So, when it comes to comedy, I like to think that I know a little bit about it and how it works. I've done improv comedy a lot, and while it's been a little while since I have performed well in a good improv show (I played with Quick Wits in March, but found out how rusty I am), but I do know what makes comedy work.
Earlier tonight, I turned on the latest season premiere of Saturday Night Live. What I witnessed was not funny, and it showed that the show has lost the magic that ran from the 1970s through the end of the 1990s, and while there have been some great sketches here and there, they are far and few in between. It was terrible, the language was terrible, the jokes were sexual and unfunny. The whole show was a dismal attempt at comedy.
After I watched the show, I had some homework to do, so I did it, and I was getting ready for bed, and I had my laptop with me, and I turned on YouTube for a few minutes. Back in the 1970s, the famous, and hilarious actress, Carol Burnett had her own sketch comedy show on CBS. The Carol Burnett show had Carol and some of her favorite comedians to act with, which usually starred Harvey Korman and the incredibly funny Tim Conway.
I get teased by some of my friends because I know a lot about classic television. I think I have mentioned this a couple of times, but growing up, my family were the only ones with cable tv in our neighborhood, and later a satellite dish when I was in high school, and Nickelodeon, the channel that had cartoons for kids during the day, would have classic tv from the 1960s and 1970s starting around ten at night. Later, when we had the satellite dish, Nickelodeon released a new channel called Nick at Nite's TV Land, and it was 24 hours of classic tv.
Now, I have insomnia. It's both a blessing and a curse. I used to watch tons of Nick at Nite's TV Land, and I am sure I saw almost every episode of a ton of classic tv comedies, two of which were The Flip Wilson Show, (Flip Wilson was the first African American to have his own variety television show), where he would have hysterical sketches, especially the ones where Flip dressed up like a woman named Gereldine, and oh my gosh it was awesome. I mentioned Flip Wilson because he was friends with Carol Burnett and he had been a guest a few times on her show before he got his own.
The Carol Burnett Show is probably the single most funny show that has ever been aired on television. I know that these shows came out a decade or two before I was born, but true comedy never wears out, and that show is true comedy.
Most of the time it was Tim Conway and Harvey Korman that would do sketches together, and they always broke the rules to not laugh in the middle of their sketches, but Tim Conway had a way with comedy so potent, that he would bust Harvey Korman up within a minute. I will put share a YouTube video of one of the funniest sketches you will ever see in your life. Tim Conway plays a new dentist, and Harvey Korman plays a patient with a toothache, but Tim Conway and his incredible physical comedy just steals the scene. You have to see it....
The Carol Burnett Show (Tim Conway and Harvey Korman Dentist Sketch)
The sketch is funny, but when it hits the 5:30 mark, you are in for some of the funniest comedy ever aired on TV.
I wanted to write this blog because in the past, I have been told that being dirty is the only way to be funny. It's totally not. That's a comedy myth. Just because you can make jokes about something, doesn't mean you should. I might be a little hypocritical because my family says "That's what she said" and "Your Mom" joke regularly, but that's in a small group of people, but we don't really make bad jokes.
I just wanted to say that clean comedy is harder to write and hard to perform, but it's so much better. Your mind has to take some roads less traveled to make clean, but funny comedy. The Carol Burnett Show is a testament to it. Now, here his some great news! The website www.shoutfactory.com has two of my favorite shows of all-time. Mystery Science Theater 3000, and The Carol Burnett Show are both on their, with all of their episodes to watch for free. That's right FREE.
I know this is a short post, but I had just finished an episode of Carol Burnett, and I had to post a blog right away while I am still laughing at it. I hope you all watch the video because it is so funny, and I love sharing things that make me laugh with all of you.
I hope you are all doing well and staying safe. I have been watching and reading a lot about illegal drugs for a health class I am taking for school, and I hope none of you out there are into that stuff. It is so messed up. I love writing for you, and if you die, then who else am I going to write for?
Have a good day and I will be back soon with a new post.
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