Once upon a time there were jokes. These were little stories with a beginning and a shock ending, with an optional middle.
There is a setup:
A hamburger walks into a bar.
A bit of story:
The bartender looks at the hamburger.
Then a punchline:
“Hey, we don’t serve food here.”
Ha Ha.
Bob Newhart and Bill Cosby changed all that a few million years ago in the fifties and sixties by making the optional part two of story telling so good that they didn’t need a punchline to get a laugh. Sienfield took it to the point of there being nothing but the setup and there never being a middle or end. A lot of comics became famous for working blue, which to say they like to use George Carlin’s famous Seven Words You Can’t Say On TV in their act.
Sarah Silverman is very pretty and very mean and nasty. But hey, she is richer than god and I write for nothing. I was watching her on Showtime, I think it was the other day. It was a kind of mix between a stand up routine and a few sketch bits. One of the bits has her singing a hate song to old people telling them it’s not really cold in here, your just gonna die. While this might be true, it isn’t really my idea of funny.
Several years ago there was a comedy special about what is funny and what is not funny. Bill Bixby of Incredible Hulk fame was one of the commentators. He was standing next to a tall beautiful woman and short dumpy guy. At least that is how I remember it. Anyway, he picks up one of two pies and hits the dumpy buy in the face with it. “That,” he says with a flourish, “is funny.” He then picks up the other pie and hits the woman in the boobs with it. “That,” he says sadly, “is not.”
Ok, back to Sarah Silverman. The thing that really bothered me was a joke she told. Or something that was sort of like a joke, only it wasn’t funny. Sarah is talking-doing her routine and smiling and looking cute and pretty. She says, I’m on the pill. Then does a little school girl kind of toe wiggle and tilts her head over-Cause I do a lot of fucking. This gets a little laugh. Then she talks about not really liking the pill and asking a friend what he does for birth control-I cum on my wife’s face, he says. Sarah looks a bit thoughtful and says- so I’m going to trying that. No laugh here, dead silence and after a beat or two she goes on to the next dirty joke. The trouble here is that she forgot to add a punchline. I think that very few people in her audience would find the idea of this particular sex act shocking. (Not to mention that the rhythm method doesn’t work. What do you call couples that practice the rhythm method of birth control? Parents.) Of course, she may have just been getting all the men to think of her pretty face covered with. . .but that isn’t funny.
Maybe a follow up line like-But his wife really isn’t my type. Or more Sarah-like:But the bitch says she likes the taste of his cum better than mine.
Ok, maybe I was tired when I watched this and missed the humor.
Another typical Sarah joke that works, if crudely:I was licking jelly off of my boyfriend’s penis, and all of the sudden I’m thinking: Oh my god, I’m totally turning into my mother!
Setup, story and shock-that’s a joke.
Too many comics are just mean, whether they tell dirty jokes or clean, they are spiteful, hateful and nasty. Maybe I am too old and young people eat this stuff up. For me, most of what comics have to say these days, with a few exceptions, just isn’t all that funny. Like I said, I’m an old guy. Is it time for Leno yet?
