Kath and I just came back from seeing “The Aristrocrats,” a documentary about a legendary dirty joke that’s been around for ages and–until now–has been purely a comedian-to-comedian thing.
The premise is simple. A guy walks into a talent agency and says to the talent agent, “My family has the most amazing act you’ve ever seen.” From that moment on, it’s pure improv as the comedian proceeds to describe the most hideously profane act he can think of, replete with fornication, bodily secretions and excretion, incest…whatever. At the end, the stunned agent says, “That’s quite an act. What do you call it?” And the guy says proudly, “The Aristocrats!”
No one makes any attempt to say that the joke, in and of itself, is funny. It’s not. But it’s the telling of it, the total insanity of the contrast between the grossness of the act and the sophistication of the name, that’s the killer.
High points include a specially done “South Park” version with Cartman telling it to an increasingly horrified Stan, Kyle and Kenny; a magician who seamlessly melds the joke with a card trick presentation; Gilbert Gottfried absolutely killing with a version told during the Comedy Central roast of Hugh Hefner…and, my personal favorite, Tommy Smothers telling the joke to Ðìçk Smothers, who has never heard it and hasn’t a clue why anyone would remotely consider it funny. It occurs to me that–with no comment on the gentlemen’s mental capacities, but rather simply on their “stage” personas–that if Joe Quesada told the Aristrocrats to Paul Levitz, they would be exactly like Tom and Ðìçk Smothers.
PAD
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The South Park clip is online — or was, a couple months ago. Horrifying as it was, I laughed and laughed and laughed. Its unexpected veering into the realm of current events was what really knocked me over howling.
And after the joke was explained to Quesada he still wouldn’t get it.
Aaaahh, gotta love comic geeks taking pot shots at Quesada, it’d almost be funny, if it wasn’t a dead horse beaten into dust.
As for the Aristocrats, haven’t seen it, but I cannot wait for the mix ups of this and the AristoCATS at the video store. Hooboy.
The South Park one is at CartmanTheAristorcat.com
Sadly, I must just be out of the loop on this one. I walked out of The Aristocrats after about 20 or 30 minutes. I did not find the joke funny. I did not find the juxtapostiion of the story with the title of it given at the end funny. I did not find the documentary of it funny.
Mind you, I like a good profane, politically incorrect, or even disgusting joke now and then, provided that it’s funny. (Hëll, I read those Truly Tasteless Jokes books when I was in grammar school and high school.) I’m a huge fan of many of the comedians in the movie, and I have all three seasons of Penn & Teller: Bûllšhìŧ! on DVD or VHS, but I found the documentary to be a collosal waste of time.
Oh well.
i saw this film about a week back..Bravo as the comic book guy says in the Simpsons “best movie ever”…also if you liked the Movie they Had Bob Sagat and Paul Provenza on the “Opie and Anthony” show on Xm sat radio. talking about the movie and that the DVD will have hours more of the “joke” but they had to trim it down because well it’s a movie…
I particularly like the fact that you can write your own version of the joke, submit it at the official website, and it may be included with the DVD release.
I very much doubt I’m going to have time to see it any time soon, but I appreciate the review — and I didn’t know that the Smothers Brothers were there. That section alone sounds like it’s at least worth a look.
One review I read found it interesting that some of the people considered the cleverest comics out there at the moment — Eddie Izzard and two others whose names I’m forgetting at present — decided not to tell the joke but to discuss its significance instead. No idea what it means, but I thought it was an interesting point.
TWL
“I have all three seasons of Penn & Teller: Bûllšhìŧ! on DVD or VHS, but I found the documentary to be a collosal waste of time.”
Well…yeah. It’s a ninety minute documentary about one insanely profane and stupid joke. Of course it’s a waste of time. But I found it a fascinating waste of time.
Did you leave before Martin Mull’s version? Steven Wright’s? A sweet faced comedienne whose name I didn’t catch, totally changing the punchline to hilarious effect? How about the mime version? The aforementioned card trick version is just amazing. Did you see any of those? Because if you didn’t, Luigi, I really feel badly for you. You missed a hëll of a show.
PAD
“A sweet faced comedienne whose name I didn’t catch, totally changing the punchline to hilarious effect? “
That would be Wendy Liebman, famous for her “Subliminal” joke punchlines. That particular version of the joke had my friend on the floor and out of the game for 5 minutes. Thankfully, the Farmingdale multiplex’s floors were unusually clean that night…
“How about the mime version?”
