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Funny.
Jan 21, 2022 20:23:23 GMT
Post by Kapitan on Jan 21, 2022 20:23:23 GMT
Rather than keep it going in the RIP thread: Maybe I'm just starting to transition to the age that I like less and less of modern pop culture, but I feel more and more like comedy today is more about being quirky, or edgy, or cringey than being actually funny. I honestly don't know if a standup like Louie would be noticed today. I'm not sure, exactly. On some levels, I think comedy is less edgy as people are more concerned about being overly offensive. But I think comedy has gotten more and more about being personal as opposed to just telling (obviously untrue) jokes. "Here's an hour about ME. And how I'm better than THEM." Long-form stories. Having a serious point--that's something I find tedious more often than not. I don't want a serious point from a comedian: lectures about gun control, sexism, politics... I want to laugh.
That's why as I've gotten older, I have gone more and more for comics like Rodney Dangerfield (who I increasingly consider one of the half dozen or so funniest standups ever). It's nothing but a thousand variations on "I'm so ugly..." "my wife is such a bad cook..." "My wife's cheating on me..." etc. Like a thousand borscht belt jokes, one after the other. Offensive, if they were real, but it's so obvious they're not real, and the teller is always deprecating himself too. That's my kind of routine.
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Funny.
Jan 21, 2022 20:32:57 GMT
Post by kds on Jan 21, 2022 20:32:57 GMT
I admit I'm probably not an authority on modern stand up comedy. I was thinking more along the lines of TV or movie comedy.
But, I'm with you, I like that type of stand up. One of the last comics I really got into was Mitch Hedburg, who sadly died in 2005 just as his star was rising. He never want on long diatribes about war or politics (think later era George Carlin), but just told a bunch of non sequiturs that ranged from observational to absurd. Like...
"An escalator can never break down....it can only become stairs."
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Funny.
Jan 21, 2022 20:37:53 GMT
Post by Kapitan on Jan 21, 2022 20:37:53 GMT
Some funny stuff here too.
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Funny.
Feb 7, 2022 22:23:49 GMT
Post by Kapitan on Feb 7, 2022 22:23:49 GMT
I watched Aziz Ansari's new standup special, "Nightclub Comic." (Netflix)
It's weird. It was funny at times, but yet another special to focus a lot on the pandemic and the increasing polarization/tribalization of the country (in which he doesn't even live anymore: I learned in the special that he lives in London now). In both cases, I just feel like the ground has been covered. Chappelle, CK, Gaffigan, Maron, etc., have all talked about one, the other, or both. Granted, comedy always mines the same territory--how many "wife/husband" jokes have there been?--but it's just rubbing me the wrong way.
Maybe it's the "come on, guys, let's all come together!" from people whose job it is to quite literally make fun of people. Ansari mocks anti-vaxxers within this same special, even in the same jokes, that he asks people not to. It's kind of like "hey, tribalism is bad ... and so let's not do it. I mean, I'm on your team, though! Here's a joke to convince you. But yeah, all of us on this team, let's be better and not mock that team." I'm not phrasing it well, but I hope you get the point. It isn't convincing, and it isn't all that funny as he does it. (Some of it. Some is funny.)
Also, it's just under half an hour. I prefer short to overly long, but usually if you don't have an hour, you don't release a special.
He also was doing a bit about how other comedians and celebrities all have brands, how they rake in cash with these other opportunities, and he's "just a nightclub comic." Um...except this special is on Netflix, as were several before it. And as was his hugely successful TV show, Master of None. And he was on Parks & Rec, which was a very successful sitcom. So no, he didn't launch a successful line of jewelry or something, but he seems to be doing just fine as more than a typical nightclub comic.
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Funny.
Feb 15, 2022 13:36:45 GMT
Post by Kapitan on Feb 15, 2022 13:36:45 GMT
Is Chevy Chase funny? Well, he has been, though I can't say I've kept up with him in recent decades. But this is somewhat funny, his reaction to personal criticism from current SNL cast member Pete Davidson.
The article does go on to allege racism, and if that's true, obviously that sucks. But I also wonder, considering Chevy's was a generation that made "racist" jokes all the time, all while obviously not being racist, while this generation has a different understanding of that sort of thing.
Anyway, I'm glad Chevy doesn't really care. Pete Davidson? Not high on the list of people Chevy Chase needs to worry about.
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Funny.
Feb 15, 2022 13:44:19 GMT
Post by kds on Feb 15, 2022 13:44:19 GMT
I can't say I've seen a lot of funny stuff from Chevy over the last 20 or so years.
But (Get off my lawn alert), the man's been responsible for more legendary comedy than Pete Davidson could ever dream. I highly, highly, highly doubt that anyone's going to be quoting Pete Davidson dialog decades later like they do with Caddyshack, Vacation, and Christmas Vacation.
On the "racism," thing, it sounds like revisionist history from a guy who is trying to get himself some attention.
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Funny.
Feb 15, 2022 19:29:20 GMT
Post by Kapitan on Feb 15, 2022 19:29:20 GMT
Chris Farley was born on this day in 1964 in Madison, WI. He would have been 58, but he died ~24 years ago. Way too soon.
Sometimes he seemed like a one-trick pony--haha, look at the fat guy doing fat jokes or breaking stuff--but I think he was more versatile than that. And I really think he would have eventually done some dramatic acting ... and nailed it. He hinted at that even in his short career.
It may not be a critical darling, but I'll go to bat for "Tommy Boy" every day of the week as one of the 10-15 best comedies ever.
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Funny.
Feb 15, 2022 19:47:36 GMT
Post by kds on Feb 15, 2022 19:47:36 GMT
Chris Farley was born on this day in 1964 in Madison, WI. He would have been 58, but he died ~24 years ago. Way too soon.
