I love watching stand up comedy. If there's a stand up
program on Comedy Central I'm the one in this house who stops to see if the
person on stage is funny. I was the one who in my group discovered Richard
Pryor first and then tried to get everyone to see RICHARD PRYOR LIVE when it
came out. When you can find a comedian who makes you laugh you've found a
special thing. But there is a downside as well.
With the huge number of comedians out there these days not
all of them can be funny non-stop. Some can be funny every few jokes they tell
while others just fall flat. Then there are the two fatal flaws that happen to
comedians. The first is to be so determined to show they have street cred that
they toss in expletives every few words to display how edgy and controversial
they are. For me this just shows their writing abilities are weak and they have
to resort to the cheaper lowest level of comedy. This isn't to say that I'm
desperately offended. Like I said I felt Pryor was hilarious. It's just that
some comedians only got that out of his act and nothing else.
The second problem is when a comedian becomes so well known
that he thinks no matter what comes out of his/her mouth its funny. They become
so caught up in what their friends say that they think everything they do will
get a laugh. Worse yet there are some who will see them live and laugh only
because of what they remember rather than what they are actually seeing.
I really like George Lopez. When he first started I thought
he was one of the funniest new comedians around. His jokes seemed topical and
he seemed genuine. When he had his sitcom on TV I watched it regularly because
it was funny and heartfelt. When he went on to do a talk show I caught it now
and then but found it only a so so effort. All of that disappeared when I
watched IT'S NOT ME IT'S YOU.
Lopez' latest stage show is dull more than anything. Worse
than that it's not the least bit funny. I watched the entire show waiting for a
laugh but none arrived. I thought I'd at least chuckle a bit but I didn't even
do that. Had it been summer the only thing you would have heard in my house
other than the antics on screen would be crickets chirping.
Lopez does the usual wide eyed mugging he's noted for and
goes into his discussion on the difference between Latinos and everyone else.
Much of the time he speaks Spanish to show that he actually is Latino I guess
or to play to that portion of the crowd. To me a comedian should play to the
entire audience. I honestly found this performance so boring that I couldn't
tell you the topics he discussed. I can tell you about Pryor talking about
blacks in the forest, his growing up in a whorehouse and the character of
Mudbone and I saw that performance almost 40 years ago. I watched this DVD days
ago and couldn't tell you one thing that Lopez said.
I'm sure Lopez managers have told him he needs to be more
edgy to get the youth of the country to see him again. I'm sure they told him
no matter what he said that night he was funny. I sure that the laughter
emitted by the crowd there was all he heard. I couldn't figure out for the life
of me what they were laughing at. Was it just being polite? To me this
performance and DVD wasn't just something that I didn't enjoy, it was one that
I would recommend everyone avoid at all costs.
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