Everybody needs to coo-oo-ool out!
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Sadly, unfunny is the new black in the comedy world. The Onion's AV Club recently ran an article describing the decidedly hit-and-miss Andy Samberg as "an emissary from a bold new comedy world... [where] the superstars of tomorrow made their names and reputations by making silly homemade videos, then releasing them online rather than playing open-mic nights or doing Second City." Yeah, it sounds pretty punk rock, don't it.
Maybe that's exactly what it is... Maybe Tim & Eric are The Raincoats of the comedy world, giving it all in spite of a complete lack of ability. Twenty years from now, perhaps, they will put together a masterpiece that will be largely ignored by the world because it demonstrates a commitment to the craft, a notion which flies in the face of everything everyone thought they stood for. Their fans will have abandoned them, but at least they will finally be funny.
The Upright Citizens Brigade seems to hail from the old school, the school that encouraged its students to keep trying, even if they had already made their stoned friends laugh. The school that stressed the notion that absurd wasn't funny by default, but required threshing to separate the funny from the tedium. The members of the UCB knew how to distinguish the berries from the straw, and, if you watch the clip and listen to the song, you might find a connection between the two.
Comments (2)
Not a good concept for the skit. Comedy without a guiding premise is always hopeless, but good premises can be played out so wonderfully by talented comedians that it's easy to forget why you need them... SNL has been going strong on 95% terrible material since the beginning, just by crowding together people who made you laugh elsewhere...
Had that been an SNL skit it would have been followed by 15 more iterations featuring the "Coo-oo-ool Out Guy" in various wacky settings, leading eventually to "Coo-oo-ool Out, Taco Salad: The Movie."
As far as I understand it, the skits on the UCB television show were adapted from their improv stage show, so any guiding premise in their skits is bound to be fairly abstract and, at times, barely tangential to the bit. Still, I think the sketch in the above video does a fine job of poking fun at the ramifications of the power dynamics created by the near randomly ordained hierarchies that exist at kinkos, coffee shops, diners, etc., while making sure to remember that their first job is to be funny.
You make some interesting points, zarpex, and I think I am going to have to spend some time ruminating on the importance of premise to comedy, and how that compares to the importance of talent. I think there might be some good premise going on in today's comedy that is completely squandered by shit-unfunny comedians, and vice versa, I'll just have to start paying more attention to it.