Naita, I was reading, and smilin’ with, Al capp when he was making fun of politicians. I had lost interest by Vietnam. Al was no longer funny, to me. In fact (don’t have a cite) our involvement in Vietnam probably marked the start of his slide toward irrelevance.
I was hoping for the naming of contemporary funnypersons, influenced by and cracking wise on the conditions that prevail today.
Dan
Shootballs, I conflated Naita with Bryan, my apologies to both; it was my brain skipping a cog, nothing personal intended (insert smirkies galore).
Dan
Dang, ran afoul of the five-minute edit limit. I’m slow on the keyboard, but now I’m getting a complex. I meant to add:
And Bryan, if Al seemed to be going after non-humerous lefties, it may have been because they were lefties, rather than their funny quotient.
Part of a humorist’s job description is to exaggerate, you know? I say that today’s liberal comedians have it hard; how could you exaggerate today’s newsfeeds? You just repeat them, and you can hold the smirkies.
Dan
The only reason I brought it up is that I remember Capp specifically calling his targets humorless in the book’s introduction, though I don’t know where my copy is and I can’t get you a specific quote at the moment.
Nevermind, Bryan - I find Al a perfectly believable source for what Al believed. As I recall, his humor was built on a pretty rough parodying of rubes, hicks, and hillbillies, stuff that would be considered very non-PC today, not least by the targets themselves.
I, myself, no longer consider yahoos laughable.
Dan
Forgive me, please, if I’m missing the obvious, but what is the debate here?
Twain was very good at spotting the hypocrisy and illogic in other people’s beliefs. That doesn’t mean that he had a consistent set of beliefs of his own. Seeing the inconsistencies in some well-known religion/philosophy/science/whatever is fine, but it doesn’t necessarily mean that you have your own carefully thought out religion/philosophy/science/whatever. Twain is a great writer, but it’s hard to put together a single set of beliefs from his writings. Here’s some links to some comments on and collections of his writings about religion et al.:
Nel, I was replying to Mel (17), with a challenge to name some intentionally funny conservatives.
Dan
Wendell, thanks for the links.
Dan