there was a lot of great alt comedy in the 90s with stuff like The State and Mr. Show. I'd argue that shows like that really paved the way for Tim & Eric (in fact, T&E got their big break thanks to Bob Odenkirk who produced Tom Goes to the Mayor)

Tim & Eric definitely brought that type of comedy more into the mainstream until it was no longer "alt" anymore. because yeah, at the time Dane Cook and Carlos Mencia were the biggest names in comedy

Kids in the Hall yo. They were doing jokes we do here now on Canadian public broadcasting and hbo for America. They even had a sketch called Fuck You, Taxpayers. Where they point out that part of their funding comes from the Canadian government and then intentionally waste money, Scott Thompson got to say 'Hi, I would like to use our publicly funded airtime to say that I should be allowed to masturbate in public." "WOW! What an opinion! One you probably disagree strongly with and didn't want to hear. But you still paid for it because...."

Studio audience: FUCK YOU TAXPAYERS

"And because the audience all had scripted lines in the sketch, we had to pay them all as speaking extras. They took home $500 (1992 money) just to watch a comedy show on your dime cause...for another speaking fee..."

Studio audience: FUCK YOU TAXPAYERS

Personal favorite monolgue is this:

https://youtu.be/mvBAtyFoFL8?si=Ce1Kqw-SGoAY215d

Favorite sketch with characters and stuff is this one

https://youtu.be/w7ApuaJrtck?si=G2VbwTAjJNyiY5f2

What about Mitchell and Webb?

Dr Katz, Professional Therapist featured a lot of then-popular comedians and it's one of the funniest shows that's ever aired

if the metric is what's commercially popular, comedy has always sucked and will continue to suck until the end of time. there are a ton of people who are nationally/regionally touring who are so fucking good and you'd never know about it because the ceiling for that is basically writing for a late night show while doing sets or something

i remember not "getting" Tom Goes to the Mayor when it first came out. my politics at the time was some vaguely left-libertarian/liberal BS

now knowing that Tim is a leftist if I had time I'd love to rewatch some episodes (like many things though i just don't have the time these days)

mr show erasure

Rats off to Ya!

The comedy most important for my young sense of humor was MST3K, which is still chock full of gold material.

The first Borat showed me a realm of funny I had not yet established trade routes with, it was awesome

You've never heard of The State, have you?

Ok, I don't get it... I watched episode 2, season 1 of it, and I did not like it... I guess that's why wiki said it was polarizing...

I only watched Tim and Eric as a kid because there was some bikini model and I thought I stumbled onto something forbidden

Back in October 2021 I saw somebody mention Freaked during a Twitch stream, and having nothing better to do, I watched it a few nights later.

[What I wrote to a friend after I saw the film.]

I just got done watching Freaked. Man, what a boring fucking film. Basically, remember one of those Disney Channel original movies from the late ’90s or early ’00s, make it edgier, make it faster‐paced, and you’ll have a good idea of what to expect. A lot of the jokes might have been ingenious if I saw it in elementary school, but watching now they’re just generic, predictable, and easy.

Examples include a mad scientist imprisoning somebody in a gigantic outhouse, then telling himself that he ought to build a toilet in there; a memory echoing in somebody’s mind when it was really just somebody nearby repeating himself; a humanoid worm hissing at somebody; a werewolf chasing a squirrel; artificial Siamese twins acting like the Three Stooges; an adoring fan pestering somebody even after being sucked out of an aeroplane; and more.

I mean, I could understand why somebody would enjoy some of these jokes, but hoooooly shit, did they bore me. The only time that I either laughed or chuckled was when I riffed on the film, and I rarely did that. Credit where it’s due, though, some of the ideas are original (I’ve certainly never seen anthropomorphized eyeballs who work as Rastafarian police officers before), and it’s clear that the artists spent a lot of time on their crafts, so I can give them an A for effort. Nevertheless, none of that is enough for me to recommend the film.

Now, here’s a fun little challenge for you: this was a comedy from 1993. Can you guess what some of the jokes are about‽

My friend guessed heterosexism, to which I replied:

That’s right! In one of the scenes, a character tells his audience that what they are about to show is not for those with intense sensibilities. The camera then cuts to two men in stereotypical ‘yuppie’ outfits getting up and walking out.

Now, your answer is correct, but it wasn’t the only thing that I had in mind. (Hint: it’s in the same neighborhood as your answer.)

When my friend guessed cissexism, I replied this way:

Ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding! Good answer! One of the characters is a trans woman, a non‐passing one at that, and that’s basically the entirety of the joke!

Oh yeah, I forgot the mention that the male protagonist and a female character kiss at the end of Freaked. Because, you know, it wouldn’t be a happy ending if we didn’t see any heterosexual activity between two individuals who barely fucking knew or liked each other.

My favorite joke in the film was when the camera cut to a haystack next to nothing, and as we hear somebody falling out of an aeroplane, we wait in anticipation as he lands… next to the haystack. That is a perfect example of lazy comedy: when a joke is so predictable that you can literally flip a coin to vote on the only two possible outcomes. Awful. Don’t watch Freaked.

unrelated but this post led me back to this and I just gotta say the Skeletor bits are just