From another thread:
That old punchline first made me think, ‘Could you tell that joke today?’ And that thought made me wonder if In Living Color would work today, or if it would be too offensive. Would Men On… be offensive to gay viewers? Would Homey D. Clown be considered ‘racist’ for perpetuating a stereotype? Would female bodybuilders be offended by Vera de Milo?
A very similar joke was made in Mad magazine circa 1960, in a parody of those Annette Funicello beach movies, then immediately lampshaded
https://www.madmagazine.com/blog/2013/04/08/rip-annette-funicello-entertainer
Surfer one: Iceberg? What a strange name!
Surfer two: I’ll say! Whoever heard of a Jewish surfer?
William Gaines: as the Publisher, I must say, what a witty way for MAD to break into a new, controversial area
Editor: As the Editor, I must say, I couldn’t agree with you more, Bill. Surfing certainly is controversial!
Don’t know if it would fly today, but I don’t see why this particular joke wouldn’t – it’s pretty lightweight.
I think there are too many offenderati running around looking for things to be offended about for a show like that to fly these days. Pretty much the only groups they could make fun of and not generate too much return fire would be black people, because the show was mostly a black one, and white people, because we’re fair game for everyone else to make fun of these days.
But Handi-Man, Vera-De-Milo, and Men on… would probably get the offenderati in high dudgeon. So might Oswald Bates and Anton Jackson, because Oswald is borderline mentally handicapped, and Anton Jackson is homeless and probably mentally ill (yet hilarious).
I think it’s kind of a shame; not everything has to be quite so “sanitary” and correct as some people wish, especially in comedy.
There’s plenty of offensive humor nowadays, SEE: Always Sunny in Philadelphia
I think the biggest difference is that the goal of comedy should be to punch up, not punch down. you don’t have a skit about transgender people to insult transgender people. You have the skit to make fun of the people offended by transgendered people.
In Living Color got away with what it did, because it had black people making fun of black people.
You could do it today, but you would have to get two openly gay actors to do the "Men on . . . " sketches.
Wanda and Vera de Milo might be off limits.
And isn’t South Park still around? I get the sense that there’s still plenty of offensive humor. I mean, this ran on SNL a couple years ago (sketch involving an evil villain convention for the world’s most evil invention, and the punchline is The Rock builds a child-molesting robot.)
I mean, I don’t really get the sense there’s a lack of offensive humor out there. I definitely think In Living Color could be produced today.
I still remember the super absorbent tampon commercial fondly.
ILC wouldn’t be the same without House and New Jack Swing.
It certainly would run on Comedy Central. I don’t think it would fly on broadcast TV, though.
I think there are plenty of people running around looking to be offended by people who are offended. Most of the type of questions asked in the title can be answered with, “Yes, of course.” Funny is funny, and the best humor pushes boundaries. Always has, always will.
I expect this thread will be a fantastic opportunity to bemoan the horrible, “PC” culture, and how everything good now sucks because we can’t all say whatever the hell we want without consequence.
The MAD cartoon is better than the version I heard because of the twist. The version I know is from The Official Jewish Joke Book. A Jewish guy on a passenger jet asks a Chinese guy if he’s guilty about Pearl Harbor. The Chinese guy says it was the Japanese who bombed Pearl Harbor, and asks the Jewish guy if he has any guilt over sinking Titanic.
Comedy ages rapidly and poorly compared to a lot of other genres. That In Living Color was able to do things nearly thirty years ago which would be unacceptable today doesn’t mean we’ve changed for the worse it just means we’ve changed. And sometimes the humor of the show didn’t even fly back then as there were changes to sketches for syndication and repeats and Fox censors butted heads with producers over content. One of the reasons Keenen Wayans isn’t seen after the third season is because he allegedly had issues with censorship of the show. In Living Color was a pretty edgy show for prime time back in 1990. I remember the infamous Colt .45 sketch but I hadn’t realized it was so controversial at the time but I was 14 and not exactly aware of much outside my own little bubble.
I think several characters/skits would work just fine today:
Fire Marshall Bill? Good clean fun.
Ugly Wanda? I’m on the fence about that one. I imagine some might complain it’s transphobic.
Homey the Clown? Sure.
Homeboy Shopping Network? Yeah, funny stuff.
Hey Mon? Who doesn’t love the hardest working Jamaician family?
I don’t know, Titus on Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt is essentially playing the same type of character and I have not heard anyone griping about him.
Maybe, but I have my doubts. Is it in syndication and uncensored?
IIRC there was some controversy around one of the “Men On…” sketches where one of them got hit on the head by a falling light and became stereotypically straight. There was (IMO somewhat legitimate) concern that suggesting even in jest that you could make a gay man straight by hitting him on the head would encourage bigoted idiots to commit assault.
I think that was near the end of the show’s run anyway - I could probably look it up but meh.
Daniel Tosh also seems to make it work. There is something about his personality that makes the audience think he’s lampooning jerks rather than being one.
Anthony Jeselnik does not pull off the same trick IMHO.
I saw a routine by Ralpie May on Youtube. A white guy making fun of black people in front of an all black audience. He had them (and me) in tears.
I don’t know how in the world he made that work, but he did.
I’ve noticed in a lot of black comedy from the 70’s well into late 00’s that there was some weird thing where they would go equally hard against other minorities as they did with white people which presumably doesn’t age well at all. There’s some very weird Chappelle Show skits where Chappelle attacks Hispanics and Asians in a manner that seems more mean-spirited than the way he satirically makes fun of white people.
People were bitching about the same “PC culture” crap back in the early-mid-90s (and I should know, as one of my first papers I wrote as a freshman in college in '93 was bitching and complaining about “PC culture,” only to eventually grow out of it), as well, and these shows thrived at that time. There will always be offensive humor around – like I said, there’s still plenty of it.
The goal of comedy should be to make people laugh. There are many ways to do that.
I have some news to break to you about Tituss Burgess…
