MemeMachineGo!

Here’s a good essay on the reaction to Stephen Colbert’s White House Correspondents routine.

So, you’ve got a bunch of responses saying that either a.) Colbert bombed or b.) Colbert “crossed the line.” (Thanks Fox!)

A quick explanation is in order. At some point — a crucial point in a young comic’s life — one realizes that the response of the audience just doesn’t matter. I am exaggerating only slightly. But somewhere out there on the road you have that one miserable show, using all the material you used for every other show, and you realize that audience feedback is critically important, but it is not defining. A MONTH of bad shows is a different animal altogether, but I trust you see my point.

In various circumstances as a road comic, I have seen every comic you can imagine, at some point or another, suck it. Hard. Seinfeld, Leno, Belzer, Ellen*, Ray Romano, pick ‘em. Sometimes you just don’t gel with an audience, but at that point you’ve been doing it long enough not to suddenly think the five years of good shows were somehow flukes.

But I have seen plenty of people “bomb” who left me breathless with the genius of their writing. Larry David, who a fair number of even the conservative culture mavens love, was notorious for his spellbinding nightclub routines that comics standing in the back of the room marvelled at but audiences hated. Garry Shandling famously worked open-mike nights for something like SEVEN YEARS before he was able to meld his brilliant writing with something audiences could relate to.

If Colbert “bombed”, it was because the audience didn’t like him. And you know what — they WEREN’T SUPPOSED TO. We have been treated to toothless feel-good comedy for so long, we have forgotten what the court jester’s job was: he was the only guy who could mock the King. And, seeing as we now have a President who acts like a King, it’s only fitting that Colbert revive the tradition in its truest form. If I remember correctly, the toady court followers were also fair game for the Jester, and we could hardly call the modern media anything less these days, can we?

(MemeMachineGo!: boldly unafraid to blog about yesterday’s news.)