Comedy skits

[jec 427]

You don't think there's something to be said when people die way before their time, in the prime of their careers? Generally their effective audience remembers them at the pinnacle of their career without having that slow downspin to tail off the end of their career. Looking at the entire career you see linear improvement rather than a parabola effect with growth and decline.

 

It's not so much Trey making a dumb statement as Trey making a statement at all which usually causes you to jump on him.

 

Are we supposed to appreciate the so called "prime" of an artist's career less because he died before his apparently inevitable "decline" came to pass? Let's say Hedberg lived on and never topped his previous work, and even faded into obscurity. That doesn't make his previous work any less superb.

 

Also, comedy, music and art aren't like sports where there are clearly defined "primes" and "declines" based on objective criteria. We are talking about art here, very subjective material, and I may like later work by Pearl Jam than anything off of Ten, and you can call me a fool for thinking so, but I don't give a damn because it is entirely opinion based and based on my own experience with the music. If you want to make the criteria for "primes" in art based on hits and monetary gain, then I'd just point you to the next Justin Bieber concert or Transformers film, or hell, more on topic, Dane Cook CD, and ask you how exactly that can be a basis for artistic quality.

[Trey Time 186]

He implied Ledger gets more credit than he should because he is dead. If anything, he gets more credit as a brilliant actor because of the job he did in the Dark Knight. Dead or not, he would be be getting the same sort of praise for a performance for the ages.

 

Accomplishments are accomplishments whether or not you died early or not. Hedberg was brilliant. If he was alive today, he'd still be brilliant. If his last album wasn't that good, he'd still be brilliant.

 

Heath Ledger won an Oscar for The Dark Knight, something that he would not have won more than likely if he was still alive. I'm not saying Hedberg was bad, I like Hedberg. What I was saying was people want to put him up there with the greatest of all time and he simply wasn't that. Truth hurts, sorry.

[Jareth Cutestory 678]

Heath Ledger won an Oscar for The Dark Knight, something that he would not have won more than likely if he was still alive. I'm not saying Hedberg was bad, I like Hedberg. What I was saying was people want to put him up there with the greatest of all time and he simply wasn't that. Truth hurts, sorry.

I'm responding just to let you know that I won't be responding anymore to this thread.

[Fultz4thewin 2,464]

Are we supposed to appreciate the so called "prime" of an artist's career less because he died before his apparently inevitable "decline" came to pass? Let's say Hedberg lived on and never topped his previous work, and even faded into obscurity. That doesn't make his previous work any less superb.

 

Also, comedy, music and art aren't like sports where there are clearly defined "primes" and "declines" based on objective criteria. We are talking about art here, very subjective material, and I may like later work by Pearl Jam than anything off of Ten, and you can call me a fool for thinking so, but I don't give a damn because it is entirely opinion based and based on my own experience with the music. If you want to make the criteria for "primes" in art based on hits and monetary gain, then I'd just point you to the next Justin Bieber concert or Transformers film, or hell, more on topic, Dane Cook CD, and ask you how exactly that can be a basis for artistic quality.

 

no, i'm saying when comparing entire careers its difficult to rank someone who never reached their full career. Eddy Murphy. If he died after Beverly Hills Cop he would have been considered the greatest comedian of all time. A string of a few years of greatness looks a lot differently in the middle of a 20 year career than a 8 year career.

 

Also you're wrong. There are the greatness years for everything. there may only be one peak, there may be a few peaks spread out over years (or decades when considering some of the bands) but you can always narrow down the greatness years. Comebacks happen but everything in life looks somewhat parabolic.

[Progfrog 18]

In no particular order, due to the fact that there isn't one in my book.

 

Mitch Hedberg

Richard Pryor

Bill Hicks

Bill Burr

Dave Chappelle

Ricky Gervais

George Carlin

Greer Barnes

Bernie Mac

Dave Attell

Daniel Tosh

Katt Williams

Robin Williams

Eddie Izzard

[BMP 424]

You don't think there's something to be said when people die way before their time, in the prime of their careers? Generally their effective audience remembers them at the pinnacle of their career without having that slow downspin to tail off the end of their career. Looking at the entire career you see linear improvement rather than a parabola effect with growth and decline.

 

It's not so much Trey making a dumb statement as Trey making a statement at all which usually causes you to jump on him.

 

 

No. I actually thought Hedberg's first two albums were great, whereas his last one (2008) wasn't even close. That still doesn't change that fact that I thought his first two albums were incredible. Him dying had no real effect to how much I liked his comedy and how funny I thought he was. This is the same approach I have with bands. Circa Survive being an example. I thought their first album was incredible, and feel like the quality of their the last two albums have gone down, but I still love their first album and them breaking up wouldn't make me appreciate their last two any more than I do now.

