"So, if you want to solve a real mystery, go ahead and figure out who's taking my New York Times every Sunday, or better yet, how about why anybody on the planet actually thinks Dane Cook is funny..."
-- Dr. Perry Cox, "Scrubs"
Today is the Final Friday Filet, where Laughasaurus will dissect an attempt at humor and (hopefully) prove that, in this case, Dane Cook does not make the cut.
Although my personal opinions do weigh in on this post, I will try and attack it with as little bias as possible. If you think it's too biased, let me know so.
Dane Cook's stand-up jokes and other comedic offerings are, like many comedians, satirical takes on mostly-normal life situations. He invents hypothetical scenarios and builds off of them to the point of apparent hilarity; he also tries to bring out the humor in a situation that may or may not have happened to you before.
But many of Cook's jokes lose their comedic value when you take away the factor of his outrageous performances--his over-the-top gesticulations. For example, in this clip where he talks about what white guys, Hispanic guys and black guys do before a fight:
You can tell the audience is directly reacting to his abrupt and ridiculous gestures, as the laughs only come when he makes one. From 0:13-15 seconds he says: "Everybody's got their own little...??????" The movement garners the laugh. A few seconds later: "You just gotta see them an you know something is going down." The laughs come with the hand movement.
If you were to hold up a laugh meter to this segment, it would reach its highest point when Cook rips off his shirt at the end. Ripping off one's shirt, I would argue, has almost no comedic value.
Now, I can see how a person would think that Dane Cook is a funny comedian, because I appreciate that he's gotten as far as he has doing what he does. However, the fact that he has starred in numerous movies, often opposite women far too beautiful for him, is disappointing to those who see through his false talent.
He's a quote from Cook's stand-up that, if simply read without the aid of his seizure-induced arm flailing, is not even really a joke:
"You know what I'd like to be able to do more than anything else? I'd love to be able to shoot spaghetti out of my fingertips. Pppptthhh! Cause no one wants to be covered in spaghetti. No. If I'm on a date with a girl and she's very rude, I'd be like, 'You know what?' Pppptthhh! 'Enjoy your spaghetti, you're very rude. Enjoy your spaghetti, cause you're rude.' Pppptthhh!"
This idea could be funny to an 8-year-old, who would also probably go nuts over his active performance, but weighing the spaghetti joke beside a joke like this blurs the line on both his target audience and his achievement:
Of course, there's no way right now to tell if this story is real--comedians make up stories for their jokes all the time--so assuming it isn't real, you're left to wonder why would this man make a joke about accidentally seeing under his father's robe? If, by some miracle, he is telling a true tale, the joke actually belongs to Dane Cook's dad for the punchline, "Some day all this will be yours."
So as not to bore you, I will conclude there and leave the topic open for debate for the next three days, as I will not be posting over the weekend. But based on the single vote he's received in my "Favorite comedians" poll, I believe that many of you would agree. For those of you who thought Dane Cook was funny, I hope you have seen the light.
Hey Laughasaurus,
ReplyDeleteLong time reader, first time commenter.
I have a few questions, but first of all, I have to say that Dane Cook is popular because he IS funny.
He employs gestures that have comedic value, if only (and simply) because they make people laugh. I read the story about spaghetti and, although I did not laugh out loud, I did think it was humorous.
And the Dr. Cox quote was a good one, but you could have chosen any number of popular culture quotes bashing Dane Cook -- he is a common punchline nowadays.
It all depends on your sense of humor -- you seem to enjoy humor that is dry, witty and cerebral. People's preferences in humor have a lot to do with social factors.
Is there no place in comedy for physical humor? I have previously read that you enjoy the Marx Brothers -- but how do you feel about the Three Stooges?
Whether or not you enjoy physical comedy, you have to appreciate honesty in a comedian.
Have you never seen under your father's robe?
I have to say, I've had at least one youthful discussion with my friends about the size of our fathers', compared to our own.
As a young man, it's an interesting thought to think that your tiny member may someday be as large as your father's.
I will leave you with something that DID make me laugh out loud:
"The rope opened like a show was about to begin."
Dear Wowbagger:
ReplyDeleteI really appreciate your input, and appreciate more the ability for everyone to have their own explanation of somebody's humor. Comedy, of course, is mostly subjective, for there is no way to empirically prove that one thing is funnier than another.
With Dane Cook, a year or two ago, as I heard so much about his comedy, I had to give him what I believed to be an objective shot. What I found as I watched him was that he was not making me laugh at all--rather, he was making me annoyed.
And although that is my own opinion on the matter, I followed through on "filet-ing" Dane Cook because he was trailing seriously behind in my favorite comedian poll. Because of that, I knew that likely most of my readers would either agree or at least sympathize with my arguments.
Again, I very much appreciate your views and hope that you will continue to follow Laughasaurus!