Schtick
Encyclopedia
A shtick (or schtick) is a comic theme or gimmick
Gimmick
In marketing language, a gimmick is a unique or quirky special feature that makes something "stand out" from its contemporaries. However, the special feature is typically thought to be of little relevance or use. Thus, a gimmick is a special feature for the sake of having a special feature...

. "Shtick" is derived from the Yiddish word shtik (שטיק), meaning "piece"; the closely related German word Stück has the same meaning. The English
English language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...

 word "piece" itself is also sometimes used in a similar context. Another variant is "bits of business" or just "bits"; comic mannerisms such as Laurel and Hardy
Laurel and Hardy
Laurel and Hardy were one of the most popular and critically acclaimed comedy double acts of the early Classical Hollywood era of American cinema...

's fiddling with their ties, or one of them looking into the camera shaking his head while the other one would ramble on. A shtick can also refer to an adopted persona, usually for comedy performances, that is maintained consistently (though not necessarily exclusively) across the performer's career. In this usage, the recurring personalities adopted by Laurel and Hardy through all of their many comedy films (despite the fact that they often played characters with different names and professions) would qualify as their shtick. A comedian might maintain several different shticks of this sort, particularly if they appear in a variety show that encourages them to develop multiple characters, such as Saturday Night Live
Saturday Night Live
Saturday Night Live is a live American late-night television sketch comedy and variety show developed by Lorne Michaels and Dick Ebersol. The show premiered on NBC on October 11, 1975, under the original title of NBC's Saturday Night.The show's sketches often parody contemporary American culture...

.

In common usage, the word shtick has also come to mean any talent, style, habit, or other eccentricity for which a person is particularly well-known, even if not intended for comedic purposes. For example, a person who is known locally for his or her ability to eat dozens of hot dogs quickly might say that it was their shtick.

Among Orthodox Jews, "shtick" can also refer to wedding shtick, in which wedding guests entertain the bride and groom through dancing, costumes, juggling, and silliness.

Shtick as a criticism

Because of its roots in comedy and show business, the word shtick has a connotation of a contrived and often-used act—something done deliberately, but perhaps not sincerely. For this reason, journalists and commentators often apply the word disparagingly to politicians and their positions, such as the Village Voices reference to a perceived change in Rudy Giuliani
Rudy Giuliani
Rudolph William Louis "Rudy" Giuliani KBE is an American lawyer, businessman, and politician from New York. He served as Mayor of New York City from 1994 to 2001....

's position ("Rudy Adopts New Shtick") or Slate.com's subtitle for a criticism of presidential candidate Mitt Romney
Mitt Romney
Willard Mitt Romney is an American businessman and politician. He was the 70th Governor of Massachusetts from 2003 to 2007 and is a candidate for the 2012 Republican Party presidential nomination.The son of George W...

's presentation of his Mormonism ("Mitt Romney's Clumsy Mormon Shtick"). Reviews or critiques of artistic or journalistic works have also used the word in this manner, usually to imply a shallow repetitiveness in the work of the reviewed, such as New York Magazine calling the White Stripes' 2007 Canadian tour a "one-note shtick".

Famous comedy shticks

  • Jack Benny
    Jack Benny
    Jack Benny was an American comedian, vaudevillian, and actor for radio, television, and film...

    's character on his radio program was notoriously both stingy and a bad violin player, as well as being perpetually 39 years old. In real life, Benny was known as an expert violin
    Violin
    The violin is a string instrument, usually with four strings tuned in perfect fifths. It is the smallest, highest-pitched member of the violin family of string instruments, which includes the viola and cello....

    ist and lavish tipper, and kept celebrating his 39th birthday each year publicly because "there's nothing funny about 40".
  • Three of The Marx Brothers, Groucho
    Groucho Marx
    Julius Henry "Groucho" Marx was an American comedian and film star famed as a master of wit. His rapid-fire delivery of innuendo-laden patter earned him many admirers. He made 13 feature films with his siblings the Marx Brothers, of whom he was the third-born...

    , Chico
    Chico Marx
    Leonard "Chico" Marx was an American comedian and film star as part of the Marx Brothers. His persona in the act was that of a dim-witted albeit crafty con artist, seemingly of rural Italian origin, who wore shabby clothes, and sported a curly-haired wig and Tyrolean hat.As the first-born of the...

     and Harpo
    Harpo Marx
    Adolph "Harpo" Marx was an American comedian and film star. He was the second oldest of the Marx Brothers. His comic style was influenced by clown and pantomime traditions. He wore a curly reddish wig, and never spoke during performances...

