"It's tricky. I've done political comedy over the years, certainly. I've done two White House Correspondents' dinners. On late night, we used to do lots of political comedy. We'd do it on the TBS show as well. It's never been in the front of my comedy brain. I don't think it's what drives me. I, for better or worse, have a brain that scrambles things, loves cartoon imagery. I am probably as influenced by old movies or literature as I am by, frankly, Warner Bros. cartoons."
"What does that mean? Well, years ago, when I was at Harvard and working on the Lampoon, we would try and think of magazines we could do a parody of. And there was one magazine we always knew we couldn't parody, which was the National Enquirer. If a magazine has, as its cover, "Elvis Still Alive, Marries Alien and They Have a Baby That's a Three-Speed Blender"-if that's what the real magazine's coming out with, you can't do a comedic take on that."
The comedian performed political comedy at times, including White House Correspondents' dinners and late-night shows, but political material is not the primary comedic driver. Comedic sensibility mixes influences such as old movies, literature, and Warner Bros. cartoons, producing an impulsive, image-driven style. Political jokes must genuinely resonate with that comedic voice or they feel hollow. Extremely bombastic public figures can be difficult or impossible to parody effectively because real events and behavior often exceed outrageousness, leaving satire unable to offer a clearer or funnier take.
Read at The New Yorker
Unable to calculate read time
Collection
[
|
...
]