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❝ Monologues · 48 lines · B2

Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. Let me introduce myself.

Rupert's debut monologue · The King of Comedy (1982)

Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. Let me introduce myself.

Line 1 of 48

My name is Rupert Pupkin.

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1 Good evening , ladies and gentlemen. Let me introduce myself.
2My name is Rupert Pupkin.
3I was born in Clifton, New Jersey, which was not at that time a federal offense .
4Is there anyone here from Clifton?
5Good, we can all relax now.
6Now, I'd like to begin by saying that my parents were too poor ...
7...to afford me a childhood in Clifton...
8...but the fact is that no one is allowed to be really too poor in Clifton.
9Once you fall below a certain level , they exile you to Passaic.
10But my parents did put the first two down payments on my childhood.
11Don't get me wrong .
12But they did also return me to the hospital as defective.
13But like everyone else, I grew up in large part thanks to my mother.
14 If she were only here today , I'd say:
15"Hey, Mom! What are you doing here? You've been dead for nine years!"
16But seriously, you should've seen my mother. She was wonderful.
17Blond, beautiful, intelligent, alcoholic...
18We used to drink milk together after school . Mine was homogenized, hers was loaded .
19Once they picked her up for speeding. They clocked her doing 50.
20All right, but in our garage?
21And, you know, when they tested her, they found out that her alcohol had 2 percent blood.
22But we used to joke together, Mom and me...
23...until the tears would stroll down her face and she would throw up! Yeah.
24And who would clean it up ? Ha, not Dad.
25He was too busy down at O'Grady's, throwing up on his own. Yeah.
26In fact, until I was 16, I thought throwing up was a sign of maturity .
27While the other kids were off in the woods sneaking cigarettes ...
28...I was hiding behind the house with my fingers down my throat .
29The only problem was I never got anywhere , until one day my father caught me.
30And, you know, just as he was giving me a final kick in the stomach for luck...
31...I managed to heave all over his new shoes!
32"That's it!" I thought. "I've made it! I'm finally a man!"
33But, as it turned out , I was wrong.
34That was the only attention my father ever gave me.
35Aw...
36Yeah, he was usually too busy out in the park playing ball with my sister Rose.
37Aw...
38But today, I must say, thanks to those many hours of practice...
39...my sister Rose has grown into a fine man.
40Me, I wasn't interested in athletics.
41The only exercise I ever got was when the other kids picked on me.
42They used to beat me up once a week , usually Tuesday.
43And after a while, the school worked it into the curriculum.
44And if you knocked me out, you got extra credit .
45Except there was this one kid . Poor kid . He was afraid of me.
46I used to tell him, " Hit me , hit me! What's the matter with you?
47Don't you wanna graduate?"
48As for me, hey, I was the youngest kid in the history of the school to graduate in traction.

Why it's worth practising

He turns a bleak childhood into laughter, tightening the joke with every beat.

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Phrases in this speech

federal offense down payments loaded clocked her 2 percent blood worked it into picked on me in traction

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