 

 

Heath Ledger dying had nothing to do with his success. It was the fact that his role was and acting in that movie was incredible, as well as the fact that it was a Batman movie, which was incredibly hyped from the start. Had Ledger played such an incredible role in a not-so incredible movie (as a whole), and died after, it wouldn't have been the same. He had tons of nominations for his role in Brokeback Mountain, but guess what? The Dark Knight made nearly 6x more money worldwide with far better reviews and a lot more people watching. What am I trying to get at? More people watched it, more people loved it, more people talked about it, you heard about it more. The movie was being hyped up to a serious level before Ledger's death and you had people already talking about it being MOTY. The popularity of the film is what got Ledger's reputation (as well as his incredible acting).

 

 

Here's a better way to put it: You go to a club and perform in front of 10 people. 5 of them think you were great and all talk about it.

 

You go to a much bigger club and perform in front of 100 people. 50 of them think you were great and all talk about it.

 

 

You being very good is what got you in that bigger club to begin with. The same ratio of people thought you were great, but since a lot more of them were exposed to it, you got more people talking.

 

Ledger isn't overrated in any way, and the reason why so many people talk about him is because so many people watched The Dark Knight. His death, in no way at all, made me take a look at his previous films and think "Wow, this guy never declined". In fact, I didn't even care for his other movies.

 

 

 

Jesus, this is a lot of pointless drivel. Do you understand what I'm trying to get at?

 

And Trey just says things to be controversial.

[BMP 424]

no, i'm saying when comparing entire careers its difficult to rank someone who never reached their full career. Eddy Murphy. If he died after Beverly Hills Cop he would have been considered the greatest comedian of all time. A string of a few years of greatness looks a lot differently in the middle of a 20 year career than a 8 year career.

 

Also you're wrong. There are the greatness years for everything. there may only be one peak, there may be a few peaks spread out over years (or decades when considering some of the bands) but you can always narrow down the greatness years. Comebacks happen but everything in life looks somewhat parabolic.

 

 

There is no such thing as greatest of anything, especially with artists. We're talking about something incredibly subjective here. Most people don't look at their favorite comedians/musicians, draw a line of their careers, and judge them based on that. George Carlin could've taped Class Clown, Complaints and Grievances, Jamming in New York, and What Am I Doing In New Jersey, in no order at all, for that 30-40 year span, and put out 15 or so other albums that had him farting into a microphone, and he would still be my favorite comedian, not because of how his "consistent" he was or how his career parabola had a directrix of x = 100, but because an album or two of his were better than anything else I had ever heard from any other comedian in my entire life.

[Fultz4thewin 2,464]

No. I actually thought Hedberg's first two albums were great, whereas his last one (2008) wasn't even close. That still doesn't change that fact that I thought his first two albums were incredible. Him dying had no real effect to how much I liked his comedy and how funny I thought he was. This is the same approach I have with bands. Circa Survive being an example. I thought their first album was incredible, and feel like the quality of their the last two albums have gone down, but I still love their first album and them breaking up wouldn't make me appreciate their last two any more than I do now.

 

 

Heath Ledger dying had nothing to do with his success. It was the fact that his role was and acting in that movie was incredible, as well as the fact that it was a Batman movie, which was incredibly hyped from the start. Had Ledger played such an incredible role in a not-so incredible movie (as a whole), and died after, it wouldn't have been the same. He had tons of nominations for his role in Brokeback Mountain, but guess what? The Dark Knight made nearly 6x more money worldwide with far better reviews and a lot more people watching. What am I trying to get at? More people watched it, more people loved it, more people talked about it, you heard about it more. The movie was being hyped up to a serious level before Ledger's death and you had people already talking about it being MOTY. The popularity of the film is what got Ledger's reputation (as well as his incredible acting).

 

 

Here's a better way to put it: You go to a club and perform in front of 10 people. 5 of them think you were great and all talk about it.

 

You go to a much bigger club and perform in front of 100 people. 50 of them think you were great and all talk about it.

 

 

You being very good is what got you in that bigger club to begin with. The same ratio of people thought you were great, but since a lot more of them were exposed to it, you got more people talking.

 

Ledger isn't overrated in any way, and the reason why so many people talk about him is because so many people watched The Dark Knight. His death, in no way at all, made me take a look at his previous films and think "Wow, this guy never declined". In fact, I didn't even care for his other movies.

