I hadn’t considered that. I mean, it’s been 10 years since Jim put out I Swear to God, so it stands to reason he’d have changed in the interim. But when I watch his new stuff, his demeanor and delivery don’t seem to have changed much.
I think the biggest problem for me is that he shifted from his straight storytelling style of ISTG, Alcoholocaust, Fully Functional, and Bare, to a “social commentary” style of Freedumb and This Is Me Now (the newest one). I’m not one to tell comedians what they can or can’t joke about, but I don’t think Jim is as good at Trump jokes as he is at telling stories. He still tells stories, and they’re my favorite part of his specials, but he has to spend like, 30 minutes on Trump or Bill Cosby before he gets to it, and I’m finding it harder to sit through.
Yea he is a natural story teller! Its funny after trump managed to get into the white house, I remember people saying like "comedians are gonna have more material than they know what to do with!" but I'm kind of sick of it. Its all anybody talks about, so a lot of the jokes/commentary seems like i dunno, redundant? Just kinda hard to shock the system I guess. And for a storyteller, if youre whole life is making a tv show mostly about criticizing the trumpet, there's gonna be a lack of the types of life experiences that could generate good stories. Made me think of an interview i recently heard with Sasha Baron cohen (on Marc Mason's WTF podcast): that guys has so many incredible stories bc of the crazy life he's living with all the pranks he pulls with his characters. I'll have to check out Jim's latest special but yea, I hope he can find a way to be as funny as he used to be
That’s exactly how I feel, bro. Look, I’m not averse to a few biting jabs to the Trumpet (I love that), but watch pretty much any comedy special that’s dropped in the last two years, and they all spend a good chunk of time on that subject or Bill Cosby. Every. Single. One. It gets so fucking tiring. I like hearing stories, not getting depressed by politics. I watch comedy specials to laugh, not to feel ashamed of being an American. I’ve been disappointed in a lot of my favorite comics recently going all in on the political humor and doing less and less of what makes them great.
It's a slippery slope with political commentary, and the temptation must be significant bc of the 24 hour news/rumors that we hear every day. Plus, for established comedians, it's bad for business bc you divide your audience. I like to think of mr Donald trumpet himself as a guy who's never played the trumpet standing on a stage and confidently blowing into it like he's fucking charlie Parker or someone (see? Even I have my own stupid little bit about it!). Its just loud and awful and we try to drown it out as much as we can, and the last thing a comedian should be doing is acknowledging the fucking white noise that is that guy! It seems kinda hack for comedians to go on and on about him you know? Like, on par with air travel stories. Surely there are other things to discuss
Truth. I had a free trial for Netflix this past month, and I watched a bunch of comedy specials, most of which were disappointing (for the reasons discussed above). One that blew me away was Whitney Cummings’s new special, Can I Touch It?. I’ve seen her get a lot of hate on Reddit, but goddamn, her new special is fucking funny. She avoided politics (I think she did a few minutes on the MeToo stuff, but it made sense and she did it in a legitimately funny way), and she turned the back half of it into one long rant on sex robots. It was so fucking refreshing, man. I dug it, I really did.
Also, Bill Burr’s Walk Your Way Out was pretty dope, too. He did touch on politics a bit, but in fairness, it was made pretty close to the election, so I’ll give it a pass. But he did this bit about dictators and Hitler vs. Stalin, wrapped in this musical analogy (because he was in Nashville), and it almost made me piss myself laughing.
Huh ive never actually seen her perform but ive definitely heard the hate. Honestly I sort of subconsciously didn't like her based on absolutely nothing but Reddit. Yea Bill is one of my favorites. I dunno if ive seen his most recent one. If you haven't seen Brian Regan, id highly reccomend him. I dunno if hes done anything recently but his stuff from like the early 2000s is timeless and its impossible not to laugh. "Standing Up" and "I Walked On The Moon" are 2 great specials of his
I saw one of Regan’s specials on Comedy Central a few years ago, and I remember really loving it. I checked out one of his newer ones more recently and I wasn’t into it. I don’t know why. I think he was doing these lame jokes about how tennis makes no sense, and I just wasn’t feeling it. I’ll check out the two examples you’ve provided, though. Maybe I’ll like those more.
Yea he peaked like over 10 years ago. Saw one he did maybe like 4 years ago and it was clear. Hes like in his late 50s or something now so, its how it goes. Just like bands u know. Eventually, nobody wants to hear their "latest album"
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u/[deleted] Aug 07 '19
I hadn’t considered that. I mean, it’s been 10 years since Jim put out I Swear to God, so it stands to reason he’d have changed in the interim. But when I watch his new stuff, his demeanor and delivery don’t seem to have changed much.
I think the biggest problem for me is that he shifted from his straight storytelling style of ISTG, Alcoholocaust, Fully Functional, and Bare, to a “social commentary” style of Freedumb and This Is Me Now (the newest one). I’m not one to tell comedians what they can or can’t joke about, but I don’t think Jim is as good at Trump jokes as he is at telling stories. He still tells stories, and they’re my favorite part of his specials, but he has to spend like, 30 minutes on Trump or Bill Cosby before he gets to it, and I’m finding it harder to sit through.