New Children's Comedic Monologue: Human Dad Body
AI is a hotly debated topic, and a legitimate question I hear often is: “What positions in life could AI not take over?”
Check out my new children’s monologue, HUMAN DAD BODY. It’s a kid’s monologue, it’s short, it’s funny—and kinda sad. And… it begs the question…
In the 1-minute monologue, HUMAN DAD BODY. young Marco is hanging at an entertainment center (think go-karts, arcade, bowling, pizza and nachos) with other kids, including his kinda-friend, Brody. Brody has finished go-karting with his dad and excitedly told Marco about it. Having no father in the picture himself, Marco always feels a hint of jealousy and sadness when Brody talks about doing things with his dad. But Marco isn’t one to be left behind! He’s a problem solver. Marco has been using…did you guess it?…yup, he’s been using ChatGPT to stand in for a dad by asking it questions and having conversations, father/son style. Brody has made fun of him for that, but in this monologue, HUMAN DAD BODY, Marco tries to get a little power back in the friend dynamic by showing off about the good things of his “AI-dad-stand-in.” He tries to put down Brody’s experience go-karting with his human-dad and brags about how great it is that ChatGPT doesn’t have a dumb body to take up space go-karting.
He does make a case, with his childlike logic… Do you believe he believes it?
As I said, this is a comedy. But…
I read it to my husband and he was smiling throughout and then laughed out loud at the last line, but quickly followed it up with, “Oh, but that’s so sad…”
This is one of those pieces where there is humor, and the character gets to be brash, tough and all “up in your face,” acting like he doesn’t care—and that’s a fun part to play! It’s a piece where the audience is going to come along for the ride and enjoy the performance, but, the audience will also feel the sadness and pathos and maybe even cringe that the character is NOT seeming to recognize what everyone else sees.
At the same time, an actor has the opportunity to dig into the layers of this character. It’s a fun challenge to play one intention while holding another subtext underneath. I’m a big believer that child actors can meet these challenges. They get it and enjoy it. And this monologue gives that awesome acting challenge, while also being a blast to play!
HUMAN DAD BODY has a running time of about 45 seconds to 1 minute, and it’s great for kids as young as 4. While Marco is a boy’s name, no pronouns or names are used in the monologue itself and it is completely fine for an actor of any gender.
Enjoy an excerpt below!
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MARCO
Yeah? Well, who cares your dad took you go-karting? I saw he sat next to you and he’s the one that steered, so you just sat there, and I bet you were all squished in ‘cause your dad took up so much space ‘cause he’s got a human dad body, but ‘know what?
I’m gonna go-kart by myself and won’t have to share the space with anyone, ‘cause my mom doesn’t wanna go-kart with me! And you know my dad—END OF EXCERPT
Click below to get the complete 45-second to 1 minute children’s comedic (with a hint of dramatic) monologue, HUMAN DAD BODY.