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Dane Cook isn't funny

Posted over 3 years ago
And it seems RS magazine agrees with me. POP LIFE: THE JOKE'S ON USHow can any comedian get as famous as Dane Cook has with no jokes?ROB SHEFFIELDTaylor Dayne. Cookie Monster. The Great Dane next door. Cooke City, Montana. A prune Danish. The Bugs Bunny cartoon that goes, "Cook! Where's my hasenpfeffer?" This is just a partial list of things that are funnier than Dane Cook, but let's stop here or we could go on all day, like one of Dane's monologues. Yeah, we get it: the world's hottest comedian, a success story, the MySpace generation, blah to the blah, but where are the fucking jokes? Dane, did you bring any jokes at all? Or did you just figure you'd think of some after you got famous? His success is his whole story, with his hit album Retaliation, his HBO special Vicious Circle, his Jessica Simpson comedy Employee of the Month. But when does the funny start? How can any comedian get this famous with no jokes? It's like he's a lovable character Will Ferrell made up for an upcoming media-prank comedy, Funnyguy: The Legend of Dane Cook.Tune in to Dane, and you'll hear old "ya ever notice?" gags you thought would never walk again. You will learn about airports, driving, the ways women are different from men (they cry!), and how people call you "pal" when they're not your pal. "Why are we still requesting people say 'cheese'?" Dane asks. "Was there a time in history when like, photography and cheese were like, the shit?" The best line on Retaliation goes, "He was hit by a Dodge, which I found funny and ironic." I can't wait to figure out which old Emo Philips record that one comes from.Other comics resent him, not so much for success as for biting routines from Louis C.K. and still not being funny. Dane could be reading aloud from Dave Berg's "The Lighter Side of" in Mad magazine, or he could be Animal House if you thought Neidermeyer was the funny one, but it doesn't matter. Either way, he's huge. Go to his Web site, where he earned his rep as a marketing whiz, and you notice there's no comedy, just essays about how hard he's worked. "Great news!!!" he writes. "We already made back our entire budget and now the movie is making a profit. This is great for me and my cast. It has sent a message that I can open a film up against huge competition." Dane, did you wonder if we noticed Employee of the Month was the assest movie Andy Dick's ever been in, and that includes The Hebrew Hammer? We did! In his Danecasts, he doesn't crack jokes; he listens to Coldplay, replies to his New Friend Requests and urges us to go see Employee of the Month. "Thank you for wanting to check in with me," he muses. "Five million people downloading the Danecast, and let me tell you, it's just gonna get better." You're welcome! So -- heard any good jokes lately?I've watched the guy...maybe three times...wondering what the deal was. Was I missing something? Now I know I'm not alone . Dane Cook is NOT funny.

Comments (26)

