what about a Friends/Sopranos movie?

Joey could join Tony's gang (Paulie Walnuts could adopt him as a protégé, or something).

Phoebe and Rachel could work as strippers at the Bing.

Chandler could do Dr Melfi.

Ross would have to be whacked early on. I think we can all agree on that.

from 6/24/2007

another comedian put in his place

This post is words about words about words about jokes. If you would rather skip to the real deal - at the end of his post Perrin has the great Dalai Lama golfing clip from Caddyshack.

(::)
Wednesday I commented on a narcissistic profile in New York magazine. The subject it was putting in his place was Stephen Colbert.

It turns out the New York Times has some of the same issues. These show up in their review of a new book about Doug Kenney, called 'A Futile and Stupid Gesture'.

Kenney is not a famous name but he was an important influence in much of US comedy in the last quarter century, including Colbert.

• Dennis Perrin points out errors in matters of fact in the NYTimes review and sees emotional problems. He says the review is 'so unbelievably bad that it's almost beautiful'


• Mike Gerber sees 'bizarre and strangely angry conclusions' in the review

I should point out that both Gerber are Perrin are friends with the author, and would be likely to defend him passionately. Nevetheless I know they are right about Kenney.

to sum upThat's two cases in a week where elitists -when forced to write and think about comedy- start making stuff up, at the very least.

various

• I read envy in the parallel, hidden putdowns. magazine person: 'It's been a very good year for Stephen Colbert'; NYTimes person: '[Kenney's] definitely had one blowout decade'
  Also both pull out of their ass the factoid that most comedians don't analyze their trade.


• strangely -or perhaps not- Garry Trudeau's 1981 critique of (Kenney-influenced) SNL humor [quoted here] was that it was too elitist and smug


• Why do they act this way when asked to analyze the importance of comedians? - possibly related is the Eric Idle quote about 'groups who claim immunity from laughter'


• In a weak earlier post about a famous rock song I made the claim that comedy is one the three main forces effectively holding back totalitarianism in the USA

edited 11/28/2006

link to elitist profile of Colbert

A culture-watching magazine this week has a profile of Stephen Colbert.

tidbits-the word 'truthiness' was coined just hours before the taping of the first show
-He’s a big Lord of the Rings fan
-He studied philosophy in college
-one of his inspirations was Don Novello (better known as the SNL character 'father Guido Sarducci')

Btw, my link is not an endorsement. The author of the profile has deep-seated elitism issues. His attitudes are dropped here and there in the text as if they were pearls. Looked at seperately they're not so bad, but over the course of the article they're like a very slow spiritual poisoning. Four examples:

• the author implies Colbert is less important than the great New York magazine
  “This has been a very good year for Stephen Colbert”



• He writes
  “Colbert in person is one of those rare comedians who like to dissect comedy”
  I am pretty sure this is just false, that most comedians do like to 'dissect comedy' (even though few would use that baleful verb). But by writing this he gets to subtly flatter himself (since the article is itself an analysis of comedy the implications are that he is himself rare, and that he understands the topic better than most comedians).



• At one point the author pretends to himself he has a cool comparison to Ann Coulter that Colbert didn't even think of
  
  “When I mention the comparison to Colbert, though, he seems surprised, even unnerved”
  Dude, maybe he wasn't 'unnerved', maybe he was realizing what a total dip you are.
  [notably this is the only direct account of the interview itself]



• In the final paragraphs -discussing the 'mob'- there is this:
  “[Colbert]'s become something very close to what he’s parodying, a kind of Bill O’Reilly for the angry left”
  The angry left? Dude, did your paranoia spells mean you had to skip Emotions 101? (to explain: when people are laughing it's not the same as when they are angry.)

new and old Garry Trudeau quotes

These days I only regularly look at Trudeau's Sunday's strip.

Did you know that the Sunday online version of Doonesbury has eight panels but many newspapers only carry the last six?
The first two panels are never essential for that reason.

This is why I look at it online. But this morning's is not on the Slate page (at this moment anyway).

This is how I happened to notice that a SoCal independent paper has just printed a rare interview with Trudeau. It looks to have been done by email.

Below are the parts that I found interesting:

comics he likes:

“The big three for me in recent years were Far Side, Calvin and Hobbes, and Dilbert. I’m down to Dilbert. On the editorial side, I love Tom Toles.”

about the medium:

“I don’t know anyone who is younger than 30 and reads my strip in a newspaper.”

about his lack of sources:

“My “research” is generally whatever I can pull off Google that will lend verisimilitude to whatever it is I’m writing about. Hope this doesn’t disillusion, but there’s a lot of hack in me.”

*A quote from Trudeau's commencement address to the Colby College class of '81 gives a glimpse of what his opinions on comedy in general were then:

"('Saturday Night's) 'screw-you' (humor) .. adroitly mocks society's victims ... For all its innovations this kind of satire tells society's nebbishes that they are right about themselves, that they are nobodies, that to be so un-hip as to be disadvantaged, to be ignorant, to be physically infirm, or black, or even female is to invite contempt ... What worries me about Slash and Burn humor, and the larger society which has spawned it, is that it reflects a sort of callousness so prevalent in the survivalist ethic. If this is to become a society intolerant of failure and uncompassionate in the face of suffering, then we are lost."

[source: Saturday Night: A Backstage History of Saturday Night Live]

I am not sure I agree with this.

the Conan O'Brien interview at AV Club

AV Club has an OK interview with Conan O'Brien [part1, part2].

About one of the jobs he has had:

“There were no vacations at The Simpsons that I can recall. You're in a poorly ventilated room with horrific furniture, worse than any furniture that had been in my dorm room. In my dorm room, we had, like everyone else, found furniture. Like, "Look at this thing on the sidewalk! It looks pretty good!" When you're there, it's really fun, but when it's 10 o' clock at night and you just want to go home, but you can't until you figure out what Marge says after Homer shoves the plutonium rod through his ear, and you've got to come up with that next line: "Oh, Homey!" It gets kind of grim.”

about his sense of self:

“I'm kinda hyperkinetic. ...

...I've been this way since I was a kid. I said something about this in an interview years ago, and my dad called me up and said, "That was so perfectly true about you." Unfortunately, the quote was, "I'm making a living off of something that should be treated." I had mixed feelings that my dad thought that that was absolutely the best, most true thing I ever said about myself.

...For lack of a better way of looking at it, if I existed 200 years ago, all the other farmers in my community would be like, "That guy is worthless! He's sitting on a rock, jumping up like a frog, coming up with weird concepts and ideas, making faces, and combing his hair into a giant pastry." It's a good thing I was born in this century, when superfluous television seems to be part of the economy.”

photo w some of my pet peeves

No dense prose in this post!

• sort of why so many tv shows have chosen a set with a predominately red theme
• the 'on notice' generator
• Colbert's site

lawyer joke

it speaks for itself:

“Not all of the justices admit to being so nervous, however. Asked to assess his prospects for losing his virginity within the next two months, a confident Scalia lifted his judicial robe and quipped, "Res ipsa loquitur".”