History Creator / BoBurnham

* BigNo: The ending of the "Inappopriate Musician" skit, which has Bo playing the friend of a suicidal person who is trying to convince him not to jump. [[spoiler:However, after the "NO!", some slide whistles come in. "He's saved."]]

** He also performs a Sieg Heil as the audience sings "Repeat Stuff". He also does another one in the video.

* HaveIMentionedIAmHeterosexualToday: Part of his persona.
-->"And if I were gay / Though I swear I'm straight / I'd make the fellas say / "Oh, Bo!"
** However, he has occasionally pandered to this assumption. [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ub3gumqX7ss For example, a story about how he saw "the most beautiful dick".]]

* AnAesop:
** {{Defied|Trope}} with his "Andy The Frog" story. [[spoiler:"The moral of this story is...irrelevant, 'cause we're humans."]]
** "Love Is..." as well, see the SpoofAesop below.

** "Love Is..." qualifies in the BrokenAesop sense; see below.

* BrokenAesop: "Love Is..." ends with an anecdote about a company that sells rape whistles facing a dilemma produced from the fact that if they're successful in declining rape, they'll also see a decline in sales. The main take-away Bo extracts from that for the whole song?
-->"Love is all about...whistles."

* ARareSentence: A portion of ''what.'' involves him claiming that he enjoys coming up with these when he's feeling low to assure himself that he's unique and capable of creating one-of-a-kind experiences for himself, with examples ranging from [[InherentlyFunnyWords "peanut butter tribadism"]] to "I work at a tollbooth, and I don't want to kill myself".

** While [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J8v_XGuPjgE performing "Oh Bo" in his Make Happy 2015 tour]], Bo summons fog machines behind him to spurt out fog after he says "fiscal irresponsibility". He then comments that that joke cost fifty dollars.

** One of the gags in ''Make Happy'' is Bo's "improv" song; he picks a random audience member for a song he claims to make up off the top of his head to a backing track, only for the backing track to repeatedly sing "Bo had sex with ____'s mom", allowing him to fill it in with the audience member's name.

* IronicName: In "Sad", Bo notes that he once saw a homeless man named Rich.

** [[DefiedTrope Defied]] with his "Andy The Frog" story. [[spoiler: "The moral of this story is...irrelevant, 'cause we're humans."]]

----> '''Bo:''' So I was at the dentist the other day... and nothing funny happened, so I was like, "Don't mention that on stage."

--->'''Bo''': Virgins, if you haven't felt a person, say "Hell yeah!"\\
'''Audience''': "HELL YEAH!"

--->Kill yourself
--->It'll only take a minute
--->And you'll be happy that you did it
--->Just go over to your oven
--->And shove your head in it
* BlackComedyRape:

--->He [Andy] had 3 best friends:
--->Millie, who never left her lily pad,
--->Billie, [[IncrediblyLamePun who was always hopping mad,]]
--->and Roger, who was arrested for possession of tadpole porn.

---> '''Bo''': For those of you listening, I just threw confetti. ''Flamboyantly''.

--->"My sister hated it when I said the C word. Like, we'd be watching ''Spongebob'', and I'd go, 'C word!' And she'd go, 'It's Squidward, you ''cunt''!'"

--> "You all probably think I'm gay / Man, this song is counter-productive..."

--->'''Bo''': That's basically how Hitler rose to power.

--> "And if I were gay / Though I swear I'm straight / I'd make the fellas say / "Oh, Bo!"

** [[LampshadeHanging Lampshaded]] in "Words, Words, Words", the catchy chorus of which states: "I hate catchy choruses and I'm a hypocrite."

--> '''Mechanized voice:''' So basically, you're still a little bitch.
-->'''Bo:''' Yes, very mature, disembodied voice up there.
--> '''Mechanized voice:''' I was just joking, nigga.
-->'''Bo:''' [[NWordPrivileges All right, you're not as safe in Wisconsin as you might think with that.]][[note]]This response changes depending on the city; the one used in ''what.'' is "We are right by Oakland, careful with that shit!"[[/note]]
--> '''Mechanized voice:''' I'm not human, I can say whatever I want.

-->"People need to learn how to tweet long-form stuff. If you're gonna do it, number them so that the order is clear… (1 of 4)
-->And make sure you tweet them all at once so people can read them easily. And don't leave anything out or it will be confusing… (2 of 4)
-->And I haven't set foot in a Best Buy since and he's in jail and I can finally sleep at night. (4 of 4)."

-->'''I am a servant of darkness.'''
-->'''I am the void.'''
-->'''The rivers shall run red with the blood of virgins.'''
-->'''I take many shapes. This is one of them.'''
-->'''The strong will be made weak, and the weak shall bow before me.'''
-->'''SWAG.'''

--->'''Jock''': We think you've changed, bro.
--->'''Agent''': We know best.
--->'''Girl''': You suck!
--->'''Jock''': We think-
--->'''Agent''': We know-
--->'''Girl''': You.

After doing a performance for Comedy Central in January 2008, Bo signed a four-record deal with [[Creator/ComedyCentralRecords their record label]] that same year, and his career largely continued from there in stand-up, where [[GrowingTheBeard he began making a bigger name for himself, and his style of comedy steadily evolved to rely less on cheap shocks and lean more into intelligent satire]]. Apart from releasing several stand-up specials, he also did a bit of work in supporting roles for a handful of films, and in 2013, his work extended further into TV (starring in and co-creating ''Series/ZachStoneIsGonnaBeFamous'', a [[ShortRunner short-lived]] Creator/{{MTV}} comedy series about [[WriteWhatYouKnow a teenager who tries to become an Internet celebrity]]) and literature (releasing a humorous poetry book called ''Egghead; or, You Can't Survive on Ideas Alone'').

