Yes, a lot of this humor is just the type where people are reacting nervously to “forbidden words” or reacting to a sudden stimulus. (Yell something, and people get ready to “fight or flight” - then laugh when they realize it was all harmless.) It might work the first time in an actual setting - then the audience knows what is coming. And this doesn’t translate well to televised performances.
And there is humor that is obsolete for other reasons. I was just reading a joke book from the 1960’s that included this gem:
“The campus computer was directed to sort the students’ punchcards by gender. It sorted them into five piles.”
I’m going to win this thread right now.
Bill Cosby did a bit during his stand-up career where he said, “It’s the female’s job to protect herself. It’s like a goalie… you have to keep people from scoring on you.”
Reed’s debating team, which had existed for only two years at the time, was awarded the first place sweepstakes trophy for Division II schools at the final tournament of the Northwest Forensics Conference in February 2004.[76]
Loren Pope, former education editor for The New York Times, writes about Reed in Colleges That Change Lives, saying, “If you’re a genuine intellectual, live the life of the mind, and want to learn for the sake of learning, the place most likely to empower you is not Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Chicago, or Stanford. It is the most intellectual college in the country—Reed in Portland, Oregon.”[77]
Steve Martin was a breath of fresh air. He was doing this pure, absurdist humor when it seemed like every other comedian was focusing on political and topical humor. Even George Carlin, who is mainly remembered today for conceptual jokes like “I’m getting IN the plane!” was doing a lot of topical material at the time.
Martin was never mean-spirited, and he wasn’t trying to be edgy. Comedians talk about “punching up” and “punching down”—Martin wasn’t punching at all. This was exhilarating after years of comedians doing Nixon jokes.
Zucker Abrams and Zucker. In retrospect, to much of my laughter was me seeking redemption for wasting so much of my childhood watching the old 1950’s & 60’s movies and TV shows ZAZ were riffing on
Farrelly Brothers/Ben and Owen (combined or not) Gross-out with a heart of gold, which is fine. But that same warm gooey center is, looking back, all in one with the rest of the 90’s feel-good movies with “Solsbury Hill” played in the trailer.
Apatow/Galifianakis, and stock company. “You lucky people get to watch as we gifted individuals do the same thing over and over.” Not much progress since Frank, Dean and Sammy at the Sands.
Wait… are you saying that my neighborhood poker gang calling themselves The He-Man Women Haters Club hasn’t aged well?
Well, we have all ages from late 20’s to mid-60s, and we all think it’s hilarious. As do our (eye-rolling) wives.
We thought what really updated the attitude to the 21st century was asking their permission.
I use the word morons because they dont seem to understand the concept of a college level education. They are there to be exposed to many different viewpoints. They are not there to demand course material be removed.
These students while not sharing the ideology of Nazi student groups share tactics. Intimidation, demanding the expulsion of people and ideas that do not align with theirs.
The modern problem with Lenny Bruce is that almost none of his early stuff that made his reputation was recorded. What we have is mostly the later period when he was persecuted and drugged up. And even the minimal early stuff available is probably not him at his best. He, according to everything I’ve read, was one of the quintessential “you had to be there” comics, like Robin Williams.
Steve Martin probably was one of those. I was a huge fan of humor, but “I’m going to do a satire/parody of humor” never seemed funny. Same for the people who tried antihumor, like Norm Macdonald. I don’t want you to make other comedians laugh; I want you to make me laugh.
The thing that’s most aged Lenny Bruce is how square he sounds now. In his book, How to Talk Dirty and Influence People he has a bit about going to a SM club, and the entire joke is, “SM clubs are a thing that exists, isn’t that wild? People like being hit with whips! Isn’t that the craziest?” Reading it, in San Francisco, in the 21st century, his shock over a pretty vanilla kink comes across as charmingly quaint.
I’m more or less neutral on Martin’s standup career, but I was impressed by his book Born Standing Up, which is a frank account of the pain and challenges of standup despite his enormous success, and why he ultimately called it quits.
