Wait, you're NOT a conservative? Then to hell with this. :)
Yes, as that WSJ reading, Trump disliking conservative you're describing, we probably have a lot more in common than we do with large parts of either party at the moment. It's easy to get wrapped up in labels, so I'm going to do precisely that. I suspect you and most of the people reading this are liberals - some who are left-liberals and others right-liberals (aka the Artist Formerly Known as Conservative). We may disagree about specific policy, but philosophically we have more in common with each other than either the post-liberal right or the DSA-addled left.
As a guy who remains conservative in spite of all the stupid crap, I find few things more relatable than a guy who remains liberal in spite of all the stupid crap.
Somewhere on here (https://substack.com/@noelmaurer/note/c-298982238) I made a list of things the Trump administration has done that a Reaganite conservative would approve of. I ended with: "But that leaves ten concrete Trump administration actions Ronald Reagan would support had he fallen into a coma in 1982 and been magically resuscitated without any aging in 2026. I say that even though I have little doubt that Rip van Reagan would be appalled by the Trump administration as a whole."
It's just a weird and annoying fact of life that you have to deal with that people assume you support the stupid crap part even when you don't.
Comedy history syllabus is wonderful. Suggest it's missing comedy that relies on an enormous amount of highly specialized knowledge (eg PDQ Bach) and written comedy (Joke books for kids, Dave Barry / Gene Weingarten, etc). My grandfather would be upset at the lack of Your Show of Shows, and my father would be upset at the lack of Mel Brooks. Also would make sense to include a few examples of failures or things that aren't funny.
My high school history teacher used the saying rape twice bit in class. Simpler times. Guessing there would be a fit today, perhaps even a lynching. Be well -
The lack of Your Show of Shows was the most glaring omission to me, subsidiary to the ~30 year gap in coverage that it would slot right into the middle of. YSOS was cutting edge for its time and remains genuinely funny, plus it pioneered the TV sitcom format, plus it launched or accelerated the careers of some of the most influential comedians of the 20th century (including Mel Brooks, so, good for your dad).
I also love PDQ Bach but don’t think it would make sense in a class for a general audience. Dave Barry is a legend but I think it would be better to save him for an entirely different class on written comedy, since everything else in this syllabus is live performance.
As a politically homeless ex-republican, one thing I enjoy about your blog is that I can hear criticisms of the extreme left that DON'T end with "...and that's why we shouldn't let non-whites into the country."
It's frustratingly rare to find commentators who will criticize the extremity of one side without supporting the extremity of the other.
Dick Van Dyke was a charming and handsome fuckup schlub. Not surprising at all that he had a hot wife. Heck, his current wife was 40 when he married her--at age 86. And they are still married 14 years later.
Oxbridge sketch comedy shows up in Life of Brian, but certainly there are a lot of British comedians who worship Peter Cook. Frog and Peach? Two Ronnies when newscaster has to read copy where all the 'e's got printed as 'o's?
"still the highest-grossing movie of all time adjusted for inflation"
Helps that its initial theatrical run lasted over a year, and was followed by constant re-releases in the subsequent decades whenever MGM had a gap in their schedule to fill. So even adjusting for inflation doesn't exactly provide an apples-to-apples comparison.
«I probably disagree with the typical Wall Street Journal reader on Obamacare and climate change, but we probably agree that Joe Biden won the 2020 election and we should not model our economy on The Great Leap Forward. » I’m going to assume that you agree that those self-same conservatives played a role in getting us where we are today (the leap from climate change denier to election denier has seemed a very inevitable one to me, and SOMEBODY has been paying Fox New’s bills all this time). I’m also going to assume that it annoys you. I’m curious how MUCH it annoys you.
yeah, no. Climate change deniers come in 2 flavors. the first is denying the pseudoscience that the climate scientists used due to motivated reasoning to make the "Al Gore" level of assertions. It was less denial that something is happenning and more that there is no scientific basis of the level of assertions being made and this has turned political instead of scientific with how it is being used. The UN has kind of changed stances if you look at it because of this issue, and they are using proper science now, but since the results are so much tamer, media goes with the old stuff, so almost no one knows. the majority of people who were not behind climate change are here, because for instance, if the sea level was rising, how much of Florida would be flooded already. Like, Florida is at it's highest point only 21 feet above sea level and is unbelievably flat, so if the sea level was rising meaningfully, it would be flooded. That has not happened, many of the claims made are a "what do you trust? me or your lying eyes." situation. The still failure to won up to false claims that were pushed for political gain has kind of hurt Climate Change pushers in the eyes of these people, the same way that callig the Trump RNC at Madison Square Garden taking plave at a Nazi hotspot because the Garden was used as a Nazi rally like 90 years ago backfired, and until this is dealt with of course people will deny, because people don't trust political movements, and this is political and not scientific.
