I don’t think he was ever funny. Larry David may have been funny, and Seinfeld was fortunate enough to be involved with the show, but Jerry himself has always been a poor comedian and a tool.
I think Seinfeld was pretty funny in the 80s. His style of observational comedy was fresh back then though. Then there were a million Seinfeld copycats and there wasn’t anything special about him anymore.
The same thing happened with Carlin. So he kept reinventing himself and updating his comedy with the times and that’s why people loved him until the day he died.
Carlin got better as he got older. His shtick was always tight fast well rehearsed dense sets but he went from mostly irreverent to actually saying something. And he was still able to be so funny while clearly getting so angry.
Carlin was an artist. He could tread that line between offense and enlightening. Like I could sometimes feel my hackles go up watching him, even back in the 90s, but like you said, you really got the feeling like he was trying to communicate something real and important to him. That goes a long way to buying good will and keeping people listening, even as they’re feeling slightly defensive.
As a comedian you either die funny or live long enough to become a reactionary shit bag.
I don’t think he was ever funny. Larry David may have been funny, and Seinfeld was fortunate enough to be involved with the show, but Jerry himself has always been a poor comedian and a tool.
I think Seinfeld was pretty funny in the 80s. His style of observational comedy was fresh back then though. Then there were a million Seinfeld copycats and there wasn’t anything special about him anymore.
The same thing happened with Carlin. So he kept reinventing himself and updating his comedy with the times and that’s why people loved him until the day he died.
Carlin got better as he got older. His shtick was always tight fast well rehearsed dense sets but he went from mostly irreverent to actually saying something. And he was still able to be so funny while clearly getting so angry.
Carlin was an artist. He could tread that line between offense and enlightening. Like I could sometimes feel my hackles go up watching him, even back in the 90s, but like you said, you really got the feeling like he was trying to communicate something real and important to him. That goes a long way to buying good will and keeping people listening, even as they’re feeling slightly defensive.
I guess that’s authenticity.