    , all had well-honed shticks by the time they started making movies.
    • Groucho, with his stooped walk, greasepaint mustache, lascivious eyebrow raising, and his cigar;
    • Chico, with his fake Italian
      Italian language
      Italian is a Romance language spoken mainly in Europe: Italy, Switzerland, San Marino, Vatican City, by minorities in Malta, Monaco, Croatia, Slovenia, France, Libya, Eritrea, and Somalia, and by immigrant communities in the Americas and Australia...

       accent
      Accent (linguistics)
      In linguistics, an accent is a manner of pronunciation peculiar to a particular individual, location, or nation.An accent may identify the locality in which its speakers reside , the socio-economic status of its speakers, their ethnicity, their caste or social class, their first language In...

      , his "shooting the keys" style of piano playing, and borderline moronic behavior; and
    • Harpo, with his pantomime
      Mime artist
      A mime artist is someone who uses mime as a theatrical medium or as a performance art, involving miming, or the acting out a story through body motions, without use of speech. In earlier times, in English, such a performer was referred to as a mummer...

       routines, the seemingly bottomless pockets of his trench coat
      Trench coat
      A trench coat or trenchcoat is a raincoat made of waterproof heavy-duty cotton drill or poplin, wool gabardine, or leather. It generally has a removable insulated lining; and it is usually knee-length.-History:...

      , and his ability to play the harp
      Harp
      The harp is a multi-stringed instrument which has the plane of its strings positioned perpendicularly to the soundboard. Organologically, it is in the general category of chordophones and has its own sub category . All harps have a neck, resonator and strings...

      .
    • The fourth performing brother, Zeppo, never developed a shtick and thus was a straight man in their movies - though some have argued that his blandness and "normality" was indeed his shtick.
  • W.C. Fields nurtured a character that was not far from himself in real life, being misanthropic, misogynistic, and a hard drinker, as well as lovingly massaging the English language through the utterly unique bellow of his voice and his famous bulbous nose.
  • Many of the performers over the course of Saturday Night Live's long broadcast history have developed shticks that were popular enough to be developed into feature films. The earliest of these was the Blues Brothers, the dark-suited alter egos of Dan Aykroyd
    Dan Aykroyd
    Daniel Edward "Dan" Aykroyd, CM is a Canadian comedian, actor, screenwriter, musician, winemaker and ufologist. He was an original cast member of Saturday Night Live, an originator of The Blues Brothers and Ghostbusters and has had a long career as a film actor and screenwriter.-Early...

     and John Belushi
    John Belushi
    John Adam Belushi was an American comedian, actor, and musician, best known as one of the original cast members of the NBC sketch comedy show Saturday Night Live, The Star of the Films National Lampoon's Animal House and the The Blues Brothers and for fronting the American blues and soul...

    , which spawned two movies and an actual blues record. Of the movies that followed in later years, some met with similar success (such as Mike Myers
    Mike Myers (actor)
    Michael John "Mike" Myers is a Canadian actor, comedian, screenwriter, and film producer of British parentage...

    ' Wayne's World
    Wayne's World
    Wayne's World was originally a recurring sketch from the NBC television series Saturday Night Live. It evolved from a segment titled "Wayne's Power Minute" on the CBC Television series It's Only Rock & Roll, as the main character first appeared in that show...

    ), while others are regarded as critical and commercial disasters (Julia Sweeney
    Julia Sweeney
    Julia Anne Sweeney is an American actress, comedian and author best known as a cast member on Saturday Night Live and for her autobiographical solo shows.-Personal life:...

    's It's Pat
    It's Pat
    It's Pat, also known as It's Pat: The Movie, is a 1994 comedy film directed by Adam Bernstein and starring Julia Sweeney, Dave Foley, Charles Rocket, and Kathy Griffin...

    !).
  • Henny Youngman
    Henny Youngman
    Henry "Henny" Youngman was a British-born American comedian and violinist famous for "one-liners", short, simple jokes usually delivered rapid-fire...

