Subscribe To This Site

SIT DOWN STAND UP COMEDY
by Daren Foster

Stand up Comedy

Search WILDsound

MITCHELL BARD PODCAST - How ABC is really taking a lot of chances!

Reviews/Movies/Columns

WATCH FILMS
2008 Shorts
2007 Shorts
Drama Shorts
Comedy Shorts
Horror Shorts
Animation Shorts
Action Shorts
Thriller Shorts
DOC Shorts
Experimental
Musical Videos

CLASSIC FILMS
2000s Reviews
1990s Reviews
1980s Reviews
1970s Reviews
1960s Reviews
1950s Reviews
1940s Reviews
1930s Reviews
1920s Reviews

BY GENRE
Drama
Comedy
Action
Comic Book
Western
Animation
Sci-Fi/Fantasy
Thriller/Suspense

2009 MOVIE REVIEWS
Drama Movies
Comedy Movies
Action Movies
Thriller Movies
Animation Movies
Horror Movies
Kids Movies
Romance Movies

OUT ON DVD

See what's out at the comfort of your home!

2009 MOVIE TRAILERS

See the trailers of the UPCOMING TOP movies!

Movie Reviews

2009 DRAMA MOVIES

All the dramatic films from 2009

2009 COMEDY MOVIES

All the comedy films from 2009

2009 HORROR MOVIES

All the horror films from 2009

2009 ACTION MOVIES

All the action films from 2009

2009 KIDS MOVIES

All the children films from 2009

2009 ROMANCE MOVIES

All the romantic films from 2009

2009 THRILLER MOVIES

All the thriller films from 2009

2009 ANI-
MATED MOVIES

All the animated films from 2009

SIT DOWN STAND UP COMEDY
by Daren Foster

"So it seems that I have officially become an old fart."

As I sat watching TV the other night, much, much past my bedtime, I caught myself saying out loud to no one in particular: Is that supposed to be funny?! Young people do not ask that question in that way. Old people do. Is that supposed to be funny?! Do you call that music?! Oh, I’ll give you something to cry about! Feel that. Is that a lump?!

Forcing me to ask this quintessential old fart question was stand-up comedienne, Lisa Lampanelli, the lovable Queen of Mean as her press states in her first HBO special. Flipping to it halfway through or so, my initial thought was well maybe, having missed the first part of the show, I just wasn’t up to speed yet. It was going to take a few jokes, a routine or two to get me into the laughing mode. I mean, HBO doesn’t give out one of their specials to just any old comic.

I then realized this wasn’t the first time I had posed the question -- Is that supposed to be funny? -- while watching stand-up on HBO. A month or so ago, again late, late at night, flipping through TV channels (maybe it’s true what they say about fitful night time sleeping when you get old), the exact same words tumbled from my slackened jaw and attached wobbly jowls as I witnessed the horror show of Dane Cook. Truth be told, I was a lot more animated in that case, involuntarily jumping to my feet after Cook’s audience burst into laughter at one of his comical “observations”, screaming at the top of my lungs, stop strutting around the stage, you fucking dimwit, and tell one fucking joke! Just one!!

Yes, old people are prone to irrational outbursts of anger.

As difficult as it is for me to admit, maybe life’s passed me by. Maybe my era has finally been shunted aside for a newer, younger model that didn’t place such a level of importance on their stand-up comics being funny. It isn’t all about the jokes, gramps. We don’t go for that whole middle-class, bourgeois expectation of humour from our comedians. That’s all so, 20th-century.

Yeah well, in my day (more old man parlance) comedians used to be funny! Those that weren’t went on to host their own talk shows. These days.. these days it seems like they’re all auditioning for talk shows.

That’s right, in fully embracing my elder side, I’m going to say it. What’s with young stand-up these days?

