I have no idea whether this comedy is dated or not. I still think it is hilarious. During the 80's comedy went crazy, and every pizza parlour had a comedy night, and there were comedy clubs everywhere.
New York, Boston, LA. and San Francisco were ground zero of the comedy renaissance at the time.
I lived in SF in the 80's and saw all the great acts as they came through town. Some of these no one knows anymore, and even some of the ones you do know, you can't imagine being funny. Jay Leno for instance.
I saw Rob Schneider (knew him socially, yeah, he looked like that and did a great Elvis impression. Sweet guy.),
Tom Kenny (Voice of Spongebob and excellent comedian. Knew him too, it was a small town.),
Dana Carvey (Church Lady),
Ellen DeGeneres (an excellent comedian back then even though she is a shudderfest now.),
Dana Gould (Simpsons writer and like Edgar Allen Poe of comedy, a maniac),
Margaret Cho came a little later, and was actually funny at first,
and of course Robin Williams, who everyone saw, everyone met at least once, because he was everywhere.
His style has spread out into the culture, and many have been influenced by him, and taken it to the next level, so it is hard to understand how totally original he was at the time.
He would come onstage and ask anyone to call out a Shakespeare play, Hamlet!, and then a current issue, Nuclear War!, and then do a fucking improvised version of Hamlet, playing all the parts, on the subject of nuclear war. A genius. "Look, Einstein's ghost!" "What have you done with my formula?"
But ANYWAY, the point is, there were sooo many comedian in San Francisco at the time, people you may never even have heard of, who were as funny or funnier than the ones who ended up being famous, like Bob Goldthwaite or Greg Proops.
Paula Poundstone is one, and is the exception that proves the rule about female comedians. I won't link to her because she deserves a thread, that is how good she was, was, not now, now she is another SJW nightmare. Suffice it to say, I have never seen anyone who was better or more comfortable improvising and talking to the audience, it was almost like her prepared material was holding her back.
So, forget her for now in this regional history lesson, I want to focus on two guys you will never hear of ever in your lives who completely rocked rooms as well or better as any of the stars born in the city by the bay.
First up, Geoff Bolt. This guy made audiences convulse to near riots. I have only found one video of him that is any good, and it is only a shadow of his Boltness. I think the audience was an LA audience, and had no real idea how good he was.
Bolt was an improv actor who made the transition to standup, and had no real jokes and few punchlines. He was your standard 70's guy, mustachioed and looking sensitive, sharing, caring. And his shtick was that he was an absolute psycho. Pretending to be sensitive and New Age, he really hated everyone, his family, his kids, people in general, and Mickey Mouse in particular.
His whole act was a mask of sanity slipping, pretending to be nice but really homicidal, pretending to be a sweet kid's performer, but really hating his wife after a recent breakup.
Could you imagine this type of guy getting traction now? Hateful, misogynistic, whatever. But at the time, there was room for the Bolts of the world in SF. Remember, this vid barely does him justice.
The second guy to introduce is Bob Rubin. He essentially outclassed everyone. He was to comedy what Magritte was to Realism, an absurdist, surrealist of the highest order. I saw him live, I listened to him on radio, and his shtick was that he was a Southern boy who had been driven insane by reality, always trying to get back to his roots (Them hasssshhh browns. Fluffy.)
There is no accounting for Rubin, and he only would have been appreciated and nurtured by a place like SF in the 80's, where they made room for oddballs, and took pleasure in nurturing them and appreciating them, which goes to show, before things turn sour, there is even value in places like the San Francisco Bay Area.
There was a club in 80's SF that used to be a storefront, and the stage was in the corner, so one half of the wall at the back of the stage was a brick wall, and the other was a window onto the street, so you could see what was going on outside. I saw Rubin, in the middle of his act, run offstage, out the door, and out into the street, flag down a bus and almost get run over, jump on the bus, and wave to the audience as the bus went down the street. That was how he ended his act that night.
Mullet, red and white vest, speaking absolute madness that only starts to make sense if you hang in there. Meaningless catch phrases. He might have been the funniest and most characteristically San Francisco comedian of his time.
Many will hate him. You will only like him if you like a line like this:
Quote:Quote:
Ever have a piece of meat in front of you, it's not cooked right, you're not that hungry, you're staring at it, and sooner or later you can't help but daydream, ohh, wonder what it would be like if I took this piece of meat, several other pieces of meat, and I started making my own cows from scratch!
Again, this was filmed in LA, so they have little idea what to make of him. Still, captures the spirit of "The Old Rube." He convulsed audiences, and stimulated them beyond the realm of what they felt they were capable.
Zero social justice, maximum freedom. That is why comedians are having a hard time today, they are living under the opposite conditions.