Dear Lord… I had no idea how they’d make that joke work in mime, but it was beautiful and horrifying at the same time…
And to people who haven’t seen this yet, but plan to? Be advised that you should NOT be in the middle of drinking something the first time Gilbert Gottfried appears on-screen talking about blood and fisting…
I just came back from seeing this too, actually. Overall it was hilarious and brilliant, though I admit there were some dead spots, which can only be expected from a film involving so many different comedians with so many different styles of humor.
I would say standouts were Mario Cantone as Liza Minelli, Gilbert Gottfried at the aforementioned roast (what beautiful comic timing, and what a beautiful save), and Sarah Silverman (with a hilariously disturbing deadpan version).
The biggest surprise guests, IMO, were Phyllis Diller and Larry Storch.
Oh, and FWIW, I’m pretty sure PAD was casting Joe Quesada as Tom, and Paul Levitz as Ðìçk.
That particular version of the joke had my friend on the floor and out of the game for 5 minutes. Thankfully, the Farmingdale multiplex’s floors were unusually clean that night…
We had the advantage of seeing it in an empty mom & pop theater in Bethpage (in which Aristocrats was the only English language film playing… all the rest were Bollywood movies).
For me, it was the spot-on Christopher Walken style rendition. I was OUT for about eight minutes with ferocious giggles.
“Sadly, I must just be out of the loop on this one. I walked out of The Aristocrats after about 20 or 30 minutes. I did not find the joke funny. I did not find the juxtapostiion of the story with the title of it given at the end funny. I did not find the documentary of it funny.”
i think the point to the joke is that it’s not quite a joke, it just follows the form of one.
Luigi- The point of the documentary isn’t so much the joke itself, but about the art of telling any jokes and why we laugh at certain things. It’s about the competitive nature of comics, always having to one up each other. One comic even speculates that it may say something about the comic telling the joke.
I’m surprised noone so far has mentioned Bob Saget’s version. If all you’re familiar with is his TV stuff – “Full House” and “America’s Barely Funny Home Videos” – you are not prepared for what he does here. The girlfriend and I LOVED his comment about who he wanted to send a copy of his taping to…
Here’s a better link for the Cartman joke
http://www.yourdailymedia.com/media/1121515128
Bob Saget was definitely the funniest. Not sure why we needed to see the Onion staff work on the joke. Their scenes weren’t interesting at all.
And don’t forget Andy Ðìçk explaining a variety of disgusting physical …er, calisthenics, including “The Rusty Trombone,” which was the one point in the flik when I literally fell out of my chair….
It was Sarah Silverman’s version that really got me. Her slowly dawning realization was a thing of beauty.
I haven’t seen this, although I intend to. But I’ve heard opionions saying that this whole movie is a practical joke by Penn Gilette; that the joke isn’t really a classic among comedians, and it’s a massive fake upon which a lot of comedians have agreed to hang their rep’s. Especially since the stand-up comedy business is no longer the road to riches it used to be – no regular TV variety shows outside of Leno and Letterman where they can appear, fewer sitcoms being created around comics, et cetera.
The idea of the joke being a hoax is itself a hoax. Check rogerebert.suntimes.com and read the Answer Man section.
I heard that the Bob Sagat one was the grossest of all. Of course it’s not playing anywhere in my area so I haven’t had a chance to see it.
“I haven’t seen this, although I intend to. But I’ve heard opionions saying that this whole movie is a practical joke by Penn Gilette; that the joke isn’t really a classic among comedians, and it’s a massive fake upon which a lot of comedians have agreed to hang their rep’s.”
Absolutely not true. I spoke to Harlan Ellison after I saw the film, and he’s known of the joke for many, many years and told his own version(s). For what it’s worth, he usually substitutes a shetland pony for a dog.
Oh, fast joke from Harlan:
Why does Michael Jackson like forty nine year olds?
Because there’s forty of them.
PAD
I saw this about a month and a half ago at a press screening – I can’t wait for it to hit its wide release window and open here in Tennessee so I can see it again and watch my friends’ reactions… >evil grin
The magician’s version is one of my favorites, as was the street mime – and I’m no fan of street mimes! I think what was funniest about Saget’s version, tho, was how he would even surprise himself with what he was saying…
I wish we’d heard more from Tim Conway in his rendition… but maybe that was the point… 🙂
“””Absolutely not true. I spoke to Harlan Ellison after I saw the film, and he’s known of the joke for many, many years and told his own version(s). For what it’s worth, he usually substitutes a shetland pony for a dog.”””
You know I was gonna ask if Harlan, or you, had a version of this joke…or for that matter..is there a “Writers” version of this concept..where as a writer talking to another writer is telling a story with a familiar opening and ending but ever changing middle part?
