SNL writer gets yanked of stage at Columbia for being too offensive

Back in the early 90's my wife and I went to a comedy show and the guy went by the name "Mr. Rude". Holy crap it was the sickest, funniest, most offensive routine we had ever seen. NOTHING and NO ONE was off limits. Nobody complained or walked out, in fact most of the audience was in tears from laughing so hard. What a great night.

Well, if you're a professional comedian, you gotta play by the rules of the guy writing the checks. That's why I always kind of liked the way Gallagher did business, as it is somewhat duplicated by Doug Stanhope. You book your own room -- an auditorium usually not a typical comedy venue or even college -- and keep the money that would ordinarily go to the venue operator and agent / manager. Then you target market the audience you think would be most into your material. The added perk is that you're the boss, and unless the audience runs you out of town on a rail, you can say anything you want and nobody can fire you. You can do poorly with ticket sales, but that's business. Not politics.

Of course, not everybody - particularly newer comedians - has the resources or a solid fan base to be able to do this, but a group of commie comedians (like The Comedians of Comedy) could organize and book their own venues. Looks like that's the way it might play out in the future after stand-up comedy dies once again.

a reply to: Grambler

I believe this view is still the minority in most parts of the US, even among the youth (my son would never condone censorship). Unfortunately, this sort of censorship of potentially offensive speech is growing.

If we allow the belief to take root that the repression of the expression of ideas and speech is preferable to, and more acceptable than, the utterance of something potential offensive, then we are finished as a society and nation founded in the principals of liberty.

In my opinion, a good comic should make you feel a little uncomfortable at times. Seinfeld said it best:


“I hear that all the time,” Seinfeld said on The Herd with Colin Cowherd. “I don’t play colleges, but I hear a lot of people tell me, ‘Don’t go near colleges. They’re so PC.'”

Seinfeld says teens and college-aged kids don’t understand what it means to throw around certain politically-correct terms. “They just want to use these words: ‘That’s racist;’ ‘That’s sexist;’ ‘That’s prejudice,'” he said. “They don’t know what the hell they’re talking about.”

“no one looks in the mirror and thinks, ‘this black thing is too easy, let me just add another thing to it.’”

I'm not racist and I could care less if your gay or not, but I find that funny as hell, not sure what else he said but FFS people need to lighten up.

This is a clip of one of my favorite comedians of all time Bill Hicks and his Letterman performance that was cut, but later shown by Dave after his death. Can you imagine him trying to do this act now? Every libtard alive would want his head. BTW, he was very much a liberal and one I could easily identify with. RIP Bill you're greatly missed.

I'm glad you brought up Lenny Bruce, because that's the era of comedy club attenders that we've gone back to. Say the wrong thing, agree with the wrong crowd, or make a real world observation, and BAN. I have a friend who does stand up and said that it sucks from time to time due to the "Kids in the Crowd" being there. Funny story but sadly true, he got asked to leave after telling a joke in the bathroom before going on stage. He was at the urinal and this guy started to use the urinal next to him. The other guy started to get real close to him while pee'ing. So he looks down at the guy junk and says, "well that's nothing to brag about". The other guy apparently went to the club owner and started saying that my friend was making racist comments in the bathroom, and was asked to leave. He ended up going on yelp and saying "great food, great service, customers can't take a joke"


Anyways he was telling me that he was doing a bit at a club near a college campus and was asked to not do his bit about the Ashly Madison worker in the unemployment line because some of the people in the audience might be unemployed. Of course he dropped it, he does need to money, but the point is he likes to tell me that it's like going to back alley clubs and basement performances just to tell a joke.

Back to the Lenny Bruce thing, every time I talk with him I sit and wonder, "how long will it be before good comedy is labeled hate speech, and comedians get jailed for making a joke?"

Comedy is nothing more than satire on real life. Perhaps peeps is so sad now that they cannot discern either or and just take offense for the sake of taking offense. Many left wing comics won't do colleges now. Yet they don't see the irony that their PC crap caused this current crap fest. Bring on Bill Burr and Dave Chapelle.

