The History of Comedy

It's amazing that there was a time when what you said

could get you locked up in prison.

I actually accrued a reputation for being irreverent.

Yes, sir, it's a sticky wicket.

I cuss gratuitously, but subject matter's another story.

This is going to be a good show.

Are there any subjects that are never appropriate for humor?

People say a good comedian doesn't have to cuss.

And I thought, "That's fucking rubbish."

How dirty is too dirty?

- Why is all that so funny? - I don't know.

What you're about to hear is going to shock and disgust you.

If you choose to go blue, you gotta do it right.

Dirty for the sake of dirty, there's nothing worse than that.

You must promise me something.

You won't get me in any trouble on the show tonight.

And listen, I will be cussing tonight.

Just so as you know. No, I will, I will.

Don't fucking "Aww" me.

Not allowing an artist to use the word "fuck"

is like not allowing a guitarist to use the chord "E."

It's possible to play the instrument,

but why the fuck would you bother?

Now, don't wave your finger at me.

You knew when you got here there'd be cussing.

The last thing comedy needs is to be polite.

The world was never changed by anyone

being well-behaved or well-mannered or quiet.

There's a certain exhilaration in pushing the boundaries.

I had this memory of being, like, 3,

and I would shower with my mother.

My mom got her water from the shower head.

That water would then cascade down her ample bosom,

and, like, pike off of her '70s Jew bush.

That was my water.

I was raised by parents who spoke explicitly.

There's something about growing up not knowing

that talking about your vagina or penises was taboo.

Now, if you haven't done it before, ladies,

go home and treat yourself.

Do it tonight.

Just give your man a little push,

push in the tush, tush.

Give him a little Atari.

My whole comedy career,

I've been told to be less dirty,

and I would get more work

if I just toned it down a little bit.

And it's crazy to me that a highbrow publication

like "The New Yorker"

would be interested in interviewing me

about why I find it funny to butt-finger a man.

No, please, no, really --

I don't think there's any subject that's off limits.

The other day, a guy told me to suck a bag of dicks.

That was interesting.

I never heard that before.

Total stranger told me to suck a bag of dicks.

A whole bag of 'em.

What we consider offensive or blue

evolves with every generation.

With vaudeville, for the first time,

comedy becomes an industry.

Her poor father, he died of throat trouble.

They hung him.

Vaudeville is created commercially to clean up humor.

There's no cursing. There's no blasphemy.

Why?

They want men, women, and children

to be able to come there.

They want a bigger audience.

Ha ha!

If a vaudevillian did something onstage

that was objectionable,

they would send a blue envelope backstage with the material

they wanted excised from their act.

And so that became the whole idea

of that phrase "blue material."

Say good night.

Good night.

So you had vaudeville comedy, which was accessible to all.

But at the same time, concurrently,

you had another style of comedy

that was a little bit different.

Burlesque houses were often like going to a a strip club.

Those guys were there with their trench coats to watch girls.

They had different styles of comedy,

different people performing within them.

I see you lying there. My anger is aroused.

I pull out my dirk.

Now we're going to the point.

Because burlesque, the primary attraction

was scantily clad ladies,

in order to compete for attention,

a comedian had to do something

that was going to upstage a naked woman.

So they would do this sort of dirty-ish comedy.

- Your wife's on television? - Indeed, she is.

- I didn't know that. - A magician.

- What does she do? - Well, she does one trick

that's really amazing, mystifying.

She takes a little rubber ball. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

She bounces the little rubber ball up and down.

Yeah. And she stands with her legs like this.

And when the little ball bounces up and down,

the little ball disappears.

Well, what are you bragging about?

What?

My wife does the same thing with a basketball.

Sure.

Yeah, she does it the hard way.

She's knock-kneed.

Vaudeville is clean. Burlesque is dirty.

The thing about burlesque is, that audience is all male.

You're not going to burlesque to see the comic.

Okay?

You're going to see the boobs.

"The Dean Martin Celebrity Roast,"

coming to you from the MGM Grand Hotel.

Dean, I'd like you to know

that I canceled a proctologist's appointment

to be here tonight.

And I think I made a mistake.

So, in the late '60s and 1970s,

they would televise Friars Club roasts,

but they were sanitized versions

of what you would actually see at the Friars Club.

There's a lot of reasons why we should honor this man tonight.

First of all, he's Italian, and I love the Italian people.

I'll never forget the word of Carmine Gangananza

who said to me in Brooklyn on a Saturday night...

The televised roasts that Dean Martin did

were always so funny, and it was fun to see,

but there's something about those private Friars Club,

behind closed doors, you know, stag roasts.

The fact that they were these huge stars

like Jack Benny and Milton Berle

that the public had only heard on TV

or on the radio be very squeaky clean.

Suddenly, you got to see another side of it.

I've known Don for about eight years,

and like most performers,

Don has probably thousands of acquaintances,

professional people that he knows.

But he's also one of the people who has close friends,

and I like to feel that I am one.

I don't want to speak for Don,

but I am one of his very close friends,

and I think that's important to Don

because queers need friends.

Wonderful.

The vaudeville style of comedy

and the burlesque tradition of comedy

came together at the Friars Club.

It's good when an artist can express themselves in a way

that may not be acceptable

outside that temple of free speech.

People say there's a time and a place for that kind of comedy.

That's the time and place -- the roast.

I will remember this evening

probably as long as it takes me to get to my car.

Ladies and gentlemen, here is a very shocking comedian,

the most shocking comedian of our time,

a young man who is skyrocketing to fame.

Lenny Bruce!

You might be interested in how I became offensive.

At that time,

there were laws on the book around obscenity.

You couldn't say "fuck."

You couldn't say "cum."

You couldn't say "cock."

I mean, could you imagine that?

I'd like to perhaps give you a four-letter word

that starts with an "S" and ends with a "T."

First time in television.

I'm not gonna look at you when I say this

because this way, I can't get busted,

you don't know who said it.

The band said it.

Starts with an "S" and ends with a "T," and the word is "snot."

Lenny Bruce saw himself as a social critic,

and part of that was challenging our language

and why certain words were taboo.

The Jew has no concept

that there's a dirty word graph.

In other words, F-U-C-K,

the Jew doesn't know is worth 90 points

and S-H-I-T, 5 points

because both rabbis and priests S-H-I-T.

Only one F-U-C-K's.

If you listen to my father's routines,

you will hear a "obscenity,"

the so-called curse words or blue material.

He did not use them for shock value.

They had a purpose, they had a reason,

and they were leading to a point.

And there's a difference, you know,

between a big piece of art with a little shit in the middle,

a big piece of art with a little shit in the middle,

a big piece of art, then a big piece of shit