    's standard line "Take my wife — please" was part of his schtick. It consisted of several one-liners
    One-liner joke
    A one-liner is a joke that is delivered in a single line. A good one-liner is said to be pithy.Comedians and actors use this comedic method as part of their act, e.g...

     delivered in rapid-fire sequence.
  • Johnny Carson
    Johnny Carson
    John William "Johnny" Carson was an American television host and comedian, known as host of The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson for 30 years . Carson received six Emmy Awards including the Governor Award and a 1985 Peabody Award; he was inducted into the Television Academy Hall of Fame in 1987...

    's many shticks include his role as "Carnac the Magnificent
    Carnac the Magnificent
    Carnac the Magnificent was a recurring comedic role played by Johnny Carson on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson. One of Carson's most well known characters, Carnac was a "mystic from the east" who could psychically "divine" unseen answers to unknown questions...

    ", an India
    India
    India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...

    n fortune teller who could divine answers to questions sealed in envelopes and "kept in a hermetically sealed mayonnaise
    Mayonnaise
    Mayonnaise, , often abbreviated as mayo, is a sauce. It is a stable emulsion of oil, egg yolk and either vinegar or lemon juice, with many options for embellishment with other herbs and spices. Lecithin in the egg yolk is the emulsifier. Mayonnaise varies in color but is often white, cream, or pale...

     jar on the front porch of Funk & Wagnalls since noon today". His signature imaginary golf swing at the end of his monologue
    Monologue
    In theatre, a monologue is a speech presented by a single character, most often to express their thoughts aloud, though sometimes also to directly address another character or the audience. Monologues are common across the range of dramatic media...

     would also qualify.
  • Chris Berman's shtick in his ESPN
    ESPN
    Entertainment and Sports Programming Network, commonly known as ESPN, is an American global cable television network focusing on sports-related programming including live and pre-taped event telecasts, sports talk shows, and other original programming....

     commentary was his tendency to give additional nickname
    Nickname
    A nickname is "a usually familiar or humorous but sometimes pointed or cruel name given to a person or place, as a supposedly appropriate replacement for or addition to the proper name.", or a name similar in origin and pronunciation from the original name....

    s to players based on their last names (often intended as pun
    Pun
    The pun, also called paronomasia, is a form of word play which suggests two or more meanings, by exploiting multiple meanings of words, or of similar-sounding words, for an intended humorous or rhetorical effect. These ambiguities can arise from the intentional use and abuse of homophonic,...

    s or pop culture references). Berman was also known to often say a football player "could — go — all — the — way" on long touchdown
    Touchdown
    A touchdown is a means of scoring in American and Canadian football. Whether running, passing, returning a kickoff or punt, or recovering a turnover, a team scores a touchdown by advancing the ball into the opponent's end zone.-Description:...

     plays (parodying Howard Cosell
    Howard Cosell
    Howard William Cosell was an American sports journalist who was widely known for his blustery, cocksure personality. Cosell said of himself, "Arrogant, pompous, obnoxious, vain, cruel, verbose, a showoff. I have been called all of these...

    's delivery).
  • Andrew Dice Clay
    Andrew Dice Clay
    Andrew Dice Clay is an American comedian and actor who played the lead role in the film The Adventures of Ford Fairlane.Clay has been in several movies and has released a number of stand-up albums...

    's shtick in his comedy routines is his crude, misogynist themed humor, and sometimes vulgar reinterpretations of nursery rhymes.
  • Rodney Dangerfield
    Rodney Dangerfield
    Rodney Dangerfield , was an American comedian, and actor, known for the catchphrases "I don't get no respect!," "No respect, no respect at all... that's the story of my life" or "I get no respect, I tell ya" and his monologues on that theme...

    's shtick was centered around his famous catchphrase, "I don't get no respect," accompanied by his characteristic facial gesture and yanking or straightening his scarlet necktie.
  • Sacha Baron Cohen
    Sacha Baron Cohen
    Sacha Noam Baron Cohen is an English stand-up comedian, actor, writer, and voice artist. He is most widely known for his portrayal of three unorthodox fictional characters: Ali G, Borat, and Brüno...

    's Ali G
    Ali G
    Ali G is a satirical fictional character invented and performed by English comedian Sacha Baron Cohen. Originally appearing on Channel 4's Eleven O'Clock show, Ali G is the title character of Channel 4's Da Ali G Show, original episodes of which aired in 2000 and on HBO in 2003–2004, and is the...