Elites and their followers use political correctness to dismiss anything that contradicts their orthodoxy as born of fear and bigotry. But often they resort to fear and bigotry to dismiss dissenting views. The irony is lost on them.

Looking at old reruns of the Tonight Show with Johnny Carson it's amazing what people said just back in the 80s and 90’s on TV they wouldn’t dare say today.

Today people would be out of work saying things as you hear on that show.


I agree, PC often goes too far

a reply to: Grambler

When comedy became about attacking one side of the political spectrum it died. This is just more liberal BS because they can’t handle anyone that dares to think differently than they do. Conform or die (or at least have your MIC turned off).

originally posted by: jtrenthacker
In my opinion, a good comic should make you feel a little uncomfortable at times. Seinfeld said it best:
[...]
Seinfeld says teens and college-aged kids don’t understand what it means to throw around certain politically-correct terms. “They just want to use these words: ‘That’s racist;’ ‘That’s sexist;’ ‘That’s prejudice,'” he said. “They don’t know what the hell they’re talking about.”

Seinfeld is hardly the person to complain about people not liking his no-holds-barred, super offensive comedy act.

a reply to: Grambler

Something like this is completely predictable.

Those who adhere to this "I'm offended" religion can only end up eating themselves. The trajectory is proven. It's part and parcel of narcissism. If asked, everything and every one on the planet is somehow wrong until we get to...you guessed it...themselves.

So what happens when two people who see themselves as the only judge of right and wrong disagree? Meal time!!!

I remember back in the early 90's when Andrew Dice Clay exploded. He was set to appear at the biggest Amphitheater in Dallas, which holds around 20,000, and was sold out.

Dallas PD made it clear that if he took the stage, he would be arrested for public lewdness at the first cuss word, as the city of Dallas considered his act to be pornographic in nature.

Clay ended up cancelling the show.

The policing of comedians is nothing new, only now it isn't the law doing the policing.

Comedian Lewis Black *nailed* the issue 20 years ago, speaking about Islamic extremists:

"They have no sense of humor. None."

That is the direction we're heading, and we're going full speed ahead.

Comedy IMO is becoming a shadow of it’s once glorious self, need a after death tour of George Carlin, Richard Pryor, and Bill Hicks to give a proper toast of PC culture these days.

originally posted by: TheTruthRocks
Comedian Lewis Black *nailed* the issue 20 years ago, speaking about Islamic extremists:

"They have no sense of humor. None."

That is the direction we're heading, and we're going full speed ahead.

We're not. People have an idea that stand up died in the 90s (with Hicks) because they haven't been listening since then. Bill Burr has been ripping PC culture for 10 years and so has Jim Norton, Dave Chappelle, Jim Jefferies, Steve Hughes, Lisa Lampanelli, Greg Giraldo, Louis CK, Patrice O' Neal, Russell Peters, Patton Oswald, Whitney Cummings, Frankie Boyle etc etc.

I don't like every one in that list and you won't either. None of them are PC. The point is stand up comedy carries on strongly despite a bunch of inexperienced kids trying to ban or sanitise it. Netflix are running a ton of comedy specials which is reinvigorating the popularity of stand up again. It's an amazing time if you enjoy stand up comedy.

I honestly don't know WTF is going on in Canada or how the craziness has moved south to the USA. It's like a mental sickness when academics are in there too. Kids are kids and deserve to be idealistic, but elderly academics should know better...

originally posted by: BigDave-AR
Comedy IMO is becoming a shadow of it’s once glorious self, need a after death tour of George Carlin, Richard Pryor, and Bill Hicks to give a proper toast of PC culture these days.

Agreed. I'm vegging out on the couch tonight watching a rerun of Flying High (Airplane! in some countries). Virtually none of this movie would get the nod today. But still solid gold...

You know what to do if you don't like a comedian?

Don't listen. Don't go to the show.

originally posted by: Ohanka
You know what to do if you don't like a comedian?

Don't listen. Don't go to the show.

I am old, I remember those days. Now it is "destroy at all costs, salt the earth, nuke it from orbit, it's the only way to be sure"

I think it is due to guilt, the only emotion man has that animals don't