Getting this back to Cafe Society material, you gotta admit there’s bits of comedy gold in the speech, if you can get beyond the fact that he’s not politically on your side (if he’s not).
“Turning the space program over to the church”, “Giving embryos the vote”, “You’ve performed so poorly I’m surprised you haven’t given yourself a medal”
That’s very funny stuff, IMHO.
Sorry. The medal one is marginally funny. The other two, not at all. I’m baffled why anyone would think they are, and that’s not because of politics. I honestly don’t get the humor. It seems either painfully obvious or just an unfunny observation.
I don’t know if this is a welcome comment at this point but on the subject of the OP, I felt that George Carlin behaved like a knee jerk reactionary and was irritatingly condescending towards the Libertarian guest. He shed absolutely no light on the debate and contributed only simplistic and unsupported hit and run statements. The woman (editor?) was just dull in thought and speach. Bill kept wanting to pick a fight but was frustrated at every turn because the Libertarian wouldn’t take his bate.
Sure the jokes were funny but most weren’t deeply steeped in facts - just selective observations. It’s amazing how many smart people seem to form their core opinions of politics (in general) based on some comic’s take on the subject.
They’re exaggerations of viewpoints to ridiculous extremes. Obviously though, there’s no way I can convince you to find something funny you don’t find funny, and in fact the more it’s dissected the less funny it is to me.
These bits reminded me of a comedian I saw once who was imitating Charles Heston ranting “We must arm fetuses with handguns so they can defend themselves against abortionists!” Again, an exaggeration of a viewpoint to a ridiculous extreme.
Forgive my pointless continued attempts to explain humor, the subject of why things are funny (to some people) is an incredibly interesting subject to me. But it’s one I might be better served not to explore, because as a single joke’s humor cannot survive dissection, I fear that if I reach certain level of understanding about how humor works, that might actually kill humor in general for me. Sort of like how taking some fiction writing classes made it impossible for me to enjoy fiction for a few years.
I don’t know, but every time I see Bill Maher I think about the movie “Body Double”. For a time, I’d thought he was the main character – struggling actor with some kind of vampire gig. He was not, but the resemblence was striking.
Anyway, that is the only thing I find somewhat entertaining about him these days.
Check out “Cannibal Women in the Avocado Jungle of Death” a parody of Heart of Darkness starring Maher, Shannon Tweed, Adrienne Barbeau, Karen Mistal … and other actresses of a certain tastiness. It’ll get “Body Double” out of your brain. You may want to SCRUB your brain to get “Avocado Jungle” out … but that’ll be your problemo.
Re: getting Maher out of your head:
This oughtta do it. Eight row down, last pic. Or the entire ninth row.