Comedy Today

So much "comedy" these days is vulgar, loud, weird and gross, just for the sake of being vulgar, loud, weird and gross. That's all there is to it, there's nothing behind the ugly surface.

I tried watching a couple of times an alleged comedy that's been on for a few years. I won't name it because I don't feel like being told how funny it is and that there's something wrong with me for not getting the joke. There IS no joke. Everyone on the show is loud, obnoxious and irredeemably stupid; the performances are meant to seem spontaneous but come off high school play-level amateurish; and the contrived, gross-out "humor" is not the least bit funny. I happened to watch a forty year old Bob Newhart Show episode earlier in the evening that was a million times better than this modern, zany, hip, in-your-face, execrable garbage. I'm afraid that comedy, at least what passes for it now, has passed me by.

(Mind you, South Park is frequently vulgar, loud, weird and gross, but before everything else, it's funny. If South Park had nothing else going for it but being vulgar, loud, weird and gross, it wouldn't be funny either.)