# Humor that doesn’t age well **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Tags:** comedian-jokes\ **Created:** [August 29, 2021, 1:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/humor-that-doesn-t-age-well/949723 "2021-08-29T13:07:48Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Jackknifed\_Juggernaut](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/9de053/32.png) [@Jackknifed\_Juggernaut](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jackknifed_Juggernaut)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2021, 1:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/humor-that-doesn-t-age-well/949723/1 "2021-08-29T13:07:48Z")
I’m watching Steve Martin’s “Wild and Crazy Guy” routine, and find it hard to believe that people paid good money to watch him back then. Was he universally liked? If so, that humor REALLY hasn’t aged well: [![](https://img.youtube.com/vi/AC3kDnHS-k4/maxresdefault.jpg "Steve Martin: A Wild and Crazy Guy") ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AC3kDnHS-k4) ---
**Author:** ![XOldiesJock](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/x/ec9cab/32.png) [@XOldiesJock](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XOldiesJock)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2021, 1:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/humor-that-doesn-t-age-well/949723/2 "2021-08-29T13:40:53Z")
I’ve often liked Steve Martin’s turns as an actor, both comedic and dramatic, but I never got his schtick as a stand-up. Like you, I just didn’t find it funny. I was in my 20s around that time and preferred comedians like Robert Klein, people who worked with words rather than props and bombast. However, Steve Martin was certainly different, and perhaps that was his appeal. ---
**Author:** ![Kropotkin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kropotkin/32/18045_2.png) [@Kropotkin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kropotkin)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2021, 1:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/humor-that-doesn-t-age-well/949723/3 "2021-08-29T13:45:57Z")
I have often thought Johnny Carson was only funny if one were exhausted and/or drunk and that Steve Martin’s stand-up and much of SNL only funny if one were stoned ---
**Author:** ![RealityChuck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/realitychuck/32/195_2.png) [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2021, 2:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/humor-that-doesn-t-age-well/949723/4 "2021-08-29T14:42:39Z")
> [@XOldiesJock](#): > > I’ve often liked Steve Martin’s turns as an actor, both comedic and dramatic, but I never got his schtick as a stand-up. Like you, I just didn’t find it funny. I was in my 20s around that time and preferred comedians like Robert Klein, people who worked with words rather than props and bombast. However, Steve Martin was certainly different, and perhaps that was his appeal. I think you hit it indirectly. Martin is a fine actor; his stand-up is an actor _portraying_ a comedian. He had a talent for acting like he was going to be funny, and acting like he had just been funny, but the actual jokes were not. ---
**Author:** ![lobotomyboy63](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lobotomyboy63/32/2900_2.png) [@lobotomyboy63](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lobotomyboy63)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2021, 2:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/humor-that-doesn-t-age-well/949723/5 "2021-08-29T14:48:48Z")
Wikipedia says: > Martin’s show soon required full-sized stadiums for the audiences he was drawing. Concerned about his visibility in venues on such a scale, Martin began to wear a distinctive [three-piece](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_piece_suit) white suit that became a trademark for his act.[[31]](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Martin#cite_note-31) Martin stopped doing stand-up comedy in 1981 to concentrate on movies and did not return for thirty-five years.[[11]](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Martin#cite_note-Mild-11) About this decision, he states “My act was conceptual. Once the concept was stated, and everybody understood it, it was done. … It was about coming to the end of the road. There was no way to live on in that persona. I had to take that fabulous luck of not being remembered as that, exclusively. You know, I didn’t announce that I was stopping. I just stopped.”