11 Great Audience Heckles and Their Lame Comedian Comebacks

An empty stage is a beautiful thing. On this, we can all agree. Every night, millions of people flock to nightclubs and theatre-shows to see the curtains rise on a sparkling, unoccupied stage. We marvel at the craftsmanship, and slowly become engorged by the cavernous absence of performers onstage.

And yet despite our wishes, comedians always insist on slowly crawling onstage with all their jokes wheezing out of their holes. And the audience has truly let them have it, with relentless jeers and slams, until the comedian leaves that gorgeous stage once more. The comedians generally try to put up a fight with their stupid comebacks, but every now and then a legend rises from the cheap seats to put those nasty chuckle-buckaroos away for good. We call these intrepid heroes of the darkness “Hecklers,” and here are their 11 best hecks.

11. “You’re Standing On the Face of My Gammy,” Lamar Berg, 2011

In this effervescent all-time heckle, Lamar Berg managed to sink 10 rum punches into his hatebelly before standing up and accusing terrible improv comedian Blink Pilliams that he was standing on the face of Lamar’s grandmother. “You’re standing on the face of my Gammy,” Lamar cried, spinning an incredible tale of science fiction. “My Gammy, my precious Gammy. Get off of her face.”

This could have gone wrong in so many ways. What if the despicable Pilliams deigned to look down and verify whether this was true? He would see no Gammy at all! But Lamar delivered his bellows with all the confidence of a smooth-time cash heister, and Pilliams meekly replied with “By the Gods, I am terrifyingly sorry,” and pissed his pants until he built up enough wetness to slide away from the stage, never once breaking eye contact with slick boy Berg. The audience cheered for Lamar’s reality-defying heckle, and then got right back to admiring the empty stage in pure silence.

10. “Your Mother, Which Is Me, Would Be Ashamed of You and In Fact Is,” Kellie McDuffer, 1995

40-year-old Bruno McDuffer thought he’d try his hand at being a literal terrorist, by coming up onstage with jokes and ruining everyone’s stage-stare session. He only managed to say “These are yuks I constructed while in a toilet home” before his mother stood up, cutting him off with this:

“Bruno, it is me. I am the volcano from which your hideous body erupted. You were small then, and easily foldable. But somewhere along the way, you got too big to stay folded. And lo, did you escape into the world, preparing these sinful gags to bombard this stage tonight. It is only fitting that I defeat you now, before I can do any more damage to the universe. Bruno, your mother, which is me, would be ashamed of you and in fact is.”

Bruno shook his little fists until he turned redder and redder, finally blowing his top in a terrific burst of choo-choo steam. Coroners would later find his internal organs were completely liquified. There is a statue of Bruno’s mother that sits in the Basilica now, known to the locals as “The Redeemed One.” The Pope is okay with it.

9. “Become Goo,” A Little Goo-Bot, 2001

It is unfortunate that Al Gore created the Goo-Bots in his anger at losing the 2000 elections. We tried many times to tell him that Goo-Bots could not recount the hanging chads or turn back time, and that they would instead canvass the world looking for schmoes to goo up. He heeded not our words of prayer.

Despite all this, the malevolent Goo-Bots did serve one fantastic purpose: Getting the leather-bound Steve Millby to leave the stage at famous nightclub The Gaze Place in 2001. During one of their routine sweeps of the state of Wyoming (where thankfully most of the little suckers have gathered by accident, as Al Gore meant to send them to Florida), A Goo-Bot got lost and swerved into the backdoor of the kitchen. It gooed up one busboy and three audience members before it set its sights on Mr. Millby, already crawling onstage to ruin the night’s Good Gaze.

Calculating how disastrous Millby’s presence would be on such a glorious elevated platform, the Goo-Bot screeched out its orders: “Become Goo.” Now, short of having a molten steel tank on hand, it’s hard for any human to become goo. But Goo-Bots say that out of politeness, before they go ahead and goo you themselves.

Millby stuttered and gurgled like the expired buffoon he is, before lamely joking “I got a molten steel tank in my car, I’ll go grab it right now.” This yuk earned 12 boos.

“I shall accompany you to your vehicle,” said the Goo-Bot, and it followed Millby off the stage as he attempted to break into a run for his Camaro. The crowd didn’t bother to watch him get hilariously gooey outside, for they were too busy slapping their peepers back on that incredible pristine stage.

8. Sings the Entirety of ‘Born in the USA,’ Bruce Springsteen, 1988

Sometimes, on those rarest of nights when the clouds are cotton and the grass is sweet, does a villain become a hero.

Such a night befell the town of Littlebury, Nebraska, when famous stage-ruiner Bruce Springsteen found himself in the audience at The Look-But-Don’t-Touch Club. A powerless wizard by the name of Bob Glendale emerged from the blue curtains to stain the raised ground and block everyone’s view, all to make some lame jokes. He did terrible, with his atrocious views on women, race and magick, before trying to do some crowd work.