Stephen
Sarah Silverman is the hottest woman in the world, and her version is proof of that. I loved her before this, and I’m thinking about sitting outside her house with a bunch of crosses and news crews until she meets with me, so I can tell her that she needs to cump Jimmy Kimmel on his ášš and go out with me.
I saw this a while back–on its opening weekend, come to think of it–and just loved it. Sure, some of the comedians included weren’t as exciting as others (I think that Eddie Izzard’s contribution was particularly disjointed) but on the whole, it’s a great look at how (a certain set) of the comedic mind works.
If you’re planning to see it, I do suggest seeing it in the theatres if at all possible. There’s something about the social nature of laughter that, I think, adds to the experience of the movie. If you’re going to see it, you should see it in the dark, with a bunch of strangers who are also laughing. And if you can’t see it in the theatre, and are going to wait for it on home video, at least watch it with a bunch of friends in the room.
Well, as for the hoax angle, there are stories of Buddy Hackett telling the joke (rather quickly) during the commercial break on the Tonight Show with Johnny Carson, timing it to end just as the break ended. The show would come back, the audience would be in hysterics, and Johnny couldn’t tell the home audience what had gone on. So that places it at least 12 years ago, though likely much more than that.
And my personal favorite is Gilbert Gottfried’s taped version, not his performance at the Hugh Hefner Roast, though that one was great as well. At the point in the film where Gilbert shows up it’s not necessary for any of the clips to start at the beginning of the joke. Therefore the first shot we see of him, he’s sitting calmly at a table saying “So, by now you’re probably asking yourself, where did the ***** come from?” Whereupon he starts to explain in detail just exactly where the ***** came from, and you really get a good idea of just how the joke can be stretched into a good 30 minutes or longer. It takes a professional in this situation to keep returning to the central theme of the jokes after going off on all of those tangents.
Finally, for anyone willing to surf the net on the topic, you can find lots of information from interviews with Jillette and Provenza about why certain comedians did not participate. For instance, Dangerfield and Hackett were both ill, and they simply couldn’t make contact with others like Margaret Cho. Some others declined because they didn’t want to tarnish their public image, though the filmmakers respectfully declined to give out those names. And there were a few cases of “Ðámņ, we forgot to ask so-and-so.” I also heard from a personal friend who works in the comedy industry that one relatively well-known comedian did not want to participate because of his/her strong Christian beliefs and does not appreciate that Penn Jillette is such an outspoken atheist.
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Several of my friends went to see the film a couple of Fridays ago. I haven’t seen it yet, but I’ve read quite a lot about it. Here’s something I wrote in our Yahoo! group after reading (too late) about plans to see it:
“It occurs to me that, with all the publicity about this film, we’re going to get to the point where you don’t even need to tell the whole joke anymore, just the ending:
…so, the agent puts his head between his knees for a minute, sits up, takes a deep breath, and asks:
‘All right, um, yes, so…what,what do you call…that?’
The father stands up, helps his daughter to her feet, hands his wife her glass eye, wipes off his mouth, and says:
‘The Aristocrats!'”
Peter David: Did you leave before Martin Mull’s version? Steven Wright’s? A sweet faced comedienne whose name I didn’t catch, totally changing the punchline to hilarious effect? How about the mime version? The aforementioned card trick version is just amazing. Did you see any of those?
Luigi Novi: I’m not sure, but I think I remember seeing Martin Mull before I left.
As for Steven Wright and Wendy Liebman, I’m a big fan of both their styles (I have an audio cassette of the former and a half-hour of the latter from HBO’s on VHS), and I have to admit, I can sorta see in my imagination how they could make it kinda funny. But it wasn’t worth staying.
I do recall, however, some comment that Phyllis Diller said that I and the audience found funny, which IIRC, wasn’t about the joke, but something else tangentially related that I can’t recall.
Peter David: Because if you didn’t, Luigi, I really feel badly for you. You missed a hëll of a show.
Luigi Novi: I really do appreciate the suggestion, Peter, but I don’t like to sit through a ninety minute movie for only one or two funny jokes. I walked out of Team America after an hour for the same reason, even though there were two or so gags I thought were really funny during that first hour. I’ll just wait until it comes out on PPV or DVD or something. I’m glad you mentioned that Wright and Liebman are in it, though, and I’m mildly curious about the mime.
Rich Drees: Luigi- The point of the documentary isn’t so much the joke itself, but about the art of telling any jokes and why we laugh at certain things. It’s about the competitive nature of comics, always having to one up each other. One comic even speculates that it may say something about the comic telling the joke.
