|
| |
Frank Cotolo
May 8, 2014 |
| |
|
I recently gave a talk at the Comedy Institute For Progressive Humor, where comics from all over
the world meet to talk jokes.
|
| |
|
This is a serious meeting where the art and science of comedy in today's world is explored and
analyzed. Also, everyone gets to steal jokes.
|
| |
|
But let me tell you a thing about comedy in the new millennium. Maybe I will tell you more than one
thing but one thing is for sure: comedy is walking a thin line. You would think - because I
thought - that after all the breakthroughs comedy made from the 1950s through 2001 that anything
goes.
|
| |
|
Anything does not go, not even now, because forces against comedy are out there working twenty-five
eight to dowse what is funny. That's right, you think you can say anything, you think Lenny Bruce
died for your sins but you are wrong. You are not wrong, of course, if you think Lenny Bruce died;
that happened. You are wrong if you think you are free to make jokes about anything because - as I
said already - anything does not go.
|
| |
|
As I review that statement, though, I realize that it may suffer from poor grammar. How about I say
that not everything goes? Or more specifically, certain things don't go. But you may say, "Go
where?" Then I would say Zimbabwe, because that is a funny word and being funny is what this is all
about.
|
| |
|
There will always be censors, even in a world where someone can tweet "Fxxk the Cheescake Factory
with all the correct letters. How is it that TV networks are still worried about certain words,
phrases and topics? Is it because of sponsors selling cereal to underaged children? I ask you, just
as I asked Jerry Seinfeld, exactly whom are the over-aged children? And whatever happened to the
child actor in "Kramer Versus Kramer?"
|
| |
|
None of you should be discouraged if you intend to perform material with an edge to it, stuff that
some people will view as ugly and mean because ugly and mean are funny, always have been funny and,
in fact, become funnier as time goes on. Just keep telling your jokes exactly the way that they
make the strongest impact. Just don't attempt to drive your point home to your audience like Jim
Jones. Yet, there may be very funny things about that whole Jonestown thing and all of you should
be able to joke about it.
|
| |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
There is a good case for implication humor, you know, where you don't say the bad word or come
right to the point. It's just another kind of comedy. But when push comes to shove, you should push
and shove, you should slam and smack because comedy is stronger than all the moral muscle any
corporate consciousness displays and comedy will win all the battles against those who surpress it.
|
| |
|
That reminds me of a story. A penguin, a motorcar salesman, a Lithuanian priest, a village idiot,
a Star Wars Stormtrooper, three geese and a shot of whiskey walk into a confession booth.
|
| |
|
[long pause]
|
| |
|
I think you know the rest. Thank you and goodnight.
|
| |
| Frank
Cotolo can be found hosting the talk and interview programme
Cotolo
Chronicles. You can send him an e-mail at this address:
frank@148.ca.
|
|
|
