My favorite Emo Phillips story is about when he was walking down the street, and there was a guy working on a roof, with a hammer.
“And he called me a paranoid little weirdo… in Morse Code”.
RIP Miss Tenuta.
I saw this post and was going to say that Emo Phillips is still around. I saw him open for Weird Al just a few months ago. Had no idea he’d been married to Judy Tenuta.
I always thought she was part Japanese, but I guess Tenuta is an Italian name.
I saw Weird Al Yankovic, Tig Notaro, Seaton Smith, Dave Hill, and Emo Philips at the Lincoln Theater in Washington, D.C. on October 30, 2016. It was strange. They sat on the stage talking as the movie UHF played with the sound turned off on a screen behind them. Several times the sound for the movie was turned back on for a short period.
Admittedly some of his stuff is quite funny. It’s he himself that is irritating. The “child stuck in an adults body and world” persona gets old fast. I can take about 10 minutes of it and I’m done.
I thought her shtick was amusing.
Darn autocorrect. “Emo,” of course! But, yeah, smaller doses is probably better with his schtick.
Emo’s paradox.
Do you have a time frame for that? I ask because this is probably another example of what was acceptable humor in the past being judged by the standards of today. I’m not excusing or condoning it, but I’m not going to condemn her for it like many PC fanatics would or do these days.
I certainly don’t think it’s any worse than making fun of a woman in front of all her peers whose health condition caused her to lose all her hair.
I don’t have a timeframe. My shikseh and I were watching Judy on YouTube and found that performance. ETA It hit close to home as my shikseh, while a Christian, is a first generation Indian American. She speaks Hindi, loves Bollywood films, and lived in India for over a decade.
I don’t want to derail the thread with Emo jokes, but one that always stuck with me was where he’s talking about having breakfast with the family “and my sister was sitting there with her breast out, feeding her baby… cereal .”
I remember Judy Tenuta but damned if I can remember any of her jokes. The “Judy-ism” one vaguely rings a bell. RIP Judy.
That’s what’s great about XM’s comedy stations, they (usually) only play clips that are few minutes long. So (at least back when I had XM), they could play some of his stand up, but it would just be a few jokes and then on to the next person.
I remember Judy being huge in the 80’s, but I was born in 1980, so the memories aren’t the clear. Watching some of the linked videos, they all have a very familiar feel to them, so they’re probably the same ones I was watching back then. However, something I never noticed is how similar she seems to be to Roseanne (Barr). If you play some of those clips, but drop the accordion and the charisma, you (well, I) can absolutely hear Roseanne telling the same jokes, in the same voice with the same cadence.
Serious Question- Why do we get so serious when a comic dies?
When Gilbert Gottfried died, his family put out a wondeful message asking to remember him by laughing at his jokes.
When John Candy died, I kept expecting a memorial including a clip from Uncle Buck in which he says “I’m a big drooler.”
When I learned that Judy had died, I was sad because the world had lost her and that I never got to tell her how much she made me laugh.
Then, I went to another site and informed people that the Love Goddess had died by posting the following NSFW story of how I seduced her
The following might be true- Hey! It could happen!
I attended a show. I waited at the stage door for an autograph. I told her I was a Jew For Judy-ism. That made her laugh. I said her accordion was very nice. But, would she like to see my love instrument? That REALLY made her laugh. After much discussion, she asked me the question every man wants to hear “If I give you a blowjob, do I have to spit out my gum?” Judy Tenuta had a sharp wit, gifted hands, and a hurricane tongue.
She will be missed.
I saw her at Charlie Goodnights in Raleigh NC a couple of times. At one of the shows, there were a group of girls sitting in the front having a bachelorette party. Tenuta kept coming up with the vilest, most disgusting things to insult them with. At one point, she told them, “You know, if you girls sit there together long enough, your CYCLES WILL MATCH!”
It was amazing. She came up with worse insults for women than any man could have thought up.
Apparently, she was actually 72, having previous given her birth date as November 7, 1965 (which would have made her 56).
Yes I mentioned that in the Death Pool thread. The article I read had the same quote from her publicist that your article does. She actively lied about her age for decades.
I put on a hat just take it off for this. Bravo!
Roseanne always stole the best jokes.
When she was on Dr. Katz, she talked about her memories of not fitting in at Catholic school. An unfailing patient teacher counseled her, “Oh Judy, you don’t fool me. I have a little girl at home just like you”. Judy replied, “PUH-lease! My dad couldn’t have gotten THAT drunk!”
Yeah, that was weird when I read it. It seems even a lot of people that knew her didn’t know her real age.
I can’t even remember the last time I heard her name mentioned, but as soon as I saw the story a whole flood of memories came to mind.
It’s common in show biz. Especially for women. I don’t think it’s done so much anymore but not unusual for her generation.