The Aristocrats

It's a stupid joke with a punchline that long ago gathered so much dust that you couldn't find it in an attic. But that is hardly the point. The point is that it (in its better forms) is so sick that you can't tell it in front of an audience. So comedians just tell it to each other.

also, the South Park version of the Joke

the Cartman version - http://waxy.org/random/view.php?type=video&filename=southpark_aristocrats.wmv

not so funny, in keeping with South Park's standards.

AVC: But it seems when you get into trouble, you fall back on raunchy. Like the night of the Hefner Friars Club Roast.

GG: Well, that was a very peculiar night, because it was shortly after Sept. 11, so there was a very weird feeling in the room. And I remember that whole time period was very strange, because no one knew how to react. There was this whole thing like "Show biz is coming to a close, and no one can ever do comedy; no one can ever do anything frivolous." I forget if it was the Oscar or the Emmy awards coming up right after that. In deference, I guess, to all those who perished in the World Trade Center, they decided they would still hold the awards show, but not in fancy outfits. [Laughs.]

So at the Roast, I just went up there, and I was doing well 'til I hit a snag in the road. I wanted to be the first one. At any tragic event that happens, there's always about five jokes that seem to be everywhere all at once. I wanted to be one of the first, so mine was "I have to leave early tonight. I have to catch a plane to L.A. Unfortunately, they couldn't get me a direct flight. We have to make a stop at the Empire State Building." And that was like, you know, groans from the audience. Boos. One guy yelled out "Too soon!" I guess I should have waited five minutes.

AVC: And then you told the Aristocrats joke.

GG: Yeah, I was still up there, you know. Before that, I was doing dirty jokes too, so I just basically continued with dirty jokes.

AVC: So what made you think of that joke at that time?

GG: I always sort of enjoyed it. Cause, you know, it's one of those be-as-disgusting-as-possible type jokes. It was always fun. But, I mean, the joke itself isn't really that funny.

AVC: No, it's really not. That's what's funny about The Aristocrats. It's this whole movie about a joke... but the joke kinda sucks.

GG: I think a lot has been made about it. Like saying it's some deep, dark secret of show business. To me, it's a dick joke, you know?

AVC: The movie makes it seem like it's some kind of secret handshake.

GG: Yeah, it's like there's some secret comics society that meets on a mountaintop somewhere.

AVC: There isn't, though... right?

GG: No, we meet in a cave. Comics aren't in that good of physical condition to climb to a mountaintop.

waaay too much cutting into the Gottfried Friars thing for the movie's good. they could've cut ten minutes easy.

Saget's version was rather easily my favorite--he seemed to relish telling the joke. Silverman was self-congratulatory as all fuck and appallingly unfunny.

dude wtf?

This only proves that funny is very personal.

I don't know, from what I've heard Cos gets DIRTY on his own time.

Destroy:
Saget (he played way too much off his Full House bio, which kept interrupting what was otherwise a wonderful version)
that pratfall guy

Search:
The one old guy who did the first "Sophisticates" one (notably, it was the first version where I actually laughed at the punchline), with the English accent and all.

I've never heard that, and no one has ever seen it. But CAROL BURNETT, PEOPLE! Seriously.

Once, on a lot of liquor, I told that joke in front of a Japanese man. I was kicked out of the house. My sense of decorum is a little off.

the Sara Silverman section was really funny; made funnier by Joe Franklin at the very end.

I can't see how it can be a good film.

I heard that it revolved around a joke, but didn't know what that was. Then, upthread, Paunchy Stratego told us the joke. Or, I think he / she did. But I don't get it. I don't see what the joke is. I hope that the film does not revolve around that. If it did, I don't see how it could be worthwhile. In fact, a 1-minute version of the joke, as Paunchy told it, would not be worthwhile. I don't yet see how it is a joke.

Douglas, do you mean the Cocksucking Motherfuckers? I think that was Wendy Liebman.

Foxy, the joke itself isn't the meat -- certainly not the punchline itself, which is playing on the disjunction between the description of the depraved acts and the sophistication and breeding of the name "The Aristocrats." How the comic embellishes the depravity is where the joke is funny.

As for the movie, it was funny. Although there's simply no way that I'm ever going to find molestation funny. Ever.

however, the hot-looking dirty-mouthed part is what keeps above other comedian chicks, i would venture...

Chuck fucking McCann!! (kiddie show host of the '60s)

>actually i just don't think stand-up comedy is that funny<

As a former practitioner, I tend to agree. Still, ppl I thought had completely forgotten how to be funny made me laugh here. They came off like folklorists.

I WAS in Joe Franklin's office at age 17, and it looked just like that. (He didn't rape me.)

