September 13, 2005
FEATURESReel Review:
Dirtiest joke to hit theaters - ‘The Aristocrats’Most comedians don’t like telling jokes.
This might sound stupid, because that’s what people probably think comedians do for a living, but they usually tell bits about their lives that others can relate to, and laugh about, at the same time.
Telling jokes while doing stand-up comedy is off limits most of the time, because it’s looked down upon by fellow comedians.
Anyone can tell a joke, although one joke is so old and so dirty every comedian has to honor it in some way.
This joke, of course, is what the comedy documentary, “The Aristocrats,” by Paul Provenza is all about.
In the film, over 75 modern-day comedians, from Drew Carey to George Carlin to Lewis Black to Jon Stewart to Robin Williams either talk about this offensive joke or tell it in their own ways.
There is some history known of the joke, which involves comedian Chevy Chase being part of a secret society of comedians who used to gather together and tell this joke to one another.
They would try to tell the joke as long and as filthy as they could to out do each other.
Unfortunately, no one was able to record any of these secret meetings, but most comedians know how to tell the joke or at least different versions of the joke.
One of the best versions of “The Aristocrats” was told by a person who might shock mainstream audiences by his early work from “Full House” and “America’s Funniest Home Videos,” Bob Saget.
By far the dirtiest, most disgusting approach at telling this crude story and the funniest part, he didn’t even finish.
But it was Gilbert Gottfried who made the dirtiest joke of all time shine as told at a 2001 Friar’s Club Roast of Hugh Hefner, an event that raises money for charities.
Although, Gottfried did have a lot of things going for him while he let the cat out of the bag.
Such as, all the comics in the room knew the joke, and they couldn’t believe he was telling it.
The joke was also brought on after Gottfried tried to joke about post 9/11 shortly after it had happened.
The audience booed him in bad taste, because of the recent events. Gottfried found an opening to shock the audience with a joke unknown to the crowd, but favored by his peers. And in that instance, the joke found a dwelling with both muse and a muser.
Near the end of the movie, it does start to get a little repetitive, all these different comedians telling, and talking about, the same joke for close to an hour-and-half, it really starts to get on one’s nerves.
But ex-sidekick of “The Conan O’Brien Show,” Andy Richter, keeps the joke alive as he tells it to his new-born baby.
Let’s keep the joke undisclosed to hype-it-up more than it already has been, but it is certain that, if told correctly, it is probably the funniest joke ever to be told if listeners have a strong heart and a strong stomach, for that matter, to hear it.
Volume
43, Issue 2. Today is
