As a comedian, Andi Smith knows firsthand that some jokes soar and some jokes flop -- and some are downright disasters. During a recent episode of "Wanda Sykes Presents Herlarious," Smith recalled an experience where she says she managed to offend an entire state with the first seven words of her opening act.
Smith was in West Virginia performing at a comedy club when her joke got her into trouble. "I can't go back to West Virginia," Smith tells Sykes and her fellow comics in the video. "I cannot go back. I am kicked out."
Only a few people had shown up to see Smith perform that evening, so upon seeing such a small audience, she decided to center a joke around the low attendance.
"I thought it would be really funny to say, 'Where's everybody else? Trapped in a mine?'" Smith remembers. "Nobody else thought it was funny. I've never been back to that club since."
That joke was the first line of night one of Smith's shows in West Virginia, so, initially, she tried to save the rest of her act, but the audience wasn't responding. "You know how at some point in a show... you feel like, 'All right. You've turned on me. Here we go, bitches,'" Smith says to the other comics. "First I tried to defend the comment and that just [didn't work]. That's probably the most trouble I've ever gotten into."
In the video, Sykes and the other comics weigh in on whether they find Smith's joke funny or offensive, and also discuss why they think audiences groan more at female comics than they do at male comics.
"Wanda Sykes Presents Herlarious" airs July 13 and July 20 at 10 p.m. ET on OWN.
CORRECTION: The original article incorrectly stated that Smith was referencing the 2010 West Virginia coal mine explosion. She made the joke in 2006.
Also on HuffPost: Funny Women You Should Know
Related
Before You Go
