I just realized I resemble Motherinlaw's remarks. Uh oh.
Ah yes that reminds me of Norn Crosby, a funny guy. Many years ago back when I had the chance to watch The Ed Sullivan TV show I liked it when the Stand-up Comics would do their acts. Henny Youngman was another one that I liked but there were quite a few male and female jokesters on that show over the years.
I was lucky to see Hennny live in Glastonbury CT many years ago. Great show full of his snappy one liners!
Yes, that's when comedy was actually humorous and hadn't, for the most part, become the practice of politics by other means. Heck, even more politically minded comics were funnier, even insightful, back then because they never let their material and delivery become strident or lapse into pamphleteering.
Anyone remember Mort Sahl, who is still alive at 91? Richard Pryor and George Carlin could be both funny and political, but more often they remained cultural, which is broader and funnier.
sorry, bob, but that just sounds like (current) sour grapes to me. comedians have always made jokes about politics for as long as i can remember.
obviously i'm not going back to the days of groucho marx, but i think you would agree that good comedians deal with current events. politics is very much in the news and comedians are making fun of potus and the 100 others running in 2020.
You can't tell me most of these guys and gals have the same attitude as Will Rogers, namely "I never met a man I didn't like." It's more like, "I never met a man or women who thinks differently from me I didn't hate," and it comes across in their strident routines.
I do find Adam Carolla funny when he's on; he has a sense of humor about all the craziness in the culture at present.
Anyway, we'll have to agree to disagree, Al.
True, humor always used to be political, but it was about politics in a politically neutral way. For example, a political joke in 1964 when the Goldwater Republicans refused to join forces with the left-leaning Rockefeller Republicans was: "Did you hear that Goldwater was supposed to speak in Dallas yesterday but he didn't make it?" "No, why?" "He refused to get on the plane because it had a left wing." ('ta dump' go the drums) Not very funny, but you get the point: the joke characterizes rather than attacks him.
My main complaint is with the decline of Saturday Night Live. Because they can't think of anything imaginatively funny and weirdly surreal any more, as they used to, they resort to constant singing, dancing, and repetition to fill up the time. Gone are the days of 'The Coneheads,' 'The Men Who Say 'Um' Between Every Word,' and 'My Friend Robin.'
Precisely, Luitpoldt, you got to the heart of the problem better than I did. You might say today's comedy transcends satire to become the practice of person destruction; worst of all is the writing, which is just not funny. Don't get me wrong, I love pointed satire if there's real talent behind it; for example, I loved Britain's Spitting Image because it was so well done, and the puppets where such spot-on caricatures of the folks being satirized. Unfortunately, satire without talent is a fetid, bargain basement thing.
I'm prejudiced about Saturday Night Live because I romanticize the first five years, 1975 through 1980. I used to get together Saturday evenings with friends I made in college to play poker until 10:30 P.M. and time to watch SNL. It was great fun, what with excellent writing, guest hosts like Steve Martin, lovable characters such as Lisa Loopner, Rosanne Roasanndana and Emily Litella from the late, great Gilda Radner as well as Martin and Aykroyd's Wild and Crazy Guys, a duo who would be rubbished by the #metoo movement if they appeared today. That's when PC meant personal computer and not politically correct, an expression now in common use.
I realize these are the reminisces of an old curmudgeon, but the argument for comedy then versus comedy now is not indefensible. Just listen to Jerry Seinfeld complain about modern audiences and college campuses; he's blown off college gigs due to the literal-minded students bathed in PC culture and identity politics. Mel Brooks has said he couldn't make the films today that he made in the past and include certain scenes. Sad, but true.
bob-" You might say today's comedy transcends satire to become the practice of person destruction".
i disagree. the definition of satire is to exaggerate the characteristics of those being lampooned. mentioning snl on this is apt, because they have always done it regardless of political lean. it never matters who is in the white house. what they always do is take those in current events and make fun of them.
i have read of the same things seinfeld and mel spoke of. it does seem quite odd to me that certain things are now off limits. i never considered anything off limits if it is funny. were joan rivers and don rickles racist and bigoted? i doubt it.
sorry, bob, but that just sounds like (current) sour grapes to me. comedians have always made jokes about politics for as long as i can remember.
obviously i'm not going back to the days of groucho marx, but i think you would agree that good comedians deal with current events. politics is very much in the news and comedians are making fun of potus and the 100 others running in 2020.
