quick study break...

last year i went to the ann arbor comedy club, my first time going to a stand-up show in this kind of lounge-y setting. i got more bang for my buck, coz i got to hear two opening acts and the headliner comic, aaaand i also got to hear many cracks from the 'smart' audience member sitting in the front row. comics sometimes make their acts interactive, like pick members of the audience and poke fun of them. sometimes people play along. other times they're too busy laughing. this dude not only played along, he threw in his own jokes. the comic was a little annoyed at the unsollicited comedy, "oh, do YOU want to come up here and do the show?" sassy!
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once vh1 did a brief interview with weird al yankovic (known for his parody songwriting). it was funny when he started complaining about how fans constantly send him ideas, "you should do a parody of this song, like this, because that would be funny!" then al continued to gripe something like it's apparent that he already can come up with his own ideas for songs, and he doesn't really need that much help to be funny.
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this semester i've been doodling cartoons for our super staff dental assistant at school. (she's great!) they usually consist of personified teeth with faces making dental puns or other 'cute' comments about dentistry. a few days ago we were given a lab assignment in which we had to pick up a couple of old (human) teeth from her office. when it's my time to get my supplies i see her and she goes, "hi amy! i was just talking about you with [the professor]."
i walk in and it turns out that she and my prof had saved the NASTIEST-looking teeth, just for me. then they're both like, "check out these teeth! i've never seen anything so mutated-looking in my life! we thought you could draw a cartoon about them!" i was speechless, so the best response i could come up with was, "wow! thanks, i feel so privileged." then the assistant says, "yeah, you should draw a cartoon with a mutated tooth talking about how mutated it looks. that would be SOOOO funny!" confused, i thank them for the teeth and take off on my merry way.
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hmm...
so, do i take her idea for her next cartoon to appease the audience? (i'm still an amateur at dental humour, maybe i could use some suggestions from someone who's been in the profession a lot longer than me...)
or, should i come up with new material and be like those aforementioned artists, "i don't need your help to be funny!"
why do we like to give artists our input so much? maybe we just want to be entertained? (you should write an article about... THAT would be funny!)