Use humor judiciously

Use humor judiciously. If you blow a joke, or if you make a joke that seems forced when it’s supposed to be spontaneous, that will suck the energy out of the room. If you kill, you’ll get a lot of laughs, which is a high-quality problem but will seriously eat into your time. At least in LA, they enforce the five-minute limit fairly strictly. The judges will ding you for going over, plus it’s just rude, selfish, and narcissistic to outstay your welcome on stage.