    , Borat
    Borat
    Borat Sagdiyev is a satirical fictional character invented and performed by English comedian Sacha Baron Cohen...

     and Bruno
    Bruno (character)
    Brüno Gehard , sometimes written as Bruno and Brueno, is a fictional character portrayed by English comedian Sacha Baron Cohen. The character, a flamboyantly gay Austrian fashion reporter, first appeared during short sketches on The Paramount Comedy Channel in 1998, before reappearing on Da Ali G...

     alter-egos can be considered shticks.
  • Stephen Colbert
    Stephen Colbert
    Stephen Tyrone Colbert is an American political satirist, writer, comedian, television host, and actor. He is the host of Comedy Central's The Colbert Report, a satirical news show in which Colbert portrays a caricatured version of conservative political pundits.Colbert originally studied to be an...

     has referred to his character
    Stephen Colbert (character)
    The Reverend / Sir / Dr. / Stephen T. Colbert, D.F.A., brain-child of Google, is the persona of political satirist Stephen Colbert, as portrayed on Comedy Central's The Colbert Report. Described as a "well-intentioned, poorly informed high-status idiot", the character is a self-obsessed right-wing...

     as a shtick.
  • Andy Kaufman
    Andy Kaufman
    Andrew Geoffrey "Andy" Kaufman was an American entertainer, actor and performance artist. While often referred to as a comedian, Kaufman did not consider himself one...

     was a particularly rigorous practitioner of shtick. Kaufman almost never appeared in public, other than as one of his shtick characters, such as "Foreign Man" or Tony Clifton
    Tony Clifton
    Tony Clifton is a fictitious character created and often played by stand up comedian Andy Kaufman in the late 1970s. Characteristic of the many elaborate hoaxes and practical jokes Kaufman concocted, Clifton was not exclusively played by Kaufman—others, mainly Bob Zmuda, stepped into the role on...

    . When he did appear as himself, he still acted out some shtick routine.
  • The Rubberbandits
    The Rubberbandits
    The Rubberbandits are the award-winning comedy hip-hop duo of Blindboy Boat Club and Mr. Chrome from Limerick, Ireland. Primarily a satirical stage and television act, they have performed throughout Ireland, the UK and USA with shows at events such as Electric Picnic Oxegen and the Bulmers...

     are Irish comedians who wear plastic bags over their faces as Shtick.
  • Yakov Smirnoff
    Yakov Smirnoff
    Yakov Naumovich Pokhis , better known as Yakov Smirnoff, is a Ukrainian-born American comedian, painter and teacher. He was popular in the 1980s for comedy performances in which he used irony and word play to contrast life under the Communist regime in his native Soviet Union with life in the...

    's shtick is the Russian Reversal, a joke which is better known than the actual comedian.
  • Lewis Black
    Lewis Black
    Lewis Niles Black is an American stand-up comedian, author, playwright, social critic and actor. He is known for his comedy style, which often includes simulating a mental breakdown, or an increasingly angry rant, ridiculing history, politics, religion, trends and cultural phenomena...

    's shtick is his amazingly uncontrollable fits of rage; another is his comments on his blood pressure due to the aforementioned fits.
  • Bob Newhart
    Bob Newhart
    George Robert Newhart , known professionally as Bob Newhart, is an American stand-up comedian and actor. Noted for his deadpan and slightly stammering delivery, Newhart came to prominence in the 1960s when his album of comedic monologues The Button-Down Mind of Bob Newhart was a worldwide...

    's shtick is his long phone calls with imaginary or historical persons. Hearing only Newhart's deadpan
    Deadpan
    Deadpan is a form of comic delivery in which humor is presented without a change in emotion or body language, usually speaking in a casual, monotone, solemn, blunt, disgusted or matter-of-fact voice and expressing an unflappably calm, archly insincere or artificially grave demeanor...

     comments, the audience is left to assume what the other person is saying.
  • Chinese-Australian member of The Wiggles
    The Wiggles
    The Wiggles are a children's group formed in Sydney, Australia in 1991. Their original members were Anthony Field, Phillip Wilcher, Murray Cook, Greg Page, and Jeff Fatt. Wilcher left the group after their first album...

    , Jeff Fatt
    Jeff Fatt
    Jeffrey Wayne "Jeff" Fatt AM , is a Chinese Australian musician and actor. He is best known as a member of the children's band The Wiggles and the 1980s and 90s band The Cockroaches...

    's shtick is falling asleep at bad times which lead to the beginning in any Wiggles DVDs.
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