--- Speaking of Groucho Marx I remember reading that there were a number of complaints about the film " Duck Soup " which really destroyed the world of politics. I'm somewhat surprised that the politicians were able to understand what the film was about lol.
Sorry I'm late coming in on the discussion of comedy. (Back in the '90's, standup was my avocation for a bunch of years. I started out doing open mic sets in clubs like the Punchline, and that led to my getting hired for week-long gigs, 8 shows a week, there and at other clubs, which I did whenever I had the time.) So I've got a lot of interest in this discussion -- but I'll just mention 2 things now. Styles in comedy do shift over time. We all have our own favorite styles and I don't think there are any right or wrong preferences.
But since we gravitate toward what fits us, we all tend to miss seeing the atypical comics in an era. Later when we look back on the "good old days," we don't realize how much drek was out there. And we'll be unaware of some really clever standups we never saw, in part because their style didn't appeal to us, or so we thought. Even within our beloved shows and genres, our own memories tend to be skewed, in a direction that's mostly positive. You spoke for most of us Bob, saying you "romanticize' the first 5 years of SNL.
SNL is a good case in point -- I watched it religiously from the beginning, and I have the same glowing memories of certain characters and sketches so many people do: "I'm Chevy Chase and you're not," Emily Litella's "Never mind," Roseanne Roseannadanna's "So I said 'Dr Joyce Brothers!! What're you tryin' to Do? -- Make-a-me Sick?!." Samurai delicatessen, the Bassomatic, Point-Counterpoint ("Jane, you ignorant slut,"), Mr. Mainway defending his toy company's products ("Bag of Broken Glass" and "Invisible Pedestrian") the exquisite writing and performances in the "Sweeney Sisters" sketches, and the brilliantly conceived and hilariously "brought to life" (excuse the expression) "Unfrozen Cave Man Lawyer" -- these just off the top of my head.
But the truth is that long stretches of those early shows were pretty much laugh-free. Don't take my word for it -- Jane Curtain has told interviewers that many years after she'd left the show, she and her family tried rewatching some of the early shows, and were astonished by how few things they found funny, in one episode after another. Even Jane had been living with rose-colored memories, and she was there.
Last point here: Even though I still spend more time than most people keeping up with current comedy, there are bound to be some emerging gifted comics I still haven't seen. So whenever I compare my warm fuzzy, admiring-to-the-point-of-worshiping memories of the good old days, I'm not making a fair comparison. Ten years from now, I may think the 20-teens decade was the Golden Era of (fill in style and subject matter later) comedy!
so then, mil, who are your favorite comedians?
Still currently working (including comedic acting, talk show hosting and guesting, etc. as well as standup)--
Norm Macdonald, Ricky Gervais, Zach Gallifinakis, Emo Phillips, Tina Fey, Steve Martin, Steve Carrell, Martin Short, Seth Myers, Patton Oswald, Norm MacDonald, John Oliver, Jimmy Carr, Stephen Colbert, Will Ferrell, Trevor Noah, Pete Davidson, Kate McKinnon, Michael Che, Colin Jost, and Norm MacDonald. (in no particular order, except for Norm MacDonald)
I like Ricky Gervais, not only because he's a fellow Brit. His TV show, " The Office" was a comedy classic.
I don't watch much TV these days. I'm either playing chess or have my head stuck in a book! Morecombe and Wise, Dad's Army with Arthur Lowe and John Le Messieur, Monty Python, All the Carry on films with Hattie Jacques, Eric Sykes, Norman Wisdom, Charlie Chaplin
I find a lot of modern comics are too crude and aggressive. That type of comedy leaves me cold.
Thanks for the posts.