The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel

xp Wow that sounds amazing actually. I envy your mental images!

Yeah, I'm talking about the late '80s and all of the '90s, so obv it was WAY past the expiration date for a style of recreation that went out with the advent of air travel. But it was a very nostalgic thing: people from St Louis, Chicago, Milwaukee, and the wealthy suburbs of Detroit were paying a lot for genteelly shabby accommodations, stone fireplaces, and worse weather than they could have had on a southern beach somewhere. The place is gone now--it changed hands, business waned, and eventually there was a fire. 40 or so years later than its East Coast counterpart it finally gave up the ghost and was replaced by 100 beach-front Air BnB options, where each family can be alone in their rented house with no intention of interacting with their neighbors.

apparently the thing that killed the Catskills was home air conditioners.

So I find it amazing that they can't make her actual stand-up routines funny AT ALL. They're terrible! Is this a nod to the humor of that time?

― There's more Italy than necessary. (in orbit), Monday, December 17, 2018 10:12 AM (one hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

yeah, it almost seems like clever dinner party banter than standup

Though I've watched Lenny Bruce clips on YouTube and I usually have no idea what's supposed to be funny about it

Overall, I like the show and s2, def agree w.upthread that Joel's arc was very good and also the posts that said the Paris stuff was great....

some of you guys liked The State and that bunch, right? so comedy has to be funny now?

Nothing ages a person faster than what they think is funny.

I can't remember much about her season 1 routines except I did LOL when someone heckled "you bitch!" and she said "ohhhh, who told you?!?" or something

I think possibly you meant "dates" there but it works either way xp

Well, I mean, people can choose to accept things being funny in the here and now too, but point taken.

(makes fart sound)

https://media.giphy.com/media/lGClylJINhkc0/giphy.gif

I'd prefer to see the live comedy of the 1920s (and teens) more than anything

started in on season 1 of this last night. some interesting things (the setting, some of the characterizations, the music choices) and some not so interesting things (everyone is written *very* broadly, almost like caricatures), but it's possible my interest in this era and milieu will win out

It's odd that Tracer hasn't commented here. I remember him being a big Bunheads and GG fan.

personally I enjoy Midge’s standup on the show. the tone & the look is inspired by early Joan Rivers routines, which I really love:

ie: https://youtu.be/EpPCFoXXhF0

i mean i know that doesnt nec. make it funnier in the show, comedy is v subjective, and I dont think those bits have to make you personally laugh for a viewer to know she’s getting over & gettong more laughs as she progesses

But just feeling the spirit of Joan in some of Midge’s character beats makes me respond much more favorably to the standup scenes knowing how much the show loves the comedic history it’s drawing from

the tone & the look is inspired by early Joan Rivers routines

yeah this was my reaction as well, she's the clearest real-life analogue

well no wonder she's not funny then

*rimshot*

as bad as things have gotten the last few years... no Joan Rivers! woo hoo

something something jerry lewis

haha, Jerry's primo late-life quote was "Joan Rivers set the Jews back a thousand years."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8yzfd269QE0

(obviously on some level they deserved each other)

https://i.imgur.com/uccIJGz.jpg

abe otm

Morbz hating Joanie is a new to me

yerac i am "obtaining" S2 as i type! :D

i obtain much hand one

Rivers *could* be funny, but not in her dotage... Just that people are 10x more familiar with her than Elaine May is a fucking tragedy

I guess, they had very very different career paths

if ppl are more familiar w Joan Rivers its cuz she was on TV *all* the fucking time

It’s really a delight having you here to share this great show with us, Morbs.

Morbs hating whatever serves his misanthropy most effectively in every moment is hardly new.

oh i know

i just like drawing attention to it

no, i've hated Reagan-ass-kissing Joan Rivers pretty consistently for 35 years, bitches

i'll get back to you on this show, I am intrigued

you should give it a try!!

we're only a bit into season 2 but i think this is a really good show. i don't think the standup is "funny" in the sense that when watching the show i'm cracking up, but that's okay; so much standup is successful because of the manner in which the comic works the room and their rhythm with delivery, and if you're sitting there in person it's a different experience, and while watching it i can see why the people in the audience on the show think it's funny. if that makes sense.

i saw Lovitz and Attell do standup a few years back and i was dying, but looking back i can see how at home my reaction at home would be vv different.

Every time I saw Second City, it was exponentially funnier than the funniest conceivable SNL episode. But years later, watching youtube clips of some of the Second City sketches I saw, they struck me as just meh. So yeah, the live experience adds a lot.

(Though not always: the one time I saw George Carlin, he was awful. I would’ve rather sat home listening to one of his records.)

while watching it i can see why the people in the audience on the show think it's funny. if that makes sense.

The show also makes no secret of the fact that she is popular because she looks good, and just her presence on stage is a surprise to most people.

I love this show. I love the sumptuousness of it (although I do wish Rachel Brosnahan wasn't always so very tightly pinned into all her clothes. Doesn't her character ever wear anything she can comfortably sit down in?), particularly the fact that so many of the scenes are fully populated. It was someone here who said it first, but I can't remember who: even most prestige shows now, like GoT, have an establishing shot with some background actors, but most of the scenes are two people talking in a room. There are so many scenes in Mrs Maisel that are set in diners, clubs, factories, butcher shops, etc, with background actors everywhere. Amazon showing off that money.

also Mrs Maisel feels more alive as a show taking place in NYC than something like Mad Men, which was great but also its production being almost exclusively in L.A. meant it had to take steps to avoid scenes taking place on NYC streets (and the heavy number of L.A. and Palm Springs exteriors sometimes was a glaring reminder of that.)

but wd've been tough for MM to shoot in midtown, which has been largely made over since 1960.

my mum enthusiastically showed the first episode of this to me a few months ago. gotta say I wasn't feeling it

I dont think morbz will like this at all.

Also I think its depiction of NYC environs is v heavily stylized and artificial-looking, v much like a stage musical

(The latter point is not really a criticism, but this show isnt going for the versimilitude/attention to period detail that Mad Men was. This show is way more comically exaggerated than realistic).

the NYT review of season 2 said it was like a contemporary idea of how a '50s movie would show the '50s.

yeah it’s a very, very handsomely produced show but ‘stylized and artificial-looking’ is otm

It operates in the same realm of heightened/embellished reality style that something like Desperate Housewives did. Real-ish.

Or, tbh, Gilmore Girls and Bunheads.

I like the artificial lookingness of it. I literally got distracted by a green glass that Suzie pulled out of a kitchen cabinet one episode. Sooooo pretty.

I kind of think morbs will like it well enough.