The popularity of Dane Cook is killing comedy
by Tim Rawal, trawal@CITIZEN-TIMES.com
Where is the funny?
For most of my childhood, I wanted to be a stand-up comedian. No, seriously. Then I realized it involved being considered humorous by more than just your brain-dead friends and having the ability to tell jokes that had beginnings, middles and ends.
Then Dane Cook became famous, and I reconsidered my dream.
Ive ranted on this moron before, but things are getting out of hand. Somehow this dork keeps getting placed in movies and selling out arenas to adoring dorks just like him. The only discernable characteristic of his brand of comedy seems to be volume. The louder he speaks, the higher his income.
And Im not coming from an uneducated place here. Regrettably, I bought his first album.
If I knew that saying, Dude, Im scared of drowning, or Working at Burger King sucks could make me millions of dollars and score me a meeting between the sheets with Jessica Simpson, I probably wouldnt be tossing out this unimaginative, unreadable gibberish every now and then.
Id be dead. By my own hand.
Real stand-up comedy is something I hold dear. I grew up watching HBO specials of Dave Chappelle, Dave Attell, Louis CK and Dennis Miller. I scour the Internet for clips of Norm MacDonald, Todd Barry and Zach Galifianakis. These are comedians, and they all have something in common. They told jokes to avoid being beaten up or further ostracized by their peers.
I can guarantee Mr. Galifianakis wasnt fielding football scholarships from top-25 schools. Though thats not what makes him funny, we all know its kind of hard to be a real jokester when you spend most of your days sleeping with coeds and riding in Escalades leased by college boosters.
Cook appeals largely to a base of male idiots between the ages of 18 and 22 who shell out monetary dues each semester in order to maintain friendships. Theres no funny or jokes to be found in any of his exhaustive live performances. And the true test of a performers humor is his ability to think on the spot. Ive seen him in interviews, and its essentially a mild retelling of his so-called jokes.
Go listen to any random appearance Norm MacDonald has made on Dennis Millers, Howard Sterns or Adam Carollas show. This is a man with a mind so bizarrely genius that you wonder why you ever thought anything else was funny before him.
Cook is just too perfect. He doesnt drink or smoke or do any drugs. Hes apparently good-looking, which I cannot attest to because heterosexual men claim they cannot judge another mans looks. He and a handful of other new comedians who claim their humor comes from a happy place are ruining the honesty of great comedy (see Andy Samberg).
Comedy comes from a dark place. There were only three seemingly happy comedians who ever told good jokes; Billy Cosby, Jerry Seinfeld and Bob Newhart. And even those cats werent ecstatic about life. But they were intelligent and articulated universal feelings that made semiboring human quirks seem more enlightened and interesting than they actually were.
And Dane Cook once compared pubic hair to a stage curtain.
I think my point has been made.
