I’ve lately been turned on to Marc Maron’s What the Fuck podcast. It’s a fascinating show and I love listening to his in depth discussions with fellow comedians and others.
One thing I’ve noticed is that almost everyone Maron interviews speaks in worshipful tones about Bill Hicks (who died in 1994 at age 32 from pancreatic cancer).
My curiosity aroused, I went on YouTube and watched a bunch of Hicks’s clips. I can’t say I was overwhelmed. It seems like okay, but not brilliant, material, and I don’t find Hicks’s style or delivery particularly engaging.
What am I missing here? Is it a context thing? Was I too young in the early 1990s (my early 20s) to understand Hicks’s importance?
I never found him all that appealing. Lewis Black pretty much does the same thing but much more entertaining. Hicks was just boring; mostly he just stood up on stage and complained.
I haven’t though Hicks was anything other than ordinary. Not terrible, but not worthy of all this hysterical praise. His early death may have colored perceptions (though it didn’t cause the same effect in the far more talented Dennis Wolfberg).
You may have seen this already, but usually when people ask what he did that was funny, I point them to the ‘dinosaurs in the Bible’ bit.
I’m sorry, I thought we were discussing standup comedy. Complaining isn’t allowed? I like Lewis Black, but yelling a lot does not make a comedian inherently better.
My understanding is that he was very well thought of in standup comedy circles when he was alive, and he did to a bunch of appearances on Letterman and other shows. I’m sure a lot of the hero worship stuff came about because he died young, but that’s a separate thing.
As with the other clips, the material itself is okay, but I don’t find his style to be very engaging.
Of course, the fact that this is nearly 20 years old dates it. His disparagement of Reagan and Bush as fundamentalist Christians just seems so innocent and naive – Hicks, you didn’t live long enough to see how bad it really can get. We’d gladly take Reagan and George H. W. Bush in place of the fundamentalist Christians we’ve got now.
I’m doing my best not to let the mullet color my perceptions.
Well, I don’t think the assertion was that Lewis Black was better merely because he yelled. But his style and presentation makes the material work. If you like him, then you must agree to some extent or other.
Have you ever seen footage of a standup comedian performing in the 80s? They were probably performing with a brick wall in the background, and virtually none of it was anywhere near the quality of an Eddie Murphy’s Delirious (as one example). Hacks abounded. Hicks was one of the rare exceptions.
Comedy in the 80s was like an investment bubble. If you got enough attention, there was a good chance that you could end up with some kind of TV deal. That made it hack central.
This is what I came in to say. This was also an era when comedy clubs were seemingly sprouting up in every decent sized strip mall in America. And of course, a lot of talent was needed to play those clubs, and some of that talent was, well, not so talented. If you regularly attended open-mic nights and managed to make friends with a club booker, there was a good chance you’d get a gig.
Well, if there’s high demand, that means that all kinds of people will be motivated to give it a try – meaning that both high and low quality comedians will be more likely to enter the field – making it more likely that the good ones will be doing comedy instead of used car sales or insurance sales.
Anyway, that’s beside the point. My question is about Hicks and his appeal.
If you really want a good answer to this question watch the movie Bill Hicks: American. It explains better than a single message board post could about the context of when Bill Hicks was coming up and what he changed and why it was important. It’s just a good Biopic to boot, with a lot of quality bits that haven’t been seen before.
It streams on Netflix if you are into that sort of thing.
It’s interesting to note that Hicks wasn’t very popular in America until after he died, but he was wildly popular in the UK (and always with other comics. Other comics *LOVE *him and seemingly always have).
I think a lot of it had to do with the less-funny aspect of his routines. The mind-expansion psychadelia, for example. After counterculture became a tired cliche, he breathed new life into the old concepts to a generation that perhaps missed out on it the first time around. One of my favorite lines (paraphrased): “Have you ever noticed how the drugs that do nothing for you mentally & spiritually are legal, but the ones that show you just how FUCKED you are, on a daily basis, those are the ones that are illegal?” As far as big laughs go, he wasn’t in my top 10, but he definitely had a different angle than 99% of his peers.
I would say “successful in the UK”, rather than “wildly popular”. For a time, he seemed to be Channel Four’s favourite comedian, but C4 is and was a minor channel. I’m not sure that anybody who didn’t watch “alternative” comedy on C4 back then had even heard of him.
Maybe it’s relative. He was (apparently, I am not British so I don’t know first hand) selling out largish venues in the UK when he was having trouble filling small clubs in the US. The relative success was quite different.
Mitch , much funnier than Bill IMO, but comedy is subjective. Hicks was known for slamming what is wrong in America. Became very popular in the UK for that. Some of his stuff was funny, some was just ranting. I watched a documentary about him. He reminded me of Carlin only not nearly as subtle or funny. Carlin got to be just an angry man sometimes in later years. Bill was that way as a young man.
I like Lewis Black, but yelling a lot does not make a comedian inherently better.