[[32]](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Martin#cite_note-32) > **[Steve Martin](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Martin#Comedy_album)** > > Stephen Glenn Martin (born August 14, 1945) is an American comedian, actor, writer, producer, and musician. He has won five Grammy Awards, a Primetime Emmy Award, and was awarded an Honorary Academy Award in 2013. Additionally, he was nominated for two Tony Awards for his musical Bright Star in 2016. Among many honors, he received the Mark Twain Prize for American Humor in 2005, the Kennedy Center Honors in 2007, and an AFI Life Achievement Award in 2015. In 2004, Comedy Central ranked Martin It reminds me a bit of Kramer in Seinfeld. That character says things that aren’t ordinarily funny but when he says them, they are. Hipster doofus clueless stuff. Speaking of not aging well, that song… > Martin previewed the song in a live performance during the [April 22, 1978 episode](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saturday_Night_Live_(season_3)) of _[Saturday Night Live](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saturday_Night_Live)_ . In this performance, loyal subjects appease a joyful King Tut with kitchen appliances. An instrumental solo is delivered by saxophone player [Lou Marini](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lou_Marini), who steps out of a [sarcophagus](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sarcophagus)—painted gold—to great laughter. However: > In 2017, students in a humanities class at [Reed College](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reed_College) in [Portland, Oregon](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portland,_Oregon), protested the inclusion of the _Saturday Night Live_ performance in their coursework, calling it an example of [cultural appropriation](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultural_appropriation) while demanding its removal. One complained that the gold face of the saxophone player was a racist exhibition of [blackface](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blackface).[[6]](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King_Tut_(song)#cite_note-6) ---
**Author:** ![Ike\_Witt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ike_witt/32/283_2.png) [@Ike\_Witt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ike_Witt)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2021, 2:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/humor-that-doesn-t-age-well/949723/6 "2021-08-29T14:52:00Z")
Didn’t that song initially come out when stuff from King Tuts tomb was making an appearance in the US? ---
**Author:** ![mbh](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/a6a055/32.png) [@mbh](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mbh)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2021, 2:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/humor-that-doesn-t-age-well/949723/7 "2021-08-29T14:53:11Z")
To each his own. I thought Steve Martin was great. (Granted, I was in elementary school at the time.) But I never thought the Three Stooges were funny. I have noticed that Abbot and Costello movies don’t seem as funny today as they did when I was a kid. People change. Cultures do, too. The political zeitgeist can change drastically. What once once considered edgy satire, might today be condemned as whateverist or whateverphobic. ---
**Author:** ![JRDelirious](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jrdelirious/32/9531_2.png) [@JRDelirious](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JRDelirious)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2021, 3:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/humor-that-doesn-t-age-well/949723/8 "2021-08-29T15:12:46Z")
> [@RealityChuck](#): > > Martin is a fine actor; his stand-up is an actor _portraying_ a comedian. He had a talent for acting like he was going to be funny, and acting like he had just been funny, but the actual jokes were not. > [@lobotomyboy63](#): > > > Martin stopped doing stand-up comedy in 1981 to concentrate on movies and did not return for thirty-five years.[[11]](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Martin#cite_note-Mild-11) About this decision, he states “My act was conceptual. Once the concept was stated, and everybody understood it, it was done. … It was about coming to the end of the road. There was no way to live on in that persona. I wonder if we could say Martin’s stage act was on the far, far more popularly accessible end of a spectrum that also contained Andy Kaufman at the other. Performance that _looks_ like stand-up. > [@Ike\_Witt](#): > > Didn’t that song initially come out when stuff from King Tuts tomb was making an appearance in the US Yep. It was a riff on the way the Tut exhibit was being received in its world tour, almost as if it were some celebrity rocker – thus “if I’d known about all the people who’d come see him, I’d taken all my money and bought me a museum”. And of course of the way mainstream culture had looked at the whole thing for a lifetime: “Ooooh, Tut’s Tomb, how mysterious and exotic, and ooohhh, _goooold_, shiiinyy…” (As for the Reed College students, well IMO the cite in the Wiki article is just some Wiki-contributor engaging in nutpicking, for which Reed would be something of a go-to source.) ---
**Author:** ![XOldiesJock](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/x/ec9cab/32.png) [@XOldiesJock](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XOldiesJock)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2021, 3:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/humor-that-doesn-t-age-well/949723/9 "2021-08-29T15:27:34Z")
_I never thought the Three Stooges were funny._ Yeah. I enjoyed the Stooges up to around the age of 11 or 12, then moved on. Yet I know people my age (69) who still think the Stooges are hilarious. But one of them also thinks “Mister Ed” was the funniest sitcom **ever** , so draw your conclusions from there. _Abbot and Costello movies don’t seem as funny today as they did when I was a kid._ The better parts of Bud and Lou’s movies involve them doing some old vaudeville routine they had perfected over years and years, modified perhaps to fit the storyline. The “Pick and Shovel” bit in “A&C Meet the Mummy” still brings tears of laughter to my eyes, but otherwise the movie is dreadful. ---
