Stanhope on the Aristocrats DVD

When I caught this in theatres, he was in the film. And his scene was surprisingly great.

I've only seen it in the theatre, but was he the guy that told the joke, sitting on the couch with is infant son (kid was wearing a Celtics sweater)? I think the film cut back and forth with Andy Richter telling his son the joke, if it's the same guy.

I remember all the things I used to say around my kids before they were old enough to understand what I was saying, though I don't think I ever used the phrase "my ulcerated cock".

I was disappointed with the film so I'm glad that they included special features that allowed me to check out more of the comedian's performances. Stanhope was golden. The baby only added to the magic. I also liked that bit were the comics told some of their other favorite jokes.

F.T.W. Kid

Of the comics telling other street jokes, The Amazing Jonathan has the best one. The thing about the Giant Orange Head.

My favorite joke (I've told it 10 times since last week) was Larry Miller's one about the Bavarian Cream Pie. Amazing. But the Orange head was great, too.

This is a perfect film for DVD. I loved seeing it in the theater, but being able to study it reveals that it's such an impressive piece of work, both in how they edited it together and in the approach that each of the comics take. And there's so much in the unused footage and the commentaries that adds to the appreciation of the film itself. God, that thing with Terry Gilliam? That's so fucked.

I was told that the baby is not even Stanhope's kid, which makes it even more screwed up. I don't know if it's true or not, but it seems even better thinking of it that way. The DVD itself is pretty freaking great, if just for the uncut versions of the joke. Bob Saget gets even funnier, and Jason Alexander's is fantastic.

Yeah, when I first saw it he was one I made sure to catch the name of when the credits came around, because his was easily one of the best versions in the movie. I didn't realize he was cut out at some point.

The additional jokes in the special features are at least 10 times funnier than the movie itself.

I thought the contest winner (Flapjack or whatever) was the funniest, actually.

The problem with The Aristocrats--and it's a fucking HUGE problem--is that the film spends all this time talking about how telling the joke is like jazz, how it's all about putting an individual stamp on the material...and then they reduce 99% of the comedians' stories to a single line or two. And when so much of the humor of that particular joke depends on the teller's ability to set up the scene and paint a vivid picture, chopping up the flow completely fucks up that crucial bond between the comedian and the audience.

I'm sure Gottfried's version was hilarious and shocking, but when I only get to hear 30 seconds of it, and that 30 seconds is interrupted by digressions by five other comedians, it falls flat. And like everything else in the film, it just becomes a litany of pissing, shitting and fucking. To use the film's favorite metaphor, it's like a jazz film where you never see the musicians play more than two notes in a row before cutting away to some music historian. (Maybe that's why the one comedian who actually had me in tears was the Flapjack guy in the bonus features, just because he had the breathing room to actually make the jokes work.)

I'm just amazed that a documentary about comedians telling a joke never really lets any of its comedians actually tell the joke. How do you fuck something like that up?

I have to jump in here and just give props (no pun intended) to Otto & George. Holy shit. "You look like you comb your hair with a cock!"

Priceless.

The thing that just FLOORED me was when Robim Williams said "Vulgarity is a very comedian centered thing. You don't see a lot of physicists saying 'It's a muon, you cunt.'" I nearly died laughing.

There are great bits in the movie, I thought the Walken-style by Kevin Pollock and the Minelli-style by Mario Cantone were funny. Sarah Silverman always cracks me up. But it bothered me that some crappy street joke being told by Drew Carey and Robin Williams is in a purer and funnier form than the Aristocrats.

But the DVD is worth it just for the extended comedian's jokes. I actually prefer Pollock's Albert Brooks version of the Aristocrats to his Walken one. But I like being able to catch the whole vision of the comedian.

I have to disagree with Slater. The film is a study of the joke, not the telling of the joke itself. Sort of a critical paper on comedy. It really is about the nature of comedy, how these guys are like jazz players. The art of comedy.

To use the same metaphor you used, it is like a film on the nature of jazz, or the history. In a film like that, you would have the music cut up by people talking about it. Don't go into the film expecting a huge laugh fest, and you'll be fine. That is why the DVD is great though. It is fucking drop dead funny.

And Stanhope is easily one of the best comedians working today. But Sarah Silverman's version is by far the best.

"Joe Franklin raped me"

I agree that's what the film is ABOUT. I just don't think it accomplishes that goal, since few of the comedians make much of an impression and even fewer register a laugh. We're being told these people are great, but we don't actually see them being great. The examples don't bear out the argument, which makes the entire thing feel masturbatory.

And I think that in the attempt to boil down the essence of telling the joke, they demystify it to the point where the entire thing becomes clinical and, sadly enough, kind of dull. It's the whole "a joke isn't funny if you have to explain it" theory in the flesh.

Hmm, can't say I disagree with that.

Still enjoy the film, but good points.

And to be fair, as much as I think it fails as a serious documentary, I still laughed out loud five or six times, which is about five more laughs than most comedies got out of me last year. It *is* a funny movie. I just really wish Provenza focused on maybe 10 *really* good versions of the joke instead of 100 snippets.

Also agree that the DVD bonus features are way more enjoyable than the film itself. You can fault the film, but not its packaging.

Is there any more on the DVD on this? I hear Joe Franklin was actually thinking about a lawsuit.

I strongly disagree, Slater. I think you get enough of each comedian to get the laughs across, and the joke is actually enhanced by the way the different tellings overlap and contrast with each other. There's almost a feeling that all the comics are in the same room having a conversation about the joke, which is the result of a pretty amazing editing job. I will say that I'm glad they included the raw footage on the DVD, but I think the raw and the cooked are equally entertaining for different reasons.

They mention it breifly in the commentary.

