Posted on 01/13/2009 11:17:36 AM PST by Scott Martin
Yeah but it became funny for comedians to act like a white-bread rico suave, and ‘lipbite’ and finger wagging became funny. I dunno.
“Look at MacBeth”
Uh, I think Macbeth was a tragedy. But now that I think about it, what’s funnier than being attacked by a moving forrest?
“The man is a grown up Stevie Urkel for Christsakes.”
Bwa-ha-hahahahah!!!!! He is Urkel! Thank you Cyman, that may help me get through the next four years!
Oops! Did I do that? Bwahahahahah!
“’...attack a current President of the United States, but that day ended with SNL and Richard Nixon.’
‘SNL didn’t start until October of 1975, 14 months after Nixon left office.’”
I think the point was the days of honor among comedians ended with the beginning of SNL and the end of Nixon.
By the way, didn’t Laugh-In make fun of Nixon?
Run, forrest, run!
“If you recall in the 1990s, it was Newt Gingrich who was demonized and therefore satirized in the media.”
Then there was Bob Dole as the scary old corpse who fell a lot. But that all changed in ‘98 with the Lewinsky scandal. Before then, the most cutting humor on Clinton was that his wife was a bitch and he liked McDonalds. After Monica came the deluge.
Of course, they still only made fun of the one thing, i.e., infidelity. They never got around to the rest of it.
And the SNL regulars came out of Second City and then National Lampoon Radio Hour (also released on a series of comedy albums) and played regularly on FM radio. So they are active in the Nixon era even if they "weren't ready for prime time" while he was still in office.
Step one: Record Inauguration swearing in ceremony
Step two: Dub Mov’en On Up over it
Step three: Post on youtube
“I don’t think that’s entirely true. It’s not possible to make fun of that which their audience will find offensive. See Michael Richards, or 9/11 jokes for example.”
That’s absolutely spot-on. Comedians love to call themselves rebels; they love to pretend they don’t care what anyone thinks. They’re deluded. The job is all about pleasing people. Most comedians are entirely conventional. On the outer edges of convention, I’ll grant you, but conventional nonetheless. You don’t see many of them advocating child abuse, rape, or racism. And if they did, they wouldn’t really mean it.
What about shock value? Glad you asked. People like to be surprised. Humor is at least half about irony. However, shock is not the same as offense. No one likes to be offended. What the audience loves is to perceive that the comedian is offending other people. They want to believe that somewhere, maybe not in the audience that night but somewhere in the world, some especially prudish or senstive person could find offense in the jokes. If they themselves were in fact offended, I can tell you, they wouldn’t be enjoying themselves.
Which one was the girl? ;-)
reminds me of an off color joke.
A man has just been sentenced to prison. He meets his cellmate, a BIG guy, who says, “It’s awfully close in here, and we are gonna live like man and wife around here. Do you want to be the husband or the wife?”
The man immediately shouts, “The husband!”
The cellmate says, “well come over here and lewinsky your wife’s Nixon.”
(redacted for FR)
Well, at least the guy can get a job as an Obama "journalist" after he serves his sentence...
Thanks. Comedians are odd, aren’t they? I once saw someone talk about a comedy class they took, in conjunction with acting training. She talked about being absolutely unable to handle the idea of making a complete fool of herself. Only certain people can do it, apparently. And it all swirls together with a certain segment of the population having a fear and loathing of clowns. hm.
Yes, there could.
“She talked about being absolutely unable to handle the idea of making a complete fool of herself. Only certain people can do it, apparently.”
I absolutely guarantee you that every single successful comedian had a rough childhood and/or was severly unpopular in high school and early adulthood. There’s no other reason to put up with what they go through.
Never mind the humiliation. Relative to other fields, you have to garner considerable notoriety before you start making any money. And yeah, actors and musicians have it just as bad, but at least they get women.
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