That's funny cos I'd hate to be you as well, try reading the whole thread. On that note though, I am struggling to think of that many more stand ups operating today who are actually funny. Would be more than happy to have my ears opened as most of the stuff I've seen posted on here previously is sub par at best.
Modern TV comedy has produced some classic shows while all I'm seeing from new stand ups is a desire to get known and signed up to movie/tv deals.
That's funny cos I'd hate to be you as well, try reading the whole thread. On that note though, I am struggling to think of that many more stand ups operating today who are actually funny. Would be more than happy to have my ears opened as most of the stuff I've seen posted on here previously is sub par at best.
Modern TV comedy has produced some classic shows while all I'm seeing from new stand ups is a desire to get known and signed up to movie/tv deals.
I have read the whole thread. Since you haven't named a single stand-up you appreciate and you just reiterated your basic disinterest in the form I don't see why anyone should waste their time posting clips you won't like anyway.
It's not like stand-up clips are hard to find if you're actually interested.
most of the stuff I've seen posted on here previously is sub par at best.
HATTS 99% OF SOULSRUT
It's true, I've read 85% of all posts on here and 99% sucked donkey's balls. Yeah, that just happened.
Pelvic, off the top of my head, I like Pryor, old Chris Rock, Stuart Lee, relatively small doses of Frankie Boyle and bitd in the 90s boom rated Steven Wright, Izzard and the like. However I take your point so happy to browse YouTube while shaking my head in disappointment.
I still havent heard a comedian that has come after Bill Hicks that is a s good as he was IMHO.... The dude had everything I like about comedy- attitude, good jokes, delivery, intelligence, anger, anti establishment, self deprecation etc etc
Lots of good comedians, but none as strong and able to move me like Hicks.
Years ago on his old website you could download files of his live shows...i lost them when my old computer crashed but that shit was gold cus some of the routines where the same ones you heard before but listening to him react to different types of crowds was insightful. He did this one massive rant to an unapreciative crowd that was on the verge of insanity.... He had no problems dedicating half his show to a heckler... some of it was brilliant and off the cuff
I havent been able to find that shit online since.
And I think Dennis Leary is really an ASSHOLE for stealing a dead mans style and doing a shit imitation of it
People say that Hicks was going after easy targets but at the time of his routines in the 80's an 90's what other comics were doing that ? I mean talking about right to life got him banned off Letterman and i don't see a lot of people going after Reagan.
I mean if im wrong i'd like to see examples of other standups doing this. Also Hicks didn't really get that famous until years and years after his death. I say give him his dues. Do you guys really not like something just because everyone else does ? Seems kinda weird to me
People say that Hicks was going after easy targets but at the time of his routines in the 80's an 90's what other comics were doing that ? I mean talking about right to life got him banned off Letterman and i don't see a lot of people going after Reagan.
I mean if im wrong i'd like to see examples of other standups doing this. Also Hicks didn't really get that famous until years and years after his death. I say give him his dues. Do you guys really not like something just because everyone else does ? Seems kinda weird to me
That's all on the money, I think.
I can see where someone from the UK would think that Hicks was "going after easy targets." The UK is a much more liberal and secular society than the US is - especially the part of the US where Hicks got his start. There was nothing easy about his targets in his context.
It's also not as though politics and religion were his only subjects. I loved his drug material and his anti-marketing rants.
And when he went to Blighty and did his "Hooligans" routine it was pure gold. "I'd hate to be a dustbin in Shaftesbury tonight."
And when he went to Blighty and did his "Hooligans" routine it was pure gold. I'd hate to be a dustbin in Shaftesbury tonight.
.
the first time I heard that routine I was driving on the interstate at a pretty good clip and I started laughing so hard, I lost my breath and got lightheaded and damn near flipped my ride going 75 mph....no other comedian has damn near killed me with laughter
And when he went to Blighty and did his "Hooligans" routine it was pure gold. I'd hate to be a dustbin in Shaftesbury tonight.
.
the first time I heard that routine I was driving on the interstate at a pretty good clip and I started laughing so hard, I lost my breath and got lightheaded and damn near flipped my ride going 75 mph....no other comedian has damn near killed me with laughter
Likewise his bit about how Rush Limbaugh likes to lay in a tub and be peed on by other men. And then it gets gross.
The guy was brilliant and gone way too soon.
Also, Kinison.
DocMcCoy"Go and laugh in your own country!" 5,917 Posts
Junior said:
all I'm seeing from new stand ups is a desire to get known and signed up to movie/tv deals.
This is the impression I get as well, combined with a distinct feeling that a great many modern stand-ups seem to have concluded that equal-opportunities-offender, everything-is-shit misanthropy is the same thing as humour and is therefore automatically funny in and of itself.
TV and film comedy is one thing - there's plenty of good stuff within those idioms, and probably always has been - but stand-ups are much of a muchness these days. It's as if there are a dozen or so comics whose acts are largely original, and the rest are simply variations of wildly differing quality on those themes. Not everyone can be a comedy genius, of course, but it's definitely a sign of the times how eager so many modern comics are to be received into the bosom of old-school Showbiz. A few years back, when people over here were going on about how 'edgy' Russell Brand was, my position was; give him five years and he'll seem as edgy as Norman Collier, and he's well on the way to that.
