Isaac Witty: Zero Balance

by John Delery

With a name like Isaac Witty, you’d have, no, you’d better be funny, especially when telling not one, not two, but three consecutive cell phone jokes, the 21st century equivalent of the 20th century stand-up standby: the airline-food lament.

It sounds like an improbable way to hook a likely cell-absorbed crowd, but Witty (his given name, incidentally, not a gimmicky stage name) lands three successive punch lines at Go Bananas Comedy Club in Cincinnati on his way to a knockout performance on Zero Balance, his new CD from Rooftop Comedy Productions.

The “Ringtone” track alone, No. 10 of 33 tracks, is worth the price of the album. It underscores Witty’s altogether giddy style and his enviable technique of cobbling fresh comedy from seemingly exhausted premises. His success derives as much from his dizzy delivery as his inventive writing. Witty imagines the unimaginable and mines uproarious jokes from what ought to be mundane sources of humor: middle school gym class, the mall, the grocery store, the windup of his act.

“I’m going to keep doing this as long as anyone is mildly entertained,” he says while deliberately milking his finale. Next time, just for precision’s sake, substitute “wildly” for “mildly.”

Check out Witty’s “Ringtone” bit below. And click the graphic to purchase the album.