shtick

noun

1. A generally humorous routine.

   “Sally Marr: Lenny [Bruce] used to do a shtick between strippers. / The Interviewer: What kind of stick? / Sally Marr: No, it's shtick, darling, shtick.”

   “Dag and I are drying glasses, a strangely restful activity, and we're listening to Mr. M. do his Mr. M. shtick. We feed him lines; it's like watching a Bob Hope TV special but with home viewer participation.”

   “But even great shtick can get old real fast: the dreaded Saturday Night Live syndrome.”

   “By its thirtieth episode, the show had degenerated into tics and shticks and mannerisms and red herrings, and part of the explanation for this was that [David] Lynch was trying to divert our attention from the fact that he really had no idea how to wrap the central murder case up.”

   “The troops didn’t seem to care much about the meta-ness of Mr. [Steven] Colbert’s visit, nor were they uneasy about his political shtick as they laughed at the gags about clearing Iraq of weapons of mass destruction […]”

2. A characteristic trait or theme, especially in the way people or media present themselves.

   “I'm never ever gonna quit 'cause / Quittin' just ain't my shtick”

   “Like you, I have stumbled through life without knowing what an umlaut signifies and looked it up today only because language is my shtick.”

   “Self-mythology has always been part of The Darkness’ shtick, but here Hawkins and crew forget to back it up with music catchy enough to transcend the solipsism.”

   “[…] however hard she pushed the tough-talkin’ shtick, she remained doe-eyed, glowing and somehow unassailably demure.”

   “Whether [Ted] Cruz can, in fact, build the relationships he would need within the halls of the Capitol if he is to be the nominee – and whether doing so would undermine his anti-Washington shtick – remains an open-ended question.”

3. A gimmick.