Re: Lost Humor or Age Gap
 

Dirty jokes have always been with us ... Canterbuy Tales if full of them. I remember watching an Eddie Murphy video ... "Raw" I think it was ... and he deals with the topic in a quite articulate manner. He made the point, and made it well, that his brand of humour was much more than stringing together a whole bunch of dirty words ... And then there is the unforgettable George Carlin and his seven dirty words you can't say on TV. Personally, I don't give a rat's ass what words a comedian uses as long as he makes me laugh ... And don't forget the ladies: Marsha Warfield from "Night Court" has a fantastic stand up routine.:D

Re: Lost Humor or Age Gap
 

I don't really mind if i happen to see one in a club,pub, people enter such places by choice, if they dont like it sod off, Think though better if not on T.V. But thats just me.

Re: Lost Humor or Age Gap
 

I saw Manning at the Cav back in the 70s, he was a bit different in his cabaret show than he was in his own club, he didn't use one four letter word, so he proved that you don't have to use bad language to get a laugh

Re: Lost Humor or Age Gap
 

I used to frequent a pub in south London called the Montague Arms, the compare was a chap called Jim Jones, he was a very well known cockney comedian, but he very rarely appeared on TV, because of the contact of his act, the only thing was he was a brilliant singer too, which was even more sad really, he had no need to stoop to the depths to entertain

Re: Lost Humor or Age Gap
 

An interesting example of a crossover from clubland obscenity to acceptably amusing vulgarity is Paul O'Grady.

Re: Lost Humor or Age Gap
 

Well, you live and learn. I was doing a bit of reading around this subject, as you do. And I came across the odd fact that the term 'Schmuck' is a Yiddish obscenity, meaning 'Penis'. And, in 1963, its use got the American comedian, Lenny Bruce, arrested.

Funny, isn't it, how few people would know or even care what the word really meant.

Re: Lost Humor or Age Gap
 

Um I used to work for Ray Lyndon, now I know what he ment:D

Re: Lost Humor or Age Gap
 

And more...From the giddy heights of serious Drama daahlings, comes this....

"Oscenity has often been regarded as a characteristic of a broad, jocular mind. The opinion prevailed that it was a more or less necessary feature of Old Comedy, a kind of humour which was the only one really to be savoured by the rustics and illiterates a sort of concession to the groundlings, for which the upper strata of the audience were indeminified by the high intentions, the lyrics and the aesthetic forms of comedy.

That was Thalien M. de Wik-Tak, writing in Mnemosyne. (vol 21, 1893).

He was, of course, writing about Ancient Greek theatre in the 5th Century BC, but you knew that. Strange though, how little really changes.

Re: Lost Humor or Age Gap
 

Yes, but he's nowhere near as funny as Lily was, when she worked the Vauxhall Tavern, amongst other places.

Really used to make me laugh.

Mind you, I'd be in stitches, sat behind two real life scouse woman, when I was on the bus in Liverpool.

Re: Lost Humor or Age Gap
 

You always were a bit of a giddy-kipper.:D

Re: Lost Humor or Age Gap
 

Though it was always my ambition to be a giddy-Gertie, but I kept failing the medical.

:D

Re: Lost Humor or Age Gap
 

Sigh. Happy days. Now it's all relentlessly left-wing, right-on, observational scheisse.

Re: Lost Humor or Age Gap
 

Nah, comedy's moved on.

All that Jo Brand PMS stuff is so old hat.

The young comics tell racist, sexist, swear ridden jokes.

But they do so 'ironically'.

Which means it's different from Bernard Manning et al because...

Er, I'll have to get back to you on that one.

:rolleyes::D

Re: Lost Humor or Age Gap
 

But that is precisely the point of Thalien M. de Wik-Tak's comment; it doesn't move on, it merely goes round in circles. What was funny and obscenely funny in the 5th century BC is still funny two and a half thousand years later. Aristophanes' 'The Frogs' being a case in point.

Re: Lost Humor or Age Gap
 

Slapstick and the comedy of cruelty did not originate with the comedians of the music hall and the silent cinema, it is first formalised in ancient greek theatre, but it's origins are as old as humanity itself. The same goes for bum jokes!