  1. Kate says Bill Hicks is dead and he could still kick Dane Cook's ass. George Carlin could burp and i'd laugh harder than at a Dane Cook "joke". I could go on, but you get the point.
    Permalink posted 10/30/2006
  2. SatisfiedMind614 says Word...he is the 'boy band' of the comedy world. Pretty, polished, packaged and sold...SO not funny
    Permalink posted 10/30/2006
  3. Takeshi Kovacs says just figured i was out of touch
    Permalink posted 10/30/2006
  4. damianmannn says Same here. I thought it was me for a while. I was asking myself, "Why aren't you into this? Is it you?" His popularity makes no sense. His jokes are cringe-worthy crap.
    Permalink posted 10/30/2006
  5. Pseudo Cyborg says Dane Cook... wow. I just censored myself a good twelve times in that ellipses. He's... just... not... funny. I stabbed my eye with one of those Kindergarten pencils and proceeded to douse the wound with salt and lemon juice and still managed to laugh harder than I ever have at Dane Cook. Not funny! Bad! Bad! Ugh. Seriously. I'm gonna stop now before I soil myself....
    Permalink posted 10/30/2006
  6. etcvisitor says ive been trying to convince some people i know of this fact for the past few months... im glad to know that there are others who feel this way. maybe we should start a support group "people who have survived dane cook's lame ass routine" and then we can get angry mothers to scream at him "look at what your terrible act has done to our children, now they are jaded and bitter and you are still not funny".
    Permalink posted 10/30/2006
  7. damianmannn says It's all MySpace's fault. They must be stopped.
    Permalink posted 10/30/2006
  8. that1guy says I hate Dane Cook.
    Permalink posted 10/30/2006
  9. chucky says Once again I find myself on the outside looking in. He isn't as funny as Daniel Tosh or as funny as Mitch Hedberg was, but some of his routines crack me up every time I hear them. Like Superbleeder - Are you like me that when you see someone wearing a superman t-shirt you want to shoot him in the chest and then when he bleeds go "I guess not! Wear a shirt that says 'I bleed if you shoot me' and I won't shoot you....superbleeder." Or Legacy where he wanted to be remembered forever so he ran up to a kid and smashed his ice cream into his face and said "you remember me FOREVER." "You know when that kid is like 50 he'll tell the story - "a man I did not know came up to me and shoved my treat into my eyes and said 'you fucking remember me forever.'" But, I did not say "fucking." He deserved to have ice cream shoved in his eyes because he's a lying 50 year old man. Ok, so it's just me huh? Ok then. Heh.
    Permalink posted 10/30/2006
  10. AnonymousAmy says it's not just you ashley, i think he's funny. I also like Carlos Mencia a lot. bah, whatever though.
    Permalink posted 10/30/2006
  11. dermahrk says I tend to try every HBO series and so, one night cued up "Tourgasm". After watching an episode I told myself: never EVER watch this asshole again. I'm not sure what is so obnoxious about him - maybe it's the sense of a huge ego, where other comics can easier to relate to because they reflect the downtrodden. You are 100% correct, sir, even if you might be hung up on the clown from "It". Or Insane Clown Posse. Or maybe Emmet Kelly's evil twin. Whaddever....
    Permalink posted 10/30/2006
  12. damianmannn says I haven't really checked out Mencia. But if he has fans that cross over from Dane Cook...then he's probably not funny either.
    Permalink posted 10/30/2006
  13. Viva La Britt says _Rolling Stone_ is completely FULL OF SHIT. Granted, different writers of the same publication are allowed to have differing opinions, but the magazine named him Hot Stand-Up of 2004 and wrote two features of the guy in 2005 alone. (Oh, and in one of those 2005 articles, the byline referred to him as a "marketing genius", so maybe the mag played a role in him getting that reputation in the first damn place.) I don't know what _RS_'s deal is with this new scathing perspective, but it's a perfect example of the media building someone up in order to tear 'em down. Cook hasn't changed his formula in the past two years, but now what was once praised by _RS_ as "savvy" and "edgy" is now being marginalized because the backlash against him is starting to gain speed. The thought of it makes my blood boil. And yes, I heart the mofo.
    Permalink posted 10/30/2006
  14. Violet Grey says People like Dane Cook because of how thoroughly mediocre he is. Americans don't look up to the truly exceptional anymore because we have been conditioned to think these people believe they are better than us. So fuck them, right? Who the hell do they think they are anyway? No, we want to elevate completely mediocre and marginally talented individuals to positions of great height so we can feel confidant that, "I could do that, he's not better than me, he just got the right break". We don't want to aspire, we want to feel secure in our current state of being, so we allow mediocre people to achieve. Just look at our president. If he isn't a shining example of American mediocrity my hair isn't black. We get the celebrities we deserve.
    Permalink posted 10/30/2006
  15. dermahrk says Hey, I hate Rolling Stone more than Dane Cook, so we have something in common!
    Permalink posted 10/30/2006
  16. SWozniak says I agree with Kate, and miss Hicks. Carlin is the man. And Steven Wright for deadpan.
    Permalink posted 10/30/2006
  17. Lester Jonze says Dane Cook blows. Funny? How about Richard Pryor, Lenny Bruce, Carlin for sure. Bill Hicks I like. Hell even Bill Cosby was a funny mofo back in the day. You should check out some of his records from the sixties. In eighth grade I made a guy pee on himself by reciting Cosby. Just one of my many hidden talents.
    Permalink posted 10/30/2006
  18. damianmannn says Cosby was funny back in the day. I remember some of those old records. When I was 9 I had the original Fat Albert stuff. I loved that stuff. As an adult, I LOVED Bill Hicks and Sam Kinison. I like Chris Rock and Dave Chappelle. How can anyone see Dane Cook as funny after watching Chapelle's stand-up? BTW, I remember RS saying he was the "Hottest" new comic. That's not an endorsement of his talent. He was a "buzz" act at the time. They were acknowledging his growing popularity.. I
    Permalink posted 10/30/2006
  19. Viva La Britt says Please- giving one guy three pieces of coverage within a year's time is more than acknowledgement; I would even dare to call it a campaign. For the record, in August '05, the mag cited his Retaliation disc one of their "obsessions" in its The List feature...I believe that's an endorsement. Bygones... Nonetheless, from giving someone so much coverage that bordered on complimentary to publishing something this hypercritical is guileful.
    Permalink posted 10/30/2006
  20. damianmannn says So? he's a good salesman. He understands "the business". He got coverage. Besides, it was that particular columnists opinion....and, maybe, there are others at RS who like him. I don't know. he STILL sucks. And I'm saying that....and I don't plan on deviating from that opinion.
    Permalink posted 10/30/2006
  21. RGM says So he's not funny? Shit why call me a faggot lexington Steele times two cause I gone and corned holed myself and downright laughed at his jokes! And no cogresstional ButterBoy either! Fuck!
    Permalink posted 10/30/2006
  22. thecandymanlives says well, he's not great, but I'll be damned if that Burger King doesn't crack me the fuck up EVERY time I hear it. EVERY TIME.
    Permalink posted 10/31/2006
  23. bubb says I agree too!
    Permalink posted 10/31/2006
  24. Manos says Glad to see I'm not alone. I should laugh a lot when a comedian does his/her bit, not once in a while. Same with Mencia.
    Permalink posted 10/31/2006
  25. Lord Helmet says I'm with Chucky, Amy and Britt on this. I don't think Cook is nearly as funny as the likes of Hedberg (RIP), Tosh, Chapelle, Murphy, Wright, Pryor, etc., but I have certainly heard my share of noteworthy material come out of his acts. I'm not gonna go too far out on a limb for the guy; but he is definitely not THAT bad. On the old Kool Aid Man commercials: "OOOoooooh Yea!" "Oooh no Kool-Aid Man! Do you you know what my father's gonna do to me when he comes home and sees that huge fucking hole that you just put in the wall?!" I think that maybe some of you are being too hard on the guy because he made a shitty movie with Jessica Simpson.
    Permalink posted 10/31/2006
  26. Pseudo Cyborg says No, I'm being hard on the guy because he just isn't funny. ; )
    Permalink posted 10/31/2006

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