In April 2021 (almost five years after the release of ''Make Happy''), Bo's comedy hiatus came to an end with a surprise announcement that a new special titled ''[[Film/BoBurnhamInside Inside]]'' was almost finished, shot and performed alone in the wake of [[UsefulNotes/COVID19Pandemic world events]] and to be released through Creator/{{Netflix}}. It was released on May 30, and was further screened in select American theaters between July 22 and July 25. Exactly one year following its release, an additional hour of behind-the-scenes content and original bits and songs that didn't make the final cut, titled ''The Inside Outtakes'', was released for free on his [=YouTube=] channel, and eventually also added to Netflix in August of that year. Tropes relevant to either should be added to the ''Inside''-specific page linked above.

* BrokenAesop: The end of "Love Is..." has Bo bring up an anecdote about a company that sells rape whistles facing a dilemma produced from the fact that if they're successful in declining rape, they'll also see a decline in sales. The main take-away Bo extracts from that for the whole song?

-->''I saw an old man get hit by a train\\

And it was. I'm a genius.''
* CaptainObviousAesop: InUniverse. In "From God's Perspective", God matter-of-factly declares rape to be a "fucked up thing to do."

-->''I don't go to the gym 'cause I'm self-conscious about my body\\

That's a Catch-22, ooh!''

** He chuckles on the album recording of "Ironic" after saying, "I got my girlfriend pregnant on my sterile uncle's pull-out couch!"

-->''An anteater plus a large hungry mutant ant: an ironic way to die''

-->''No shoes, no shirt''\\
''No Jews; you didn't hear that.''

** ''Make Happy'' starts with a female computerized voice scolding the viewer for laughing with Bo at the world's faults, saying that there is nothing to laugh about and that she is even trying to stop you from it.

** The final line of "High School Party", which consists of a story of how Bo managed to attend such a party, get in bed with a girl and almost sleep with her: "High school party, senior year / [[spoiler:none of that happened, 'cause I wasn't invited]]."
** After spending a good half of "From God's Perspective" shooting down religious beliefs and taboos, Bo then says "You pray so badly for Heaven, knowing any day might be the day that you die. But maybe life on Earth could be heaven. Doesn't just the thought of it make it worth a try?" This is when the song changes direction and starts shifting towards constructive life advice.

-->''Now, you might think that this girl only exists in your mind...''\\
''[[HopeSpot But she's real]]...''\\
''But last week, [[BlackComedy she died]].''

* CampStraight: Parodied in "My Whole Family Thinks I'm Gay". Despite his voice and theatre kid mannerisms adhering to gay stereotypes, he is heterosexual.

** In "I'm Bo Yo": "Because if I'm in the closet, then you are below me / taking the B A T outta "BASEMENT", homie." He does sometimes [[DontExplainTheJoke explain the joke]] ([[spoiler:"SEMEN"]]) when playing it live.
** "Words, Words, Words" has a ton of them. For example, "Take off your bras and ''burn 'em'' [..], you can let Bo ''Burnham'' burn em."

* ARareSentence: In ''what.'', Bo has a bit about wanting to feel original and avoid existential repetition of life events, so he decides to say brand new phrases to feel some level of importance. Some of his examples include:
** "At first I was uncomfortable leaving him alone with my children, but then I saw his moustache. Phew!"

** "I'm your father and I loved your comedy show."

* BlankBook: Bo's poem "I fuck sluts" from "what." is read from what turns out to be [[https://youtu.be/ejc5zic4q2A?t=922 blank pages]].

** The first and penultimate lines of "High School Party" are "high school party, senior year".

* DeconstructedTrope: His ''Make Happy'' song "Lower Your Expectations", which talks about how people will never be able to get their idealized "perfect lovers" in the real world.

** The "Beating Off In A Minor" bit from ''what.'' makes masturbation a lot more ''exciting'', down to the incorporation of MickeyMousing music.

* NewSoundAlbum: His debut EP was merely nothing more than simple guitar/piano chords and, in the case of "Bo Fo Sho", awkward [=GarageBand=]-sounding beats. From there, he's grown more and more into electronica while keeping the complexity of his piano music, with ''Inside'' foraying into R&B and 80s-style synthpop.

* OverlyLongGag: '''''"PROLONGED EYE CONTACT."''''' He just stares at an audience member, doing nothing else, while the phrase repeats a few times. Then right when the audience member thinks he's done, Bo comes back and continues staring.

** After spending a good half of "From God's Perspective" shooting down religious beliefs and taboos, Bo then says "You pray so badly for Heaven, knowing any day might be the day that you die. But maybe life on earth could be heaven. Doesn't just the thought of it make it worth the try?" This is when the song changes direction and starts shifting towards constructive life advice.

--->'''Jock''': We think you've changed, bro

--->"I could stand here and pretend like my biggest problems are Pringle cans... or burritos... the truth is my biggest problem's ''you''."

* WhenLifeGivesYouLemons: In one of his bits, he states that he's a realist, and thusly believes that when this happens, "you probably just ''found'' lemons."

-->''Now you might think that this girl only exists in your mind...''\\

Robert [[EmbarrassingMiddleName Pickering]] "Bo" Burnham (born August 21, 1990) is a comedian, singer-songwriter, poet, actor and filmmaker that specializes in stand-up and music.