Nothing Funny About Comedy: How Teenagers Have Ruined Funny Films

This section is where I give serious essays on comedy.

My Taiwanese-American friend Mike and I went to a theater once to see a movie. There were loud teenyboppers yelling into their cell phones. Mike said "I gotta leave this theater," so we left. David Denby of the New Yorker recently wrote an article on how the multiplex experience is getting bad even for Hollywood studio heads. The article mentions cell phones. If he had courage he would have specifically blamed the teenyboppers on their mobile phones.

Cars was the highest-grossing comedy of '06. The top live-action comedy was Talladega Nights.Pretty funny, but neither Borat nor Little Miss Sunshine are on the list. Worst of all, there were three more computer-animated cartoon comedies beating it: Ice Age, Happy Feet and Over the Hedge. Even Seinfeld, who once said in Rolling Stone that comedy isn't ready for the movies, has decided to act in only one feature: Bee Movie, a computer-animated film.

You and I hate the glut of these films. But what do teenyboppers have to do with the success of these films? Surely teenagers aren't the ones seeing Ice Age - families are. That's my point: teenagers have been so obnoxiously loud on their cell phones before and during the films that people are avoiding teen and adult comedies like the plague. Studios insist on marketing to teens. Why? Teen comedies have flopped one after the other. Remember Accepted, anybody? No. That's why the American Pie sequels are moving to DVD; teens are busy watching Nick Cannon films while fatigued, ruddy-faced fathers let out relaxed sighs at the latest computer-animal revue.

Kids are just as noisy as teens, of course, but teens go to the movies themselves more and more, especially with GPS-equipped cell phones ensuring their parents can check up on them without hearing that dreadful tinny emo music. However most parents don't drop off their small children at the movies. Thus parents prefer to take the family to kids' movies with children only as opposed to teen films where they might run into some delusional suburban brat who thinks he's gonna make the draft pick for Dipset.



In the '80s some of the greatest blockbusters were teen/college comedies. Ferris, Revenge of the Nerds Back to the Future . Now we toss Dane Cook films at the multiplex like burnt French fries at overfed seagulls. When they don't stick we wonder why.

So what's the future of comedy blockbusters in the movies? Not on the iPod or on the PC or the TV; I don't want to derail here. In the multiplex, what will bring in the laughsmoney? Night at the Museum was number one last week. It's a live action film about museum figures coming to life. So it had better be a family comedy with a few ironic asides for the adults. Oh, and if you see my friend Mike looking relaxed on the line for the movie, you know you've got a solid gold comedy hit.

Nothing Funny about Comedy: Crowdsourcing Comedy: The Alternative to Alternative Comedy

Note: Sometimes I write serious, opinionated pieces. Starting this year, I will call these editorials Nothing Funny about Comedy, to distinguish them from my lighter pieces.


Just as more people are turning to amateur bloggers and videographers for news, they are also going on YouTube and Flickr finding unintentional kitsch and amateur comedy. Amateur internet comedy is the new underground and, until we start crowdsourcing comedy to the lunar colonies on Titan, will probably remain the new place for edgy comedy.

Surely I am overreacting, right? Where's the evidence? Of course this is my opinion; I am not saying that more people are viewing Album Cover Wars than they are looking at the latest Variety Shac video (though this is probably true). What I am saying is that alternative comedy has lost its edge. By "edge," I mean its status as an alternative to mainstream comedy. I'm sorry, but I can't think of one decent "alternative" comedian that hasn't been snatched up by a corporation. Aziz Ansari and friends are on MTV. Paul F. Tompkins has a steady job at VH-1. Neil Hamburger is a favorite on Jimmy Kimmel. This was the case back then, of course, but with the web, many of these amateur comedians keep delivering their unique brand of comedy without leaving their bedrooms, let alone partnering with Comedy Central. This guy just wants to make funny faces, regardless of whether he gets a gig at Rififi or not. Love him or hate him (may your pagan god forgive me, I hate him), he is the true alternative to sitcoms and midtown comedy clubs.



Just like any crowdsourcing story, online amateur comedy is cost-free. The creator doesn't charge, the viewer doesn't pay. Both the David Crosses and the Dane Cooks of the world get deals with HBO. Inevitably the edgiest alt-comic will get snatched up by AOL. Not necessarily so for Ask a Ninja.


Of course alternative comedy isn't dead. It just needs to change. What change is necessary? Let's look at Demetri Martin. Anyone who's seen his five-minute sets on Conan knows that he tells great one-liners.



When I saw his one-man show (Dr. Earnest Parrot Presents Demetri Martin), he told one-liners as well. But he also recounted some very serious life lessons and gave very earnest metaphysical ruminations. Indeed, when I think about the legends of stand-up, I remember Pryor and Carlin. Both of these comedians delivered stirring monologues betwixt dick jokes and fake commercials. Listening to Pryor especially, you'll notice that he often gets applause as well as laughter. These monologues work better with an audience hooting and clapping whereas they would fall flat on a podcast.





But doesn't this go against the grain of alternative comedy? Aren't speeches so over? For an eight minute set, sure. But the greats like Martin and Pryor deftly mixed sincerity and irony. Since the web is where people go for GI Joe parodies and bad album covers, irony is more omnipresent and inexpensive than ever. But I have yet to see a homebrew Mario YouTube with a reflective, somber moment. As long as comics alternative and mainstream wake up and realize that anyone can do disaffected irony but not everyone can challenge the status quo like Lenny Bruce once did, stand-up will be OK. As long as comedians focus less on being edgy and hip and more on being funny and poignant, they will succeed. David Cross and Louis CK still sell out clubs, don't they? Moral of the story: Haha ain't enough. You got to put the "a-ha" in "ha-ha."