Checking Lisa Lampanelli’s bio, it turns out that she is no spring chicken herself. She’s my age. Her act also has something of an ancient feel. ‘Insult comic’ the Wikipedia entry calls her, placing Lampanelli with the likes of Don Rickles, Jackie Mason and Triumph the Insult Comic Dog. Even more specifically, her race and sexual orientation fuelled rants bring to mind the late-80s sensation, Andrew Dice Clay. Remember how he used to have them rolling in the aisles with such zingers as, Hickory dickory dock/A mouse ran up my cock? No surprise that Clay’s now doing the reality TV show circuit, most recently being the first one tossed out on his can by The Donald in Celebrity Apprentice 2.

To my mind, insult comics are supposed to use their wit to humble the mighty, speaking truth to power and all that. It goes back to the court jesters, April Fools’ Day and that fucking oily wop (hey, it’s funny when Lisa Lampanelli does it), Marcus Valerius Martialis. Lampanelli can claim that it all comes from a place of love and fill the front row of her televised audiences with smiling Latino gay men and strapping African-American Adonises, but she’s firing at the easiest of targets, codifying a way of seeing the world that brings nothing new to the table or shines a necessary light into a dark pit of humanity. But hey, like I said, I didn’t see the whole show. So maybe I missed the point of the exercise. I’ll try again the next time they show her on the Larry the Cable Guy roast.

At least Lampanelli has a shtick regardless of how tired and rehashed. The same cannot be said of Dane Cook. Again, I crashed the party late but in the half-hour or so that I watched, I didn’t crack a smile. I could only summon a stunned, stupefied, boiling rage, if that’s even possible. It’s certainly what it felt like. Cook strutted across the stage in circles telling inane anecdotes about his exploits without ever once delivering a joke or anything resembling a punch line. And the audience laughed and laughed. An audience, that mystifyingly packed Madison Square Gardens, willingly sat through an hour or so of non-funny.

Stop strutting around the stage, you fucking dimwit, and tell one fucking joke! Just one!!

But there I go, pulling a Lampanelli, cracking wise at an easy target. As popular as Cook is, he seems to have an equally large following of despisers, many of them fellow stand-up comics. Professional jealousy, I guess. Dane Cook sells out two shows at MSG. They don’t. Dane Cook has an album that charts extraordinarily high on Billboard. They don’t. Dane Cook has millions of dollars for his brother to embezzle. They don’t. Dane Cook stars in his own HBO specials. They don’t. We can only surmise that Dane Cook is funnier than all of them. Doesn’t matter if the man can’t tell a joke. He’s on television and in films. They’re not.

Television has a way of commodifying and neutering pretty much everything it comes in contact with. It uses stand-up comedy to inexpensively fill in large chunks of its schedule. There’s more airtime than qualified comics to fill it; at least, qualified comics with the necessary commercial sensibilities. My mother-in-law, I gotta tell ya. Even HBO, with its edgier approach, seems to have exhausted the well if it’s shining a spotlight on the likes of Lisa Lampanelli.

With the highly successful transition of Jerry Seinfeld the comedian to Seinfeld the sitcom (not to mention Roseanne Barr and Tim Allen, hell, Robin Williams a decade before them), stand-up has been seen as a stepping stone to a wider audience. Be funny, get noticed, develop a loyal following and Hollywood, here I come! Dane Cook, it seems, has managed to proceed to steps 2, 3 and 4 without having to stop at number 1.

For true comedians, however, stand-up is a calling not a springboard to stardom. That’s what separates them from the rest of the pack and gives their comedy a certain timelessness. I’m thinking of Lenny Bruce, here. George Carlin. Richard Pryor. And yes, my personal favourite, Bill Hicks. (I promised myself I wouldn’t bring his name up in this column. I promised. I promised. Don’t cry, Daren. Don’t cry. Stop crying, Daren!) OK, here. I can’t resist. Watch it.

There I go, getting all old man again, listing off the best of the best, all from yesteryear. Why don’t they make good stand-up anymore! Surely there are comedic masters at work these days. George Carlin could not have taken the greatness with him to the grave. You’re probably right. There’s probably some on TV right now as I write this. Yet all I seem to stumble across in my aging nocturnal meandering up and down the listings are pretenders like Lisa Lampanelli and Dane Cook.