Sometimes he seemed like a one-trick pony--haha, look at the fat guy doing fat jokes or breaking stuff--but I think he was more versatile than that. And I really think he would have eventually done some dramatic acting ... and nailed it. He hinted at that even in his short career.
It may not be a critical darling, but I'll go to bat for "Tommy Boy" every day of the week as one of the 10-15 best comedies ever.
I'm not sure I'd rank Tommy Boy quite that highly, but it's a movie that I really, really enjoy. I always talk about the SNL / SCTV related comedies that started in the late 70s. I'd place Tommy Boy in with that group. It's also one of the last comedies that I can think it that was very funny without relying too heavily on toilet humor or getting a hard R rating (not that either of those are bad, but it's nice to be able to watch a funny movie in mixed company too). Potential hot take. I also really enjoyed Black Sheep, which is often considered just a cut and paste inferior version of Tommy Boy. It's not as good as Tommy Boy, but I think it's quite funny on its own.
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Funny.
Feb 19, 2022 1:55:21 GMT
Post by Kapitan on Feb 19, 2022 1:55:21 GMT
I've heard him referenced so many times by so many great comics. I knew he was responsible for "take my wife, please." I just watched this and laughed quite a bit. Henny Youngman.
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Post by Sheriff John Stone on May 21, 2022 14:16:11 GMT
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Funny.
May 21, 2022 15:14:22 GMT
Post by Kapitan on May 21, 2022 15:14:22 GMT
I'm looking forward to it. Even though he's not in my tippy-top tier of favorite standups, he definitely was important to comedy and--more importantly by far--often very funny.
I wonder whether George Carlin's comedy would be accepted now. I think he'd be considered "problematic."
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Funny.
May 21, 2022 21:52:23 GMT
Post by Kapitan on May 21, 2022 21:52:23 GMT
Since high school, I was a huge fan of Mystery Science Theater 3000. Today I've been in the mood to laze and watch something along those lines, and so have been watching some of one of its successor shows, RiffTrax. (Same basic idea of joking over movies, TV shows, etc., but with no character/robots/etc.)
My favorite MST3Ks tended to be the "shorts," usually old industrial training or educational videos from the 50s or 60s, which were honestly really funny on their own. This RiffTrax episode is a 30-minute short that's a promotional video from (I'm guessing) the 60s of a tour of the Hormel meat processing headquarters. It's extra funny to me just knowing I grew up about an hour west of there. This video is revolting, honestly, with some of the footage. But it's hilarious, too. Like so many things from that era, the constant praise of things being "modern," "scientific," "automated," etc., is very funny. Compare it to now, when the language is all about things being handcrafted, artisanal, and so on.
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Funny.
May 22, 2022 1:40:49 GMT
via mobile
Post by kds on May 22, 2022 1:40:49 GMT
I need to try to find it on YT, but back in 1997, when MST3K was nearing the end of its initial run, they did a summer movie wrap up, and they lampooned a few clips from Batman and Robin that was hilarious.
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Funny.
May 25, 2022 17:16:36 GMT
Post by Kapitan on May 25, 2022 17:16:36 GMT
Last night I watched the new Netflix comedy special from Ricky Gervais. The show has been somewhat controversial because (predictably for Gervais) there were some gender-identity jokes. Personally I consider all topics fair game for comedy, with the only question being whether the jokes land.
The special, for the most part, didn't land with me. It struck me as the sort of thing that probably would have been bigger in the mid-00s, when you had some transgressive comics like Sarah Silverman, Louis CK, and later Amy Schumer, as well as the doc "The Aristocrats," all a lot of "you can't say that!" sort of comedy; and you had the so-called "New Atheism" (Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, Christopher Hitchens, etc., all with big books at the time), as atheism-versus-religion is another of his go-to topics. It mostly just struck me as tired, to be honest.
He also made at least half a dozen jokes about being super-rich, which I think was meant partly as self-mockery. But it came across as unlikable, too, partly because it wasn't clear: is this a bit/character, or just you? (I mean, the part about being super-rich is obviously true, but the way he talked about it...) It reminded me of this HBO show, Talking Funny, where he talked comedy with Jerry Seinfeld, Louis CK, and Chris Rock for almost an hour.
Those three are all brilliant standups who also have acted; he's an actor who started doing standup. And throughout that older special, as was the case throughout this new standup special, I just kept thinking, "you don't really quite fit in here ... you don't quite get standup in the way most people do." He'd make a point, and they'd all just shake their heads; or they'd agree on something and he'd be coming to it from somewhere entirely different.
I can't put my finger on it. I DO think he's very funny--at least in The Office and Extras--but he just isn't to my taste for standup. Not because of anything controversial. I just don't think it's really his expertise.
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Funny.
May 29, 2022 14:06:49 GMT
Post by Kapitan on May 29, 2022 14:06:49 GMT
I cannot believe I didn't see this news when it came out a couple weeks ago, but I am so damn excited!
Norm Macdonald, without question my favorite comic over the past couple of years (not meaning what he did during that time frame, half of which he was dead through ... but meaning during that time frame I loved his comedy of all time more than anyone else's), has a new special to be released on Netflix TOMORROW.
He taped a new hour of standup in his home in a single take during summer 2020, while increasingly ill from the cancer that killed him. The special not only includes that hour, but has features from a memorial event and a conversation about him between some of his comic-friends: Conan O'Brien, Dave Chappelle, David Spade, Adam Sandler, Molly Shannon, and David Letterman.
I'm over the moon. The special is about an hour and a half, which means I ought to be able to watch it, oh, 8.7 times or so tomorrow.
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