did on America's Got Talent.
Speaker: I had to write jokes that were for a family-friendly audience.
Speaker: I had to write jokes.
Speaker: These aren't for Comedy Central.
Speaker: These are not how dirty can I get?
Speaker: How mean can I get?
Speaker: These are, wow.
Speaker: How can I dig at your soul?
Speaker: But in a way that is perfectly kind.
Speaker: And coming through on NBC.
Speaker: I'll tell you some of my favorite jokes that I've had said about me over the years.
Speaker: And there are tons of them.
Speaker: There are so many jokes that have been hurtled in my direction.
Speaker: Hundreds of them.
Speaker: But I'm going to remember a few.
Speaker: George Perez said that I looked like a bouncer at a recycling center.
Speaker: I don't even know what that means.
Speaker: It's not a real thing.
Speaker: But when I say that line, when he said that line, holy shit did people lose their minds.
Speaker: Because they can see an immediate visual.
Speaker: It's not mean.
Speaker: It's just a silly premise.
Speaker: And it works.
Speaker: You guys know I have bad eczema.
Speaker: I've talked about it on this podcast before.
Speaker: My friend Omid Singh said, Alex's skin is so bad or Alex's hands are so rough.
Speaker: The first time I shook his hand, I thought he was handing me a pine cone.
Speaker: Hilarious.
Speaker: Absolutely hilarious.
Speaker: Creative.
Speaker: Keith Carey said I looked like a meth labradoodle.
Speaker: Beautiful wordplay.
Speaker: What an image.
Speaker: Meth labradoodle.
Speaker: Jason Van Glass said, I looked like I went to Burning Man and never came back.
Speaker: Again, the visual.
Speaker: I don't feel cruelty in that joke.
Speaker: Jay Light said, my headshot is a piece of sandpaper.
Speaker: So fucking funny.
Speaker: I love it.
Speaker: One of my favorites.
Speaker: One that I had absolutely no comeback for.
Speaker: Rich Slayton in my third roast battle ever said, I asked Alex's wife how she gets intimate with him.
Speaker: And she said, it's very easy.
Speaker: I turned down the lights.
Speaker: I put on some music and then I say, Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice.
Speaker: The audience erupted for over a minute as I stood up there and took that hit.
Speaker: I had no comeback whatsoever.
Speaker: I beat him overall, but I lost that round.
Speaker: Fifi Dash said, Alex is from Baltimore.
Speaker: He's the, he's the ashiest man in a city that crackheads burnt down.
Speaker: Whoa.
Speaker: I remember Hannibal Buress going, did this white man just call another white man ashy?
Speaker: Because it was brilliant.
Speaker: It was hilarious.
Speaker: That's what a good joke does.
Speaker: You have to recognize that somebody spent the time to think about you.
Speaker: And see you in a way that you have never thought of before.
Speaker: That's what made me love myself.
Speaker: Is all these people calling me these different names over the years.
Speaker: It just made me laugh so much that I realized, wow, people see me in a thousand different ways.
Speaker: Why should I be upset about any of this?
Speaker: The only time I get upset about a roast joke is when it's not about me.
Speaker: If you make fun of someone in my family or my wife, then I get upset because the joke always has to come back to the person, the roastie.
Speaker: You can use my wife in a joke.
Speaker: But you cannot make the joke about my wife.
Speaker: Somebody once said Alex loves pugs, but they're not actually pugs.
Speaker: They just become flat.
Speaker: They were schnauzers that became flat face when he fucked them against the window.
Speaker: Hilarious.
Speaker: That's not about my pugs.
Speaker: That's about me.
Speaker: So that's okay.
Speaker: If you guys want to learn how to write roast jokes, by the way, I have a free roasting guide on my website.
Speaker: If you go to hoopercomedy.com, sign up for my email list.
Speaker: That comes with a free nine-step roasting guide of how to write jokes, how to throw a roast, and how to host an event where everybody is going to leave feeling like they laughed themselves free of whatever they were feeling before.
Speaker: You shouldn't want to hurt somebody after they make a roast joke.
Speaker: You should want to hug them and say, thank you so much for seeing a part of me that normally does not get seen.
Speaker: I really hope you guys do it.
Speaker: Hoopercomedy.com.
Speaker: That's also where you're going to find my tour dates.
Speaker: Did you know that this week I'm going to be in Las Vegas and South Dakota and North Dakota?
Speaker: Yes, I am going to all those places, everybody, this week.
Speaker: And then next month, I'll be in Florida, in Orlando, in Tampa.
Speaker: Coming up, I'll be in the Bay Area at Alameda Comedy Club.
Speaker: All of these things are at hoopercomedy.com.
Speaker: So go and share.
Speaker: The Roast Guide with People.
Speaker: Host and roast yourself.
Speaker: Let me know if you want to do it.
Speaker: And if you want to get roasted by me, you know I'm on Cameo, everybody.
Speaker: I'm there just for you.
Speaker: So I really hope you do it because God, roasting is so fun.
Speaker: It really allows you to find yourself.
Speaker: At least that's what it did for me.
Speaker: And I know it can do it for you too.
Speaker: So until next week, everybody, have a beautiful, beautiful existence.
