Thursday, July 30, 2009

Final Friday Filet: Carlos Mencia

It's the moment you've all been waiting for, for the past month. I know. It's the Final Friday Filet.

On the final Friday of every month, we at Laughasaurus will explore a failed attempt at comedy, and explain why.

And today, our fileted subject is Carlos Mencia, stand-up comedian and former host of Comedy Central's "Mind of Mencia", a program that, at its best, could only register at the mediocre level.

I'm not the kind of critic who doesn't give subjects a fair chance, or else, how could I even be considered credible in the least? I gave Mencia a shot. In fact, I gave the half-Mexican/half-Honduran several fair chances to make me laugh. It happened once, but never before and never again after.


Mencia was gracious enough to supply me with the ammo to begin a discussion of why his attempts at humor are a failure--his catchphrase "Dee de-dee." This is often used to give words to those whom he deems stupid, or dumbasses. It's kind of like saying "duh!" or "a-doy!" as so many of us did when we were in middle school.

It would be ok if he, maybe, used it once, ironically. But of course he doesn't. It would be hard for you to find an episode of his show, or a stand-up show where he doesn't "dee de-dee" something. His audiences (and I feel bad for them, because they're missing out on real quality comedy) even chime in sometimes--and the only thing worse than hearing Carlos recite his maxim is hearing a crowd chant it in unison. Dee de-dee!

But there's no better way to ridicule this man than to examine a specimen of his work...

Mind of Mencia
Black President
www.comedycentral.com
Race JokesPolitical HumorPlay Carlos Mencia Games


First, we'll start with the fact that this is a straight-up rip-off of a "Chappelle's Show" sketch from a few years earlier, where Chappelle explores, much more comically, the idea of an African-American president. And not only is it a rip-off, but if you watch it, you'll realize it's downright stupid.

As well, if you follow his comedy and show, you'll also start to realize that his jokes are almost all stolen--a phenomenon referenced in South Park's "Fishsticks" episode, where he steals a joke and plays like he made it up. South Park creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone were not just using Mencia for the hell of it. There is purpose to everything they do.

Then, after the moronic, racist sketch is over, he assumes that most people watching thought it was "hysterically ridiculous"--an assumption no comedian should ever make about their own work. Because once you personally state that you think your own work is funny, aren't you automatically less funny for doing so? That's what I think anyways.

Another sign that I'm, perhaps, not alone in my opinion on Carlos, is the way "Mind of Mencia" is filmed. If you'll notice, it's shot very tight on him, only on about the upper half of his body, and the camera never flips to show you the audience laughing. My guess here is that they're not actually laughing (laugh track, perhaps?).

If you watch Chappelle's show, they film his whole body, and often show members of the audience, because they are almost always laughing...and hard.

Here's the opening bit of one of Mencia's stand-up events. There's a little bit of 180 toward the audience, but it's from behind the stage so you can't really see the people.



I think using that as an opener seals the deal for me. Not convinced? Leave a comment, we'll chat.

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