“I see Bruce Springsteen is in the audience tonight,” said Mr. Glendale, activating Bruce’s dormant screamtunes. Immediately Springsteen roared all 4 minutes and 43 seconds of his notorious collaboration with Uncle Sam, “Born in the USA.” He couldn’t really help it, being the trained showman that he is, but whether it was intentional or not, it did the trick: Bob had to hobble offstage because Brucey got too loud for his old wizard eardrums. The crowd applauded Bruce’s efforts and then punched him in the head over and over and over and over again, just so he wouldn’t get any ideas about getting onto the stage for an encore.

If you have ever been brutally punched in the face while people clap for you, you are either a championship boxer or Bruce Springsteen. The end.

7. “Allan! My How You’ve Grown, CrystalWorld Needs You,” Princess Fractalia, 1964

Allan Needlenipper tied his very first tie and put on his very first hat to come enter-tain all the nice girls and boys at the Brumpton County Talent Show in 1964. No one remembered to tell him the talent show was specifically “Stages Only,” and that absolutely no performers were allowed. But just as he was about to take over center stage with his stench, in stepped a glowing apparition from another dimension.

“Allan! Is…is it really you?” Said the glowing woman, whose silhouette gave way to a beautiful face and flapping wings as the light from the vortex subsided. “My, how you’ve grown! I don’t have much time! The evil Lord Malcount has captured the 7 Crystals of Truth!”

“But…my jokes…” blurted the odious Needlenipper.

“We musn’t delay! The kingdom of CrystalWorld needs you to return again! All you have to do is believe, Allan! Believe again in the power of the crystals, as you did when you were a brave little boy!”

“I…I BELIEVE!” Squealed Allan, and he exploded into a beam of light, all his molecules transporting themselves into the nether-realm of fantysy and wondeur.

A few seconds later, one Johnny-Come-Lately in the audience mumbled “I believe” as well, but they didn’t get transported as the portal was long gone. No one cared — there were too many great stages to look at.

6. “I Told You to Leave, Pilliams,” Lamar Berg, 2011

As it so happened, Blink Pilliams urinated himself way too much when Lamar Berg first heckled him (see entry #11), and so he proceeded to slide all around the audience, backrooms, parking lot, and back onstage again. He was an uncontrollably slippery dipweed and Berg didn’t hesitate to let him have it again.

“I told you to leave, Pilliams,” said Berg as the failure teen slid across the dark, sexy stage at a steady 2 miles per hour. “Show your face on that curtained standing cube again and I’ll festoon your ribs on the chandelier in the children’s bathroom.”

By the end of this great heckle, Pilliams was already sliding offstage, proof positive that Berg is one of the best hecklers of all time and a true surrogate father for lonely sad sons.

5. “Barack Obama Is Racist,” Barack Obama, 2016

President Obama is the worst President this country has ever seen. Too many stages. Just too many. It’s been gross.

However he is now the best President that’s ever existed, including Stagebraham Lincoln and Ulysses S(tage) Grant, thanks to what he did yesterday. Some Millennial fabric bag ambled onto a fine young stage, destroying whatever meagre integrity it had, so he could breathe 9 jokes into a microphone. But Barack happened to be in the audience, and he kicked over a table in rage as he yelled “Barack Obama is Racist.”

It took too much brainpower from the hip stageteen to even conceive of how that was possible. He distracted the vagrant long enough to cook his brain with thoughts of how a black guy could ever be racist. A brilliant gambit from our idiot genius-ass President! “Hail to the Chief” played on a bystander’s iPod as they shoveled the youngling’s steaming bod away.

Does this one great act of racism from our racist President undo all the damage he’s done to this country’s fine stages and stage factories? Sound off in the comments below!

4. “All the World’s a Stage, So Kill Yourself Immediately,” William Shakespeare, 1623

It is well-known that William Shakespeare (back then of course, it looked like “fhakespeare” on account of “s” letters looking like “f”s) wrote moronic plays to coerce actors onto stages. He was a hateful man who devoured ambition and swallowed dreams with his heckletraps. Woe betide the thunderous buttmuffin who dared speak his scriptwords on a stage, for Shakespeare would surely be there — lurking in the shadows, waiting to heck.

And so it was with Jerrald Pfeffermeifter (techincally his name was Psessermeister, but as you know, I have transported you to the olden days with this entry) and he kicked things off with a rousing monologue from As You Like It. No one, however, liked it, least of all the Hope-Poacher himself, William Shakespeare.

“All the world’s a stage,” cried the Bard, emerging from the blackness of the Globe Theatre, “so kill yourself immediately.” He would go on to work this line into his next play, Shakespeare in Love.

However, Pfeffermeifter did not kill himself. He even tried living for a second, which was so totally a dumb move. Shakespeare unleashed his nefarious Goo-Bots to assimilate Jerrald’s taut body, rending his flesh as easily as Shakespeare did his dreams of stardom.

I know, most people think Al Gore invented the Goo-Bots. But nothing’s original in Hollywood.