Luigi Novi: Unfortunately, I didn’t get anything about that from what I saw. For a documentary look at the life of a standup comedian that’s both much funnier and much more fascinating, I recommend Jerry Seinfeld’s Comedian.
Lanabanana: I heard that the Bob Sagat one was the grossest of all.
Luigi Novi: Of the ones I saw, Gilbert Gottfried’s was the grossest.
Sean Archer: Sarah Silverman is the hottest woman in the world, and her version is proof of that. I loved her before this, and I’m thinking about sitting outside her house with a bunch of crosses and news crews until she meets with me, so I can tell her that she needs to cump Jimmy Kimmel on his ášš and go out with me.
Luigi Novi: Bûllšhìŧ. I saw her first.
Seriously, she is pretty hot. I went to her Jesus is Magic standup show in lower Manhattan in late August 2002, and gave her a caricature of her that I made that referenced both her role in the late TV show Greg the Bunny, and the controversy created when she told a joke on Conan O’Brien in which one of the characters referred to Asians as “chinks.” When I showed her the preliminary sketch in my sketchbook to autograph, she not only signed it, she drew an arrow to her breast and wrote “Sweet” on it.
The caricature is at: http://img397.imageshack.us/my.php?image=justblamegreg4rj.jpg.
The prelim sketch is at:
http://img376.imageshack.us/my.php?image=blamegregprelims6nz.jpg
Drat. If the first url, the one for the sketch itself, doesn’t work, this one should: http://img369.imageshack.us/my.php?image=justblamegreg1jg.jpg.
Here’s an article about why some comedians are in the film and some are not..
http://tinyurl.com/bnna7
I really doubt that I’ll ever watch this movie, as I do not like bodily humor jokes AT ALL (I’m not prudish, about language or sexual content or anything like that; I just find bodily humor all disgusting, no amusing), though hearing so many different interpretations of one joke does sound interesting. But, I can provide a little history about the impetus of the documentary, courtesy of reading Rolling Stone. (I get it for 50 cents an issue (!). I believe they provide such a good deal to ensure huge numbers of subscribers, so they have large guaranteed circulation numbers to show to advertisers.)
Apparently, the Hugh Hefner roast was shortly after the 9/11 attacks, and Gilbert Gotfried decided to tell the first 9/11 joke which many, if not all, in the audience had heard. That got such a bad reaction that he turned to “The Aristocrats”, which comedians supposedly told to each other to prove their mettle, but was rarely performed in public. IIRC, Penn Jillette was in the audience that night, and Gotfried’s successful performance of the bit was the inspiration for this whole project. (BTW, Rich Drees, a few reviews I’ve heard of this gave special note to Sagat’s version.)
My wife and I saw The Aristocrats last night. I loved it, but more from an aspect of, “We know something you don’t know” than thinking that it was outrageously funny. Don’t get me wrong, I was laughing so hard, even though a voice inside my head kept screaming, “What the heck is WRONG with you?!” Actually, come to think of it, that voice might have been my wife, who didn’t laugh once during the whole movie. She never said she hated it. All she could come up with was, “Weird.” She did like the Giblert Godfried at the Hugh Hefner roast story though.
“Sadly, I must just be out of the loop on this one. I walked out of The Aristocrats after about 20 or 30 minutes.”
So did Alan Davies at the UK comediens screening apparently. Looking forward to this if it makes general release over here.
Paul Provenza is apparently working on a new documentary film with Aussie comic Brendon Burns, I believe it’s about the healing effects of laughter.
Honestly, Luigi, what I thought more amazing than the wonderful hilarity and diversity of styles in telling the joke was the “documentary” part of The Aristocrats. The film looked at the joke from so many angles, had so many takes, serious takes, on what makes the joke (or any joke really) funny – looking at delivery, timing, the character of the comic him/herself, the punchline, even hand motions – why black comics don’t really have a reason to tell it, how the joke from a feminist POV would be told, where the joke will have to go from here to still test our boundaries, why it’s important to keep on testing our boundaries especially post-9/11, etc. The Aristocrats really was an essay film in the truest sense of the word, tackling a topic by peeling it like an onion, lovingly, personally. I didn’t think the point of the movie was to make you laugh hysterically (although at points, it did – see the versions done by Sarah Silverman, mime, Whoopi Goldberg, card trick guy, Penn and Jillette, Bob Saget, Geoger Carlin). The point, as I saw it, was to provoke thought on the process of comedy itself, and by extension, our humanity. I thought it succeeded brilliantly on that score, and I hope you’ll rethink your expectation of what a documentary should accomplish and try the film out again sometime, be pleasantly surprised.