Best of all, at my screening 3 or 4 yentas (there is no other word) wandered in, noisily opening snack bags and going "Oh my Gaawwwwd" at the filth. It took me a record 90 seconds to ask "Will you shut up?", then I moved location.

Ditto Matos on the butchering of Gottfried at the Friars. The Tim Conway end-credits thing sucked, as did the inclusion of Carrot Top.

Who was the comic who told the variation with the punchline "the N*gger C*nts"? His credit at the end was blank!

wait, what? did you ever hear any of George Carlin albums, or any of his (earlier) HBO specials? (the later ones are kinda just bile and mumbling for 60 mins).

In his old 60's and 70's stuff, he comes off like the hippest, smartest beatnik you've ever listed to. I love his old standup. And his "Didya ever?" observational stuff will always put Seinfeld to shame.

"Were you ever making out with someone and one of you has a snot that's whistling?"

Yes, now that you mention it...

the later ones are kinda just bile and mumbling for 60 mins

OTM.

No, not really. I think what's interesting about the film is how it separates those who clearly just think the joke is just a game of gross-out one-upmanship from those who understand how to make people laugh.

Another thing – the film made me think about whether it's possible to lay out in words the rules of telling a particular joke or not. Cause as George Carlin said, in one sense "the point" of the joke is that the guy doesn't realise that what his family does is unacceptable. That's true, but then you see some comedians tell it completely straight and gross (I'm particularly thinking of Howie Mandel) and it's just crap and you're sitting there thinking "Yes, you know how to deliver obscene lines deadpan but that's not enough". And I'm trying to think of what the X-factor is, and it's not what Silverman does. I had a lot more respect for her telling than Mandel's, but it didn't actually make me laugh because that was like acting it out and that only works if it's framed within an actual drama, not done as a piece to camera. Or maybe it was just the wrong kind of acting. Maybe there was too much knowingness showing through. And so yeah – do you see? I was sitting there thinking "Can I put your finger on it? Is analysing humour pointless or is it just really hard?"

On a technicality, Eric Idle was quite right that the punchline doesn't really work for British audiences because we don't associate the word 'aristocrat' with straightforward genteel quaintness. When I first heard the joke I was confused by the possibility that it was a rather obvious dig at the perversions of the upper classes.

I also liked the way Eric Idle (and Eddie Izzard) didn't try to be part of 'The Aristocrats' gang. What annoyed me about some of the film, esp. at the start (and the trailer, for that matter) was the kind of backslapping "comedian's trade" culture on parade. Boring.

The funniest telling by a mile was the mime artiste. Admittedly it wouldn't have been so funny out of context, but even so, the glee on his face as he acted it all out, with the passers by in the background, was just perfect. The South Park one wasn't bad either.

But what I took most from it was that it's impossible to have a goatee and be funny.

When I first heard the joke I was confused by the possibility that it was a rather obvious dig at the perversions of the upper classes.

This is what happened to me too. And the more I think about it, the more I think that perhaps that was the original intention of the gag. c/w this chunk of Nicholas Nickleby:

'He has a very nice face and style, really,' said Mrs Kenwigs.
'He certainly has,' added Miss Petowker. 'There's something in his appearance quite - dear, dear, what's that word again?'
'What word?' inquired Mr. Lillyvick.
'Why - dear me, how stupid I am,' replied Miss Petowker, hesitating. 'What do you call it when Lords break off door-knockers and beat policemen, and play at coaches with other people's money, and all that sort of thing?'
'Aristocratic?' suggested the collector.

That's the same gag, right? It could even be its original source. But when Dickens tells it, he's obviously not saying "haha, as if posh people would do bad things like that!", he's saying "yep, they're filthy". It's a much better joke, really.

Maybe the comedians in the film just don't get it.

I don't buy this for a fucking minute? Also it's the 21st now, you boob.

blount I think the structure and base of humor is exactly the same and the point of the joke itself is that method is up to the teller I can't see your argument at all

Feel free!

Also it's the 21st now, you boob.

I think it's safe to say that the comics who were in this movie are largely not living in the 21th century.

It's the execution (esp the insane chopping up of Gottfried @Friars) that disappoints. Nobody really knows the history/origins of the joke, and getting more academic woulda rendered it duller than Bergson (tho there's a bit of this on the Penn & Provenza commentary).

Kevin Pollak as Albert Brooks funnier than his Walken shtick, even.

me a year ago:

Who was the comic who told the variation with the punchline "the N*gger C*nts"? His credit at the end was blank!

Turns out this guy is an SNL writer, and someone(s) at the show were mighty pissed that he said "N*gger" in the film.

I did end up seeing the whole thing later, and I agree with whoever above said that it would have been better as a 1 hour movie. I guess those aren't so popular though. There were so many good versions of the joke in the movie, but also even more boring versions.