**Author:** ![lobotomyboy63](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lobotomyboy63/32/2900_2.png) [@lobotomyboy63](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lobotomyboy63)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2021, 3:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/humor-that-doesn-t-age-well/949723/10 "2021-08-29T15:32:20Z")
Misogyny from several decades ago1937… [![]( " - YouTube") ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wBIC8JTQMMQ) ---
**Author:** ![HeyHomie](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/heyhomie/32/207_2.png) [@HeyHomie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HeyHomie)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2021, 3:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/humor-that-doesn-t-age-well/949723/11 "2021-08-29T15:39:30Z")
Every time there’s a thread like this, I feel compelled to mention Lenny Bruce. Yes, he was groundbreaking (for his time), yes, he was persecuted for his art, yada yada yada. But let’s not mince words: he just wasn’t funny. I’ve listened to his act, and it seems to my ears to be mostly about making the audience chuckle uncomfortably when he talks about “dykes in SoHo” and “queers in The Village,” without actually delivering any funny jokes. Richard Pryor did it better a decade later. ---
**Author:** ![DCnDC](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dcndc/32/2842_2.png) [@DCnDC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DCnDC)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2021, 3:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/humor-that-doesn-t-age-well/949723/12 "2021-08-29T15:41:45Z")
Speaking of whom, I watched a lot of Richard Pryor standup specials last summer. I’d just finished watching a lot of Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee and like half of all the guests considered Richard Pryor a god. I was just a kid in the 80s so I mostly knew him as the goofy guy in **The Toy** and **Brewster’s Millions**. Watching his old standup, I don’t get it. Some of it is I’m not familiar with the particular topic, but mostly what I’m hearing is just a lot of swearing. I understand that standup comedy isn’t just standing on a stage and telling jokes, it’s about having a tight routine and being able to deliver it in an effective way, and maybe “pros” are seeing things I don’t or can’t, but as a modern layman viewer I just don’t think his standup holds up after all these years. I suppose people will think the same thing about Dave Chappelle 20 years from now. Maybe they already do. ---
**Author:** ![HeyHomie](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/heyhomie/32/207_2.png) [@HeyHomie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HeyHomie)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2021, 3:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/humor-that-doesn-t-age-well/949723/13 "2021-08-29T15:46:06Z")
Two of my favorite movies from the 80s have not aged well. _Revenge of the Nerds_ features a heinous act of illegal voyeurism, leans way too heavily into black, gay, and Asian stereotypes, and features an actual sexual assault played for laughs. Similarly, _Sixteen Candles_ features sexual molestation played for laughs (“Fred, she’s gotten her boobies. And they are SO perky!”), a subplot involving crude Asian stereotypes, another joke about an implied sexual assault played for laughs, and the joke where Farmer Ted talks Samantha out of her undies and then shows them to his nerd friends – that sure as hell wouldn’t play today. ---
**Author:** ![Thudlow\_Boink](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thudlow_boink/32/320_2.png) [@Thudlow\_Boink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thudlow_Boink)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2021, 3:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/humor-that-doesn-t-age-well/949723/14 "2021-08-29T15:57:33Z")
> [@Jackknifed\_Juggernaut](#): > > Was he universally liked? Hell no. Look at some contemporary reviews of his stand-up, or of his first film, _The Jerk_, which was inspired by his stand-up. Not everyone was a fan. But that’s true of _any_ comedian. When it comes to Steve Martin’s stand-up, personally, I find that some of it works for me, some of it doesn’t, and some I just have to be in the right mood for. I do, for example, still appreciate “Cat Handcuffs”: [![](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/H2Nyf-bVpxw/hqdefault.jpg "Cat Handcuffs") ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H2Nyf-bVpxw) And his memoir, _Born Standing Up_, is worth reading (or listening to). ---
**Author:** ![Thudlow\_Boink](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thudlow_boink/32/320_2.png) [@Thudlow\_Boink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thudlow_Boink)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2021, 3:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/humor-that-doesn-t-age-well/949723/15 "2021-08-29T15:59:28Z")
> [@DCnDC](#): > > Watching his old standup, I don’t get it. I haven’t seen a lot of Pryor’s standup, but what I have seen: the material mostly doesn’t resonate with me, but I appreciate the mastery of the performance. ---