 

 

 

Jesus, this is a lot of pointless drivel. Do you understand what I'm trying to get at?

 

And Trey just says things to be controversial.

 

 

I don't really use whats essentially pop awards to determine a movie or actors worth. Those awards often seem like an agenda is behind them.

 

I'm more talking in generalizations. Mitch Hedberg is probably my favorite comedian ever due to so many memorable quotes that stick out. Comedy is still one of those things that isn't popular enough for just anyone to understand the nuances of who is more talented. Heath Ledger's death kinda happened too recently to be used as a proper example. It kinda needs the nostalgia factor for people to be able to overrate him. A better example of this phenomena is Kurt Cobain who's death happened after substantial success and was posthumously given more credit than he probably deserves because there was never that period of time for people to say "Gee, i really not a fan of this album as much as the one before". If Lebron died in a car accident after the NBA finals loss to the Spurs you dont think there would be a giant section of basketball fans who would say "Lebron lost by himself to an extremely talented Spurs team. If given a few more years I bet he leads the Cavs to several championships. Lebron was probably better than Jordan".

[jec 427]

Also you're wrong. There are the greatness years for everything. there may only be one peak, there may be a few peaks spread out over years (or decades when considering some of the bands) but you can always narrow down the greatness years. Comebacks happen but everything in life looks somewhat parabolic.

 

No, really, that's entirely based on opinion. There are not "greatness years for everything". I can decide there were no great years at all from any given artist. It doesn't matter if a majority of people think Ozzy was awesome in the 80's. If some dude decides his new album is way better, then he has every right to believe that. What defines greatness years? How are you measuring "greatness" in art? Majority rule? Television? It's not based on popularity and public perception. It's based on an individual's perception, and every person can decide for themselves what they thought was the best work put forth by any given artist.

[Emory889 353]

no, i'm saying when comparing entire careers its difficult to rank someone who never reached their full career. Eddy Murphy. If he died after Beverly Hills Cop he would have been considered the greatest comedian of all time. A string of a few years of greatness looks a lot differently in the middle of a 20 year career than a 8 year career.

 

Also you're wrong. There are the greatness years for everything. there may only be one peak, there may be a few peaks spread out over years (or decades when considering some of the bands) but you can always narrow down the greatness years. Comebacks happen but everything in life looks somewhat parabolic.

 

 

I couldn't disagree more. For starters, Eddie Murphy is still one of the greatest comedians of all time. The fact that he hasn't toured in a while doesn't change that. I know you were just using Murphy as an example but I believe that is the primariy difference in our view points. I'm perfectly capable of seeing the brilliance of Murphy's stand up, Beverly Hills cop and The Nutty Professor while realizing that he made some pretty terrible movies. Niblit does not diminish his prior achievements. Should I forget about the GREAT albums that The Rolling Stones have created because I've heard some of Mick Jaggers' craptacular solo projects? Of course not, that's silly.

 

We don't have the luxury of knowing what Mitch Hedburg's material would have been like if he was still alive. Nor do we know how a new Nirvana album would have sounded. It doesn't change the fact that Nevermind was one of the most groundbreaking albums I've ever heard and it doesn't change the fact that Hedburg's comedy was some of the funniest material I've ever witnessed.

[Fultz4thewin 2,464]

There is no such thing as greatest of anything, especially with artists. We're talking about something incredibly subjective here. Most people don't look at their favorite comedians/musicians, draw a line of their careers, and judge them based on that. George Carlin could've taped Class Clown, Complaints and Grievances, Jamming in New York, and What Am I Doing In New Jersey, in no order at all, for that 30-40 year span, and put out 15 or so other albums that had him farting into a microphone, and he would still be my favorite comedian, not because of how his "consistent" he was or how his career parabola had a directrix of x = 100, but because an album or two of his were better than anything else I had ever heard from any other comedian in my entire life.

 

 

It is subjective. But humans have some sort of need to make lists and rank things. Its something bigger than one person. You might not look at things this way, but people do. Not in the crude way you described it of fans getting out the graph paper, but when the hype dies down during the down time of the career people can more rationally look at the big picture of their career. When the hype never gets the chance to die it gets attached forever.

 

Personal preference really has nothing to do with who's the best. My favorite band is probably Gym Class Heroes. Are they even in the discussion for best band of this decade? absolutely not.

[jec 427]

Personal preference really has nothing to do with who's the best. My favorite band is probably Gym Class Heroes. Are they even in the discussion for best band of this decade? absolutely not.

 

Is there a best band of the decade? If so, what is that based on?