Perhaps this is why Hicks (who was hugely popular in the UK, as it happens) remains atttractive to so many people - he died young and never really worked in an age where he might have come under serious pressure to live or die by his words. It's the James Dean thing - he never got fat, old or shit. Take that famous "turd in my drink" quote, for example. You can guarantee that, whenever there's a discussion on the whole art-vs-commerce thing anywhere on the internet, somebody will regurgitate that quote verbatim, as if simply doing so invests them with the same wisdom and insight as Hicks, rather than just someone without the ability to make an original observation of their own. But it also reminds you that Hicks was never really tested in that respect. None of the people who frequently declare how much "we need Bill Hicks now" will ever know whether he'd have eventually gone Hollywood like umpteen other celebrated outsiders. Nor will we know how many of the people who continue to venerate his stick-it-to-the-man maverick spirit would have declared him a sellout if, for example, he'd done an ad to pay for medical treatment that would have saved his life. My guess would be "most of them", simply because it's far easier to uphold your principles via a proxy, such as a rock musician, and actor or a comic. Beats having to take food off your own table any day.
Either way, there aren't many stand-ups around right now that I like, and I can tell you that the only ones I've paid money to see in the last ten years are Chris Rock and Rich Hall. On this side of the Atlantic, I give John Bishop a pass simply because a) he's a Scouser, b) I know his older brother Eddie, who went out with an ex of mine for a while, and c) he used to drink in a pub I worked in during the late '80s, and he was certainly funny then.
Comments
Modern TV comedy has produced some classic shows while all I'm seeing from new stand ups is a desire to get known and signed up to movie/tv deals.
HATTS 99% OF SOULSRUT
I have read the whole thread. Since you haven't named a single stand-up you appreciate and you just reiterated your basic disinterest in the form I don't see why anyone should waste their time posting clips you won't like anyway.
It's not like stand-up clips are hard to find if you're actually interested.
It's true, I've read 85% of all posts on here and 99% sucked donkey's balls. Yeah, that just happened.
Pelvic, off the top of my head, I like Pryor, old Chris Rock, Stuart Lee, relatively small doses of Frankie Boyle and bitd in the 90s boom rated Steven Wright, Izzard and the like. However I take your point so happy to browse YouTube while shaking my head in disappointment.
here you go....
Lots of good comedians, but none as strong and able to move me like Hicks.
Years ago on his old website you could download files of his live shows...i lost them when my old computer crashed but that shit was gold cus some of the routines where the same ones you heard before but listening to him react to different types of crowds was insightful. He did this one massive rant to an unapreciative crowd that was on the verge of insanity.... He had no problems dedicating half his show to a heckler... some of it was brilliant and off the cuff
I havent been able to find that shit online since.
And I think Dennis Leary is really an ASSHOLE for stealing a dead mans style and doing a shit imitation of it
I mean if im wrong i'd like to see examples of other standups doing this. Also Hicks didn't really get that famous until years and years after his death. I say give him his dues. Do you guys really not like something just because everyone else does ? Seems kinda weird to me
That's all on the money, I think.
I can see where someone from the UK would think that Hicks was "going after easy targets." The UK is a much more liberal and secular society than the US is - especially the part of the US where Hicks got his start. There was nothing easy about his targets in his context.
It's also not as though politics and religion were his only subjects. I loved his drug material and his anti-marketing rants.
And when he went to Blighty and did his "Hooligans" routine it was pure gold. "I'd hate to be a dustbin in Shaftesbury tonight."
Brilliant, as the scallywags say.
the first time I heard that routine I was driving on the interstate at a pretty good clip and I started laughing so hard, I lost my breath and got lightheaded and damn near flipped my ride going 75 mph....no other comedian has damn near killed me with laughter
Likewise his bit about how Rush Limbaugh likes to lay in a tub and be peed on by other men. And then it gets gross.
The guy was brilliant and gone way too soon.
Also, Kinison.
This is the impression I get as well, combined with a distinct feeling that a great many modern stand-ups seem to have concluded that equal-opportunities-offender, everything-is-shit misanthropy is the same thing as humour and is therefore automatically funny in and of itself.
TV and film comedy is one thing - there's plenty of good stuff within those idioms, and probably always has been - but stand-ups are much of a muchness these days. It's as if there are a dozen or so comics whose acts are largely original, and the rest are simply variations of wildly differing quality on those themes. Not everyone can be a comedy genius, of course, but it's definitely a sign of the times how eager so many modern comics are to be received into the bosom of old-school Showbiz. A few years back, when people over here were going on about how 'edgy' Russell Brand was, my position was; give him five years and he'll seem as edgy as Norman Collier, and he's well on the way to that.
Perhaps this is why Hicks (who was hugely popular in the UK, as it happens) remains atttractive to so many people - he died young and never really worked in an age where he might have come under serious pressure to live or die by his words. It's the James Dean thing - he never got fat, old or shit. Take that famous "turd in my drink" quote, for example. You can guarantee that, whenever there's a discussion on the whole art-vs-commerce thing anywhere on the internet, somebody will regurgitate that quote verbatim, as if simply doing so invests them with the same wisdom and insight as Hicks, rather than just someone without the ability to make an original observation of their own. But it also reminds you that Hicks was never really tested in that respect. None of the people who frequently declare how much "we need Bill Hicks now" will ever know whether he'd have eventually gone Hollywood like umpteen other celebrated outsiders. Nor will we know how many of the people who continue to venerate his stick-it-to-the-man maverick spirit would have declared him a sellout if, for example, he'd done an ad to pay for medical treatment that would have saved his life. My guess would be "most of them", simply because it's far easier to uphold your principles via a proxy, such as a rock musician, and actor or a comic. Beats having to take food off your own table any day.
Either way, there aren't many stand-ups around right now that I like, and I can tell you that the only ones I've paid money to see in the last ten years are Chris Rock and Rich Hall. On this side of the Atlantic, I give John Bishop a pass simply because a) he's a Scouser, b) I know his older brother Eddie, who went out with an ex of mine for a while, and c) he used to drink in a pub I worked in during the late '80s, and he was certainly funny then.