**Author:** ![Guest-starring\_Id](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guest-starring_id/32/21736_2.png) [@Guest-starring\_Id](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guest-starring_Id)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2021, 4:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/humor-that-doesn-t-age-well/949723/16 "2021-08-29T16:40:06Z")
“To the moon, Alice…to the moon…” With Steve, there could be the odd stand-up _bon mot_, like: (for crowd participation) “ok these two sevenths, now these five sevenths” “…yeah well I got mom to bring my wieghts up to the attic.” " Tried to give my cat a bath last night, but the fur kept sticking to my tongue" DID NOT AGE WELL: “So I was sitting around home the other day doing terrible things to my dog with a fork.” Admittedly, while it may have a garnered an escaped chuckle from me back in the day, the ensuing decades have a brought about a more responsible awareness, in general, of animal welfare, and that kind of joke would definitely no longer wash. Back in the day, with everyone going “Well ex-cuuuuuuuuse MEEEEEE!” and “I’m just a wild and cuh-ray-zee guy!”, he soured quickly for me. (He was absolutely golden in _The Spanish Prisoner_, though.) ---
**Author:** ![JRDelirious](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jrdelirious/32/9531_2.png) [@JRDelirious](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JRDelirious)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2021, 5:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/humor-that-doesn-t-age-well/949723/17 "2021-08-29T17:13:31Z")
> [@DCnDC](#): > > I understand that standup comedy isn’t just standing on a stage and telling jokes, it’s about having a tight routine and being able to deliver it in an effective way, and maybe “pros” are seeing things I don’t or can’t, but as a modern layman viewer I just don’t think his standup holds up after all these years. > [@Thudlow\_Boink](#): > > I haven’t seen a lot of Pryor’s standup, but what I have seen: the material mostly doesn’t resonate with me, but I appreciate the mastery of the performance. True – the specific details of the content of the routine is not necessarily supposed to hold up – as **Thudlow\_Boink** says, it’s the mastery of the performance, the boldness of that sort of act in that time, and the sincerity and honesty behind it, that the professionals are admiring. Also with some of the past stars like Pryor we have the often encountered situation of that we may be less impressed at what was so great about some act in 1970 or 75, because we have had the benefit of seeing everything that came _after_ 1975, so we’ve seen things become improved, refined and perfected after the door was opened by what people were doing back then… which in 2021 will sound cringey. But because _that_ happened, what came _after_ happened and built upon it. ---
**Author:** ![Guest-starring\_Id](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guest-starring_id/32/21736_2.png) [@Guest-starring\_Id](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guest-starring_Id)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2021, 6:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/humor-that-doesn-t-age-well/949723/18 "2021-08-29T18:48:06Z")
> [@JRDelirious](#): > > …it’s the mastery of the performance, the boldness of that sort of act in that time, and the sincerity and honesty behind it, that the professionals are admiring. Lenny Bruce could apply here too. ---
**Author:** ![madsircool](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/madsircool/32/3432_2.png) [@madsircool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/madsircool)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2021, 6:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/humor-that-doesn-t-age-well/949723/19 "2021-08-29T18:57:08Z")
Just because some morons at a tiny university on Oregon didnt like something doesn’t mean that it wasn’t funny. Martin was a revolutionary comedian. His shtick was original and fresh. ---
**Author:** ![DCnDC](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dcndc/32/2842_2.png) [@DCnDC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DCnDC)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2021, 7:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/humor-that-doesn-t-age-well/949723/20 "2021-08-29T19:03:25Z")
> [@JRDelirious](#): > > True – the specific details of the content of the routine is not necessarily supposed to hold up – as **Thudlow\_Boink** says, it’s the mastery of the performance, the boldness of that sort of act in that time, and the sincerity and honesty behind it, that the professionals are admiring. Yes, the performance itself is extremely important, as well as “the era in which they performed,” which I think we all recognize, but at some point the words that are actually being said are still an essential part of the equation, and the fact is, in 2021 that equation unfortunately does not still = LOL funny. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/humor-that-doesn-t-age-well/949723.md?page=2)