But as for the “Wild and Crazy Guy” routine in that clip, I think the only reason it doesn’t really work is that he’s doing it solo, trying to adapt it as a standup bit. The original routine, where he plays one of the Festrunk brothers from Bratislava alongside Dan Akroyd as the other brother, was a sketch from the Golden Age of SNL – a Golden Age that IMHO has never been equaled – and was really funny; Steve Martin at his best, doing what he did best.
Funny, I have a strong memory of Steve Martin using ‘Wild and Crazy Guy’ before SNL, and being surprised that he allowed them to apply that to the Festrunk brothers, since it was his trademark. I looked it up to see which came first, but couldn’t find anything conclusive. His first appearance as a Festrunk brother in SNL was in late 1977, and the album ‘A Wild and Crazy Guy’ came out in 1978, but I couldn’t find when it was actually written and performed. And he couod have been using that phrase before that album came out.
It’s possible I saw a rerun of SNL in the summer of '78 I suppose.
Rather like this bit from Community, in which Jeff does a standup act based on cultural assumptions about the stratified society that temporarily exists at Greendale - hilarious, because it simulates a standup act.
It would be an interesting bit of historical trivia if Steve Martin was in fact the originator of the “Wild and Crazy Guy” routine. Nevertheless the skits on SNL, with the duo of Martin and Dan Akroyd, performed on fully staged sets, with the two in ridiculous “swinger” costumes, achieved a level of comedy that I’ve never seen Martin do on his own in standup. And the SNL stuff undoubtedly had the tremendously talented SNL writers at the time behind it.
I listened again to Martins wild & Crazy guy album some years ago. Except for King Tut it has not aged well. He sounds like an idiot. But in High School in the late 70’s we laughed like crazy at it.
I just want to know how Kinisons act would age. I’m sure he’d have something to say about gay marriage and weed legalization. With his anti-gay/anti-women/marriage but pro-drug positions who knows.
I think I was wrong. I figured out a way to find a clue: Listen to the first Festrunk Brothers skit and see jow the audience reacts to the ‘Wild and Crazy’ guys line.
Here’s the clip:
Not only does the audience not react much to the line, but Martin delivers it very differently than he does later on his album and elsewhere. So My guess is that it originated on SNL as you said.
Hmm… I tried to edit that last one to fix a typo, and found out I can’t because the SDMB doesn’t like embedded video. Apparently you can save it initially, but can’t edit it. Looks like a bug in Discourse.
That’s the problem with being a comic who heavily relies upon current events and trends. Around 25 years ago, I listened to an old Lenny Bruce routine from c. 1960 and while I got most of the references, the primary impression I got was most people coming across it for the first time would need footnotes to understand it.
That’s how I feel listening to a lot of old comics.
I tried to listen to some Mort Sahl, because we had a fan here (what was his name…?). But his act, even the later stuff was slower and tamer than I’m used to, and I found myself trying to get into the frame of mind of an Eisenhower-era suburbanite, hoping that would help me understand why he was supposed to be funny.
I think that’s why a lot of political/current affairs related humour doesn’t necessarily age well.
I mean, if you take Richard Nixon, he was out of office years before I was even born. I know who he was and all the Watergate stuff etc, but contemporary jokes from when he was in office about how dodgy he was just fall flat to someone who wasn’t there for the most part.
To me - and I suspect a lot of other people around my age - if you say “Richard Nixon” in a comedic context, our first thought is likely to be head-in-a-jar “Earth President Richard M Nixon” from Futurama - and even that show was from 20 years ago, and mostly played on his legacy as being Tricky Dick Nixon (and assorted other dodgy politician tropes).
Jokes about the Soviet Union don’t really work quite as well today either, on account of how that collapsed 30-odd years ago so jokes about the Lada factory telling someone they need to be home on Tuesday five years from now to collect their car, and the buyer being upset because that’s when the plumber is coming aren’t something most younger people get outside a historic context (“Yes, life certainly must have sucked back then”).
When I was a kid, there used to be jokes about “useless inventions” like helicopter ejection seats and solar powered torches too. Except both those things exist now, and work, and in the latter case are extremely common.
