Happy Panic Productions

Another good time waster

Grab your joystick.

Since I'm not doing much writing lately, maybe I should read this.

Roger, Ebert, I read you: The Aristocrats (2005)

I am constantly amazed that the people who tell this joke don't realize that every single person in the English-speaking world has already heard this joke 500 times. Not a snark: I've never heard that joke. But there are a lot of jokes I've never heard. (Note: Ebert's comment is not in reference to the Aristocrats joke.)

I am an expert on joke-telling, and often hold audiences spellbound with my mastery of the topic. Holy shit! Would Ebert even make so audacious a claim about being an expert on films? I've never heard him tell a joke, so for all I know he's just telling it like it is, but goddamn!

...with all the firepower in this movie (George Carlin, Andy Dick... Some certain someone does not belong anywhere on the comedic firepower list, much less in the second spot!

...the funniest version ever told, everyone agrees, was by.... And as usual, Ebert goes on to describe in some detail what, in this film, is essentially the climax. I'll give hima break here, though. The details do relate directly to the main thrust of his criticism. Which, in typical Ebert style, is criticism of the joke and its telling, more than of the film. But I did enjoy his criticism of the joke.

It's true, it's not a funny joke. I was sort of depressed by how little I laughed. (Maybe seeing it in a group would have given the proper energy to the viewing experience.) Call me jaded, but piss, shit, and incest, in and of themselves, don't do anything for me. I only laughed at all when there was something else going on. Whoopi Goldberg made me laugh harder than she ever has in her career (the only other time she made me even chuckle was on her short-lived sitcom). Tommy Smothers makes me laugh just about any time he tries to explain anything to Dick, regardless of subject. However, I think it's Drew Carey who nails it. His flourish made the punch line funny to me for the first (and only) time. After I'd already heard it about a hundred times in perhaps 45 minutes, that's quite a feat. It's like Jack Benny figuring out that holding three fingers to his cheek was funnier than two or four. It's that kind of master stroke that I really appreciate. Craftsmanship!

The most puzzling and distressing thing about this movie is that director Provenza, a professional comedian, would be so hostile towards other comedians' timing and delivery with his editing. I still could have found this movie about an unfunny joke extremely interesting, just to take in the different styles of the telling. But the editing has so little respect for the comedians' craft, we hardly get to hear one speak two consecutive sentences without violent interference. The filmmakers are so insecure about holding our attention during the nth telling of this joke, it's like the editing is trying to apologize for this film even existing. Why not just play zany sped-up piano music throughout the film and make all the comics wear arrows through their heads? Maybe the worst cutting in a documentary I've ever seen.