Comedy ethics
 

Is there any topic it's not okay to make jokes about?

Hmmmm. Are all topics in good taste? No. But, personally, I never take anything said in humor seriously. As long as its in good fun, just make sure its funny. If you waste my time with a shitty joke, its your ass.

silly max, you make anything funny. :)

except that whole thing with you, my mother, and the sweaty irishman. that was a bit much sodomy for my comedic taste. :/

That was no joke, that was love.

Whats the secret to comedy?

TIMING!

Definitely don't make any jokes about religion. That kind o' shit makes motherfuckers fly motherfuckin' planes into motherfuckin' buildings 'n shit.

And don't you make no jokes about my momma.

And don't you make no jokes about any shit I don't find funny. >:

THIS IS SERIOUS :(

i already answered this question in another thread quite some time ago.

Yo momma is so fat, she's fatter than that statue of the fat ass fuck Budha she worships. And then you told a really bad joke.

I say anything is fair game, as long as you can be creative about it. I honestly think, if you approach it correctly, you can make just about anything funny. George Carlin had a very funny bit about rape several years back. Bill Hicks did a bit that started with, "Doesn't Rush Limbaugh strike you as one of those gay guys that likes to lay in a tub while other men pee on him?" that was hilarious. Stomach-turning, but unique and very funny.

As Lenny Bruce once said, "You don't need a government to tell you when you've gone too far. There's no greater deterrent for a comedian than stone silence."

I find it interesting that a guy who wrote a skit about a kid's show host who goes nuts and kills people would ask such a question.
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No2 Vaporizer

I shudder to think what he writing now if he has to pause and ask what is going to far.

You can pretty much joke about anything; it just depends on how you do it. That’s why I loathe Bill Hicks but love Carlin. Carlin had something to say and was genuinely humorous while all Hicks could do is bitch and be extremely vulgar. And there is nothing wrong with being vulgar, but when that is all you can do, then you get tiresome.

Hicks relied on hating what "average" people liked, and that all the guy did! What's the easiest thing to attack? Conservative values. And that’s what he did. All the time. Carlin does it to but he doesn't base his existence around it. And carlin could say things that were great, but Hicks just bitched constantly.

Hicks reminded me of the stupid kid that had to cuss and whine to get attention from his peers. He lived bitter and died bitter. He is only remembered because he died young. Carlin is loved because he knows how to be funny and has substance.

What I am trying to say is that anything is up for grabs, but say something funny. Don’t just be vile and scream about it. You will get more respect from friends and foes that way.

Actually, Bill Hicks is one of my favorite comedians and I probably never would have discovered him if not for other I-Mockers telling me about him. He's vulgar, sure, but he was a lot more than that. I really enjoyed his scathing social criticism and felt that he made a lot of good points in his bits, vulgar or not. He may have been bitter and angry, but he had a lot of good ideas. He could see through a lot of the bullshit prevalent in society and he wasn't afraid to attack it for what it was, no matter how sacred.

Same with Carlin. He's probably my favorite comedian. I am also quite fond of Lewis Black.

I don't think there is any topic that should be taboo. People take things too seriously all the time already. I admire those comedians who go out of their way to tackle "unsafe" topics and batter the hell out of them, offending and pissing off anyone and everyone they can along the way. If it just makes one person stop and look at their life and realize that maybe they take things a little too seriously then it's worth every single other person getting offended over.

Lewis Black is my favorite comedian. Especially when he went off about the Starbucks that were across the street from each other.

He's great. I keep meaning to pick up his comedy albums. He has two if I'm not mistaken, right?

And I just thought I would point out about Bill Hicks...I think he had a lot of great ideas, but I also think he had a lot of really insane ideas. I don't agree with him on everything he said by any stretch (particularly his thoughts on drugs), but even when I find myself in disagreement with what he said, I still find myself laughing about it. And to me, that is the mark of a good comedian.

I can't think of Lewis Black without thinking of that quote:

If it wasn't for my horse I wouldn't have spent that year in college... if you think about that for more than 3 minutes blood will squirt out your nose!"
- Lewis Black

That was one of the funniest bits EVER! :lol

I personally see no limmit at all. It's all in your angle of attack, your delivery, what your inent is and how skillfully you communicate it.

Meanwhile, I'm fascinated this topic has almost inmduced English in Vince.

i'm not sure what being inmduced entails, but i hope it's painful.

and wtf is wrong with bitching constantly?

On the topic of Bill Hicks, I need only one word. . .FREEEBIRD!

Truth be told, I think he had his moment, but I would favour Dennis Leary and Sam Kinnison (sp?) above him.

Denis Leary was never 10% as funny on his best fuckin' day as Bill was on his worst. Denis completely stole from Hicks, in terms of appearance, jokes, and onstage demeanor. I remember someone asking Hicks about that once. He said something like, "Actually, it's all his material. I just fooled everyone by doing it first."

I like Leary as an actor, but as a comedian, he doesn't compare to Hicks at all.

Everyone's entitled to their opinion, so I apologize for souding like a dick. I just have a great deal of respect for Hicks's work, and find it a travesty that so few people knew of him before he died.
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WIKI VAPORIZER

personal tragedy or self loathing

The first time I saw Hicks was on letterman, and I grooved on him for awhile, he had some funny shit. I loved the JFK thing. But his material had a tendancy to sound preachy. Its more than just derisive commentary, its almost as though he was trying to inspire some sort of reform. Maybe I just read too much into his act, but if he honestly gave a shit, he chose the wrong fucking medium to exact social change.

As for Denis. . .No Cure For Cancer is golden. The Irish Drinking song won me over, more than anything else, but as a smoker I enjoyed the rant about cigarettes because hey, I would smoke something like Tumors. Fuck, not liking Denis because he was inspired by Hicks is like disliking Fugazi because of Minor Threat.

I don't like stand up anywhere near as much as I like sketch, despite the fact that most sketch is pretty bad.

For myself, I like to write fearful meanspirited hateful characters as a means of examining all that's meanspirited hateful and fearful in life.

I'm also a fan of full commitment to character.

Prior to the invention of the term absurdism, the term of choice was Comedy of Menace. I like that way better.

A) Hicks had no right to rag on anyone for ripping him off. All his material came from Carlin

B) the only thing similar between him and Leary was demeanor. Different approaches to different material. Leary actually got the audience to identify with him. Hicks jumped up and bitched.

The best thing Hicks did for his career was get cancer.

A) I defy you, right now, to tell me exactly how Hicks stole from Carlin. I am a huge fan of both, and I'd be very interested to see how you prove this one. Their approaches were entirely different. You may as well say that Carrot Top got his material from Lenny Bruce.

B) Hicks had a much more confrontational approach and was trying to get people to laugh while taking a good look at themselves. It's easy to get the crowd to identify with you when you can just get them to sing along with the "Asshole" song.
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Deepthroat choke