07-16-2024, 12:06 PM
I always thought comedy was as much about the audience as it was the comedian, and to some extent, even the material.
It seemed that making a comedy album often had two approaches, the live album, recording the presentation to an audience and the 'studio' album which was more of a production but without social laugh cues.
I went back to older material I have, and while I still found it funny, the humor was also prompting repeated winces about "how that would play today?" (Lot's of old Bill Cosby albums, Cheech and Chong, Steve Martin, Richard Pryor,...and many etc.) I see your point clearly.
SNL was often a blend of physicality and mental humor... gravitating towards political parody towards the end... when it got ultimately less funny and more activist-like in it's one-sided focus... as if only their "targets" were often laughable, but not their "heroes." That's where the story lost it's universal comedy, I think.
It seemed that making a comedy album often had two approaches, the live album, recording the presentation to an audience and the 'studio' album which was more of a production but without social laugh cues.
I went back to older material I have, and while I still found it funny, the humor was also prompting repeated winces about "how that would play today?" (Lot's of old Bill Cosby albums, Cheech and Chong, Steve Martin, Richard Pryor,...and many etc.) I see your point clearly.
SNL was often a blend of physicality and mental humor... gravitating towards political parody towards the end... when it got ultimately less funny and more activist-like in it's one-sided focus... as if only their "targets" were often laughable, but not their "heroes." That's where the story lost it's universal comedy, I think.
