Tag: comedy

2,356 words

Satire is a lesson. Parody is a game. — Vladimir Nabokov

The devil, the proude spirit, cannot endure to be mocked. — Thomas Moore

In 2005, a London production of Christopher Marlowe’s sixteenth-century play Tamburlaine the Great was subject to minor editing by its director. A part of one of the scenes needed to be cut, it was decided — not cut down, but cut out. The scene in question showed the burning of books, one of which was the Koran (which the BBC went through a phase of referring to as “the holy Koran”). (more…)

3,539 words

Nathan Fielder is a Jewish comedian and actor born in Vancouver in 1983. After a false start in the business world, he got his big break in 2007 on CBC’s This Hour Has 22 Minutes, as a socially awkward consumer affairs correspondent hosting a recurring segment called “Nathan on Your Side.” Fielder later developed this premise into his Comedy Central “reality” series Nathan for You, which premiered in 2013 and ran for four seasons.

I’ve heard him described as a blend of Woody Allen and Larry David, and indeed, he is ultra-Jewy. Fielder is a real Jewy Jewstein, as Howard Stern would say. (more…)

1,922 words

It aired for only one night in 1990 to an audience of merely a few thousand people on a subscription satellite TV channel that no longer exists before being quickly forgotten, but since being rediscovered in the Internet era, Heil Honey, I’m Home has since achieved a sort of mythic status as one of the most politically incorrect TV show in pop-culture history. (more…)

2,511 words

Pope Urges Europeans to Bend Over, Grab Their Ankles, and Let the Boat People In

Pope Francis is the first pontiff who was born and raised outside of Europe since 741 AD. He helms the Catholic Church, whose ranks, according to 2010 statistics, are composed of a mere 32% of people who live in Europe and North America. The Caucasian Quotient dips even lower when one considers that about 20 million Catholics in the United States are “Latino.” (more…)

Peter Cook

2,020 words

Originality of thought and a command of words give him a maturity of style beyond his years. In speech or essay he is never dull and his work should always be interesting. — Peter Cook’s school report, aged 14

I know I’ve been destructive. What I do reflects the idiocy and chaos within myself. — Peter Cook

In the self-congratulatory world of show business, the word “genius” is used casually and often, and “comic genius” more than most, but in its original sense it is occasionally appropriate. (more…)

24 words / 9:33

Jim Goad has produced a short video to accompany his latest essay, “LOLocaust Denial,” on Roseanne Barr’s recent foray into Holocaust denial. See below. (more…)

1,460 words / 9:29

Audio version: To listen in a player, use the one below or click here. To download the mp3, right-click here and choose “save link as” or “save target as.”

Well, the Holocaust is back in the news. How long has it been — twelve hours? Six? As I’ve said many times, “Boy, when they said, ‘never forget,’ they weren’t kidding!” (more…)

2,204 words

Huckleberry Finn’s father is such a towering, terrifying figure of American literature, it’s a wonder no one’s ever built a drama around him. Maybe we should put together a one-man show: Pap Finn Tonight!

Like that Mark Twain Tonight! entertainment that Hal Holbrook wrote when he was at Denison University in the 1940s — and then kept revising and reviving to moderately amused audiences . . .  for the next 70 years. (more…)

1,482 words

John Cleese of Monty Python and Fawlty Towers fame is one of the funniest men alive. He’s also fearsomely smart. Beyond that, he has the vision and courage to oppose political correctness, one of the banes of comedy, creativity, and civilization itself. Thus it was an easy decision to snap up his new book, Creativity: A Short and Cheerful Guide (London: Hutchison, 2020), now out in paperback from Penguin. Creativity truly is a short book — I estimate about 20,000 words. It can be easily read in one sitting, and with great profit, for it is brimming with arresting insights and useful advice on cultivating one’s creativity. (more…)

8,770 words

The following essay on Plato’s Theages is based on a transcript of a taped lecture, which I revised based on notes for two later lectures on the same dialogue that offered a more complete interpretation. I want to thank V.S. for the original transcript.

The Theages is a short Platonic dialogue that can be read as a response to Aristophanes’ Clouds. In both texts, Socrates is approached by a country gentleman to educate his son. In the Clouds, the father is insistent, the son reluctant. (more…)

4,603 words

The Vice President of the United States: It’s a lousy job, but someone’s got to do it. So why not cut to the chase and get a lousy person?

This was the premise of the comedy series Veep, which ran from 2012-2019 on HBO, chronicling the rise and fall and semi-rise of Selena Meyer, who schemes, rules, dominates, cowers, and obfuscates her way to power. Selena, aided (and generally hindered) by her staff, carries the water for President Hughes, and is almost totally ignored except when he orders her out to show the flag, take the heat, or be his pit bull, although Selena winds up as a Chihuahua more often than not, especially when a last-minute bit of political expediency by the unseen President leaves Selene as the fall guy . . . or gal, less a pit bull than sacrificial lamb. (more…)

Don Rickles. Photo courtesy of Wikimedia  Commons

2,428 words

The 1970s and 1980s was an odd time for stand-up comedy. During this 20-year period, we saw the rise and glory years of what I would call racial humor. I define racial humor in this sense as jokes told by a racially aware comic that play upon or make fun of racial stereotypes. A comic can make fun of his own race just as easily as any other, but in all cases impresses upon the audience that his own race is one reason why the joke is funny to begin with. (more…)

1,460 words

Monty Python co-founder John Cleese endured a bit of a career hiccup a few days ago at the South by Southwest festival in Austin, Texas — but this hiccup is indicative of bigger things. (more…)