3. “You Are Hurting Me, How Can I Feel You, What Is Existence,” A Stage, 1975

A stage piped up once about this bullcrap. Pretty neat stuff. The boards shook and shivered and the people got quite gassed up over those hijinks.

Hm? You want to know more about that?

I guess it could have been Floorboards Barry, but no one really knows where he was in 1975. A lot of people say he was still a whisper in the untapped data streams, before they could be accessed with virtual reality to bring him into our world. Personally, I do not take Barry for a digital echo, but while I guess there’s a chance he could have been behind this great heck, I also know Barry never does a thing for anyone but himself. He’s the creep beneath your feet and I go out of my way to avoid him.

Whatever caused the stage to come to life and question its existence immediately, we can be glad it did. Because hippie dingus Lana Grullen didn’t just go on a stage — she went barefoot. This is a top 10 Guinness World Record Bad Time, bad enough to make a stage come to life and defend its honor.

“You are hurting me,” grumbled the stage after Mz. Grullen seized the microphone stand. Then the stage thought about that statement. “How can I feel you?” The great oaken beast followed through on that thought with this mind-blower: “What is existence?”

Lana said “I will take this as my cue to head straight for the sun,” and she went to study at NASA to become a dead astronaut years later. In the meantime, nobody had good answers for the stage — everyone in the audience just sobbed, thinking about what we’re supposed to be doing on Earth, and what it means when even our most cherished inanimate objects can voice their insecurity about their place in the universe.

Bummer, but a killer heck nonetheless. Probably shoulda been, what, like number 7 instead? Don’t sound off in the comments.

2. “Boo,” A Ghost, 10,000 BC

The first stage ever was a pile of handsome rocks. This occurred right after the ice age, and thus this period came to be known as the Stage Age.

There were tons of incredible stages that got revealed once the ice melted, giving way to some very hot slabs that begged to be gawked upon. New animals exploded from the muck of Gibraltar — hawks with ten wings, salmon with dicks, the works — and they all flocked to witness the stagecraft, and it was good.

Until one jabroni chimp with six dicks for eyeballs came somersaulting onto the stage. Everyone hated this monkey before, for his eye-dicked trickster ways. He was known as a sneakthief and a top-of-the-class graduate from Bastard University. And now here he was, daring to strut his stuff on one of the first-ever stages.

Thank the Prophecy of Zeus that an apparition from the Ice Times appeared just then.

Yes, a scintillating ghostman willed himself into visibility, and all the animal kingdom could see him. Except, of course, for the monkey whose eyes were six long penises, flopping out of either socket. He could neither see nor pay attention, so infatuated he was with the smooth slab surface of this proto-stage. And that’s when the ghost laid his tendril fingers upon his shoulder.

“Boo,” said the ghost, trying out some new material that would soon become a classic. And it scared the dicks clean off the monkey. This is how we came to have the monkeys today that you often see roaming tetherball courts and aquariums. The dicks, well, no one knows what happened to those. Some say if you put your ear up against a stone slab you can still hear them flopping around. The rest is legend and glory.

Editor’s note: It has come to our attention that this entire entry has been plagiarized, almost word-for-word, from Charles Darwin’s “The Origin of the Species.” We apologize for this incident and promise it won’t happen again.

1. [Removes Pilliams’ Ribs By Force, Hangs Them From Chandelier], Lamar Berg, 2011

Alas, the inferior specimen known as Blink Butter Pilliams just could not stop sliding around, despite the threats from Lamar Berg that he would lose his most precious tummy bones for doing so. The vicious cycle of fear from those threats led to him urinating himself more, which led to more sliding around the room and stage, which led to yet more terror. After six unbroken hours, Lamar ate one pesto panini, enjoyed a Diet Coke and Frangelico, and proceeded to commit a bone murder.

“Please no, I am a son, I am your son now, father stop,” said the newly-adopted Pilliams. But it didn’t fool Lamar: “No son of mine would have ribs,” he said, putting Pilliams into quite the pickle. Either he would confess to not being Lamar’s new son, inviting a swift death, or he would keep up the charade and get his ribs removed to prove it.

In short order, Lamar dug his fingers into Pilliams’ slippery abdomen, tearing apart the first layer of doughy skin to reach those crunchy insides. Each rib popped out with a twist, just like how you pull out lollipops from a crying piñata, and soon the children’s bathroom at the Laugh Factory had a brand-spanking new decoration to go with their chandelier: The ribs of a piss coward.

Of course, Pilliams’ father and mother were notified. They promptly hobbled Lamar so he could never flee, adopted him as their grandson and made Pilliams be Lamar’s new dad. And this is where they exiled those two, to spend the rest of their days:

A home that is a stage, a stage that is a home. A puzzling hate hut, a confounding cube stuck betwixt two identities. Pilliams and Lamar argued so much that they eventually merged bodies, with Lamar giving Pilliams his ribs and Pilliams giving Lamar his feet. And with that, Mom and Dad Pilliams performed perhaps the greatest heckle in history.