Big Jay Oakerson Tapes New Crowd Work Series; Get Tickets

NBC Universal is launching a brand new streaming service  in January just for comedy. It’s called Seeso and it will house a ton of NBC comedy content as well as a slate of comedy original series. Big Jay Oakerson’s all crowd work stand up show What’s Your Fucking Deal is one of the first original series that will air on the service.

Oakerson, who is known for brutally funny crowd work is the host of the show, along with co-host Ardie Fuqua, who was one of the comedians traveling with Tracy Morgan last summer when a Walmart Truck collided with the van they were riding in.  Last week on SiriusXM’s Bennington Show, Oakerson explained the series, and where the concept came from. “The idea for the show came from something Ardie Fuqua and I used to do informally at the Comedy Cellar,” he said. “I would always go at the end of the night, last, and the crowd I always felt was so beaten down with jokes at that point that I wanted to do something a little more fun. And so Ardie and I would just talk from on and off stage. I’d be on stage, he would be in the audience.  He’d kind of run through the audience and pick people out who he’d been talking to all night.”

Oakerson said it was usually around 1:30 in the morning on a weeknight, and he and Ardie would mess around trying to entertain the staff as much with the audience by that point.  Producers Christine Evans and Rebecca Trent got the show into the Montreal Just For Laughs comedy festival two years ago, and it killed. They ultimately pitched and sold the show to NBC Universal and the show will air exclusively on the new Seeso platform when it launches in January.

The tapings for Whats Your Fucking Deal are all happening this week, and you can still score tickets to a taping. We checked out the first night, and the crowd was everything you’d want them to be for a crowd work show, which means excited, having a great time and weird as fuck. We don’t want to give away surprises, but we spotted Colin Quinn, Mark Normand, Andy Kindler, James Adomian, Joe Derosa, Hannibal Buress, and Jessica Kirson, among others hanging around the Bitter End, where the shows are being taped, and everyone who we saw go up killed. A few tiny spoilers, since January is such a long way away and we know you want some details.  You may get to see Big Jay wearing something other than a black tshirt. You may learn that Ardie Fuqua is the polar opposite of Jay in the wardrobe department. You will see James James Adomian give a whole new meaning to the word crowd work.  And you will see comedians jokes that no traditional network would ever let see the light of day.

You can still get tickets to tapings Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday nights’ tapings and there are two show each night. Here’s where you go to score some tickets and this is the best show you’re ever gonna see for $5. Big Jay’s career gets bigger every time we turn our heads so be there and say you knew him when…

Read more comedy news.