Yep. I'm not big on the movie(though it certainly has it's moments), but the DVD is great.

I couldn't agree more. It also pissed me off that the editor went as far as to cut what seemed like split seconds of "uhhs" and "umms" from people's telling of the joke. Even in the longer versions on the extras. I don't know if they were just trying to make it more fast-paced or what, but it was really distracting to me.

It doesn't help matters that the early impression I had was that the movie was nothing but all these comedians telling the joke, and I was fascinated by that idea. Some of the reviews I had read even pointed to that being the case.

But it's not about the joke, it's about comedians. The movie could just as easily been called The McGuffin.

But 90% of the time the comedians talk about the joke. Seinfeld's Comedian was much more informative about the performers themselves.

Comedian wasn't especially funny, though.

If that's the case, the film's fumble is even worse, since so many of the participants are reduced to delivering the same tired shock value lines ad nauseum. Of the 100 comedians, there's only a handful whose jokes register as anything more than, "And the baby, he starts rolling around in the shit! And eating it! And then they start fucking the dog! Hee hee!"

If the film's premise was that most professional comedians are one-note hacks, congrats. Mission accomplished. If it wanted to show how personal flair and imagination can transform a simple joke into 100 different stories, then it was a miserable, miserable failure.

(It also depends how you're analyzing the film, I think. As a stand-up concert film, it's pretty funny and worth watching. As a serious documentary, I think it's a failure.)

I agree with Slater on a lot of these points. I just watched the film last night and I felt like it was an ADD fest, as much as it jumped around. Yes, there was some funny stuff and several comedians were allowed to be as vulgar as they wanted to be. After a while, the constant quick cuts became tiresome and I lost interest.

I thought one of the funniest interpretations of the joke was performed by the mime.

I don't think the thing was a serious documentary, I think it was a lighthearted, fun documentary.

That's entirely subjective, isn't it? I'm told Bill Hicks was a funny comedian and Anchorman was a funny movie, but the examples (these being Bill Hicks and Anchorman) don't support the argument. As for it being masturbatory, sure it is! Mutually masturbatory. Comedians as they behave in the wild as opposed to in captivity, so to speak. I think the expression "not seeing the forest for the trees" applies here.

I loved the movie, but I agree with Slater here. Especially when it comes to Gottfried and Saget. We're told their versions of the joke kill, but we only hear snippets of Saget's (what we hear of his is often hilarious) and Gottfried's (what I heard of his doesn't sound that funny to me. I think it was more the time that the joke was told - we weren't supposed to laugh at stuff like that after 9/11). Gottfried's "Popeye armfucking" riff was funnier.

Stanhope's is just priceless, though. When that kid winds up shooting up a porno store, screaming about tumorous cocks and Sea World, we'll know why.

Well, Anchorman is my favorite comedy and Hicks is one of my favorite comedians, so we're obviously watching this stuff on two very different wavelengths.

I do think the amount of contextualizing and pontificating throughout the film suggests that, at the very least, Provenza was trying to make something a little more than a light and frothy laugh romp. But you're right--that's a totally subjective reading on my part.

I tend to think there was a reason for all those cuts. I mean, you get the funny stuff, but you don't have to listen to all 100 versions of the joke all the way through, which would wear out it's welcome pretty quickly.

I would like to have heard the guy yell "too soon," but I figure the reason they don't actually show that is that it didn't come through on the audio.

Wait, now 'm confused. The CHUD review made the movie sound hysterical. Is it funny or not?

I thought it was hilarious, but I think it suffers from wanting to have it its cake and eat it, too. As solely a clinical documentary examing the joke and humor itself, the film falters by having too much joke telling and not enough new information. As solely a perfomance piece, the movie can't sustain itself and the editing is a large factor in that. If they would have picked sides and gone with it, I feel it would have turned out better.

Like it's been said here before, it's about the comedians. The real art is seeing how each comedian can put his stamp upon the vulgarity. But when the editor cuts it so it goes from comedian to comedian to comedian saying "he takes a shit," "he takes a shit," "he takes a shit," it loses a lot of the art required to tell the joke. That's where the special features and the extended jokes really help out. "He takes a shit" opens up to a whole other level of the profane for each comedian. But because of the way it's edited, it's like (to go back to the jazz analogy) watching a documentary where everyone talks about how cool Miles Davis is. Everyone talks and talks, but because of the very little we're shown, we're never able to really feel it or experience it ourselves.

It would have been better to go one way or the other, but as it stands, it's still hilarious.

I just wish they had chosen a better joke for the film. Merely describing shitting and puking and incest without any real comedic direction gets old quickly.

It is. But I'll admit to having had a couple of Patron shots and a Maker's and Diet before watching and laughing like an idiot. I would imagine that it's far more enjoyable with a crowd or with friends than watching solo, though.

Got to agree with Slater here. Chest as well - I watched the film solo and it was just OK. The funniest tellings were (I've forgotten names): the mime, the one with the cards and the lady who basically described a very nice act and when asked what it's called - "The Cock Sucking Motherfucking Motherfuckers" - or something to that effect. All three of those got a laugh from me, probably because they came off as fresh in an otherwise tiresome film. The rest, while interesting, were unfunny as shown. The cuts back and forth got old, fast.

Flapjack probably got the best laugh of all if only because I got to see everyday people getting close lined by the joke.

I was a little bit disapointed in the film (saw it on the weekend) because it was predominantly white males who were telling the joke...i would have been interested to see what comics from other cultures would havce presented as the most offensive scenario's they could.

Also, the version i saw had Stanhope talking to a baby, but i didn't see Andy DIck doing the same as a previous poster mentioned.

No, it's not Andy Dick talking to a baby, it's Andy RICHTER talking to his actual son.