Second set are the crazy denialists, and those are also the ling time anti vaxxers who also were fringe lefties before Trump consolidated the random crazies (i.e. all crazies who were not socialists) under his banner. These are the most outspoken climate deniers, so people who don't realize why people were dnying the global warming catastrophism think this is where all fo the deniers are. It is not, but these are the crazies that have always been there and are what you are tinking of, but are not the majority of those who are climate deniers.
The catastrophic histrionics of global warming probably had more to do with the current situation than the people denying it.
I mean, flooding in Florida is worsening. This doesn't refute your larger point about people making crazy overblown predictions, but it's not nothing.
"In the last decade, flooding has gone up 400 percent from high tides and 33 percent from rain, according to the study, published this week in the journal Ocean and Coastal Management. The high waters are blamed on a regional sea level rise that's much higher than the global rate, a warning that waters can rise at different rates across the Earth."
That’s great. The general public doesn’t view it that way, and the general public also doesn’t you’re digging for research papers. Until you get where a lot of of the general public living in Florida is experience experiencing flooding issues that are greater than in the past then to the general public there are no flooding issues in Florida compared to the past.
The general public doesn’t really trust research papers anymore after some of the ridiculous stuff that’s been published in recent years. Every attempt to try to legitimize trans athletes using a research paper just further discredits research papers in the eyes of the public because to the public. It’s just common sense that there’s an advantage and you can’t refuse that common sense with a research paper. That’s the real issue with that subject. It’s something where they ran into the common sense of the masses that isn’t going to move.
It’s like if a research paper said gravity doesn’t exist even if it has all the scientific proof behind it to indicate gravity doesn’t actually exist. That’s just gonna discredit scientists from the general public because it’s like yeah what’s keeping me on the ground there’s something doing that might as well call gravity. I’m not gonna trust of research paper compared to the fact that I’m not floating up in the air.
So yeah, because research papers aren’t really viewed as evidence of stuff anymore because of activists using them as a cultural to try to push activism rather than actually doing science with them it doesn’t really matter how many research papers are done on this you need to actually get people on the ground in Florida thinking that there’s a flooding issue happening until that happens well to them there’s no flooding problems in Florida so all of that catastrophic stuff is bunk.
This is because the issue is perception not reality so you need to find evidence that effects perception not something that proves it in reality.
I dunno, as a Floridian, I can attest to the fact that people notice the increased flooding in Miami without anyone needing to look at research papers. Could it be that you don’t live down here?
When you do a survey of media, you can't just watch all the media ever. You have to pick a small number, and you're generally looking for it to fit one of a few (not mutually exclusive) criteria:
1. Works that perfectly exemplify something you want the students to learn about
2. Works that are seminal, works that added something new to the landscape and inspired others
3. Works that are part of "the culture", you learn about them so you know what others are talking about - and there are always more of these than can be fit in any course, but they're good for rounding things out
Which criteria do you think Clerks fits more than what Jeff listed?
Counterpoint: the “I want to be called Loretta” exchange in "Life of Brian" is one of the most relevant, and prescient, bits in the entire movie.
Came here to say this word for word. It plays just fine now.
Reg is even (sort of) fine with pronouns and preferred names!
I know! Reg really makes a concerted effort to understand!
Funnier than ever.
Also came to comments to say exactly this. But I like to empathize. Can anyone tell me why Jeff wrote that it wouldn't play well today?
Wait, you're NOT a conservative? Then to hell with this. :)
Yes, as that WSJ reading, Trump disliking conservative you're describing, we probably have a lot more in common than we do with large parts of either party at the moment. It's easy to get wrapped up in labels, so I'm going to do precisely that. I suspect you and most of the people reading this are liberals - some who are left-liberals and others right-liberals (aka the Artist Formerly Known as Conservative). We may disagree about specific policy, but philosophically we have more in common with each other than either the post-liberal right or the DSA-addled left.
As a guy who remains conservative in spite of all the stupid crap, I find few things more relatable than a guy who remains liberal in spite of all the stupid crap.
I'll second that!
Somewhere on here (https://substack.com/@noelmaurer/note/c-298982238) I made a list of things the Trump administration has done that a Reaganite conservative would approve of. I ended with: "But that leaves ten concrete Trump administration actions Ronald Reagan would support had he fallen into a coma in 1982 and been magically resuscitated without any aging in 2026. I say that even though I have little doubt that Rip van Reagan would be appalled by the Trump administration as a whole."
It's just a weird and annoying fact of life that you have to deal with that people assume you support the stupid crap part even when you don't.
The list, FWIW: https://substack.com/@noelmaurer/note/c-298982238
Need some Looney Tunes in that syllabus!
I think the physical comedy week would need to include that? Three Stooges and the like would go there. Also, presumably, circus clowns.
Comedy history syllabus is wonderful. Suggest it's missing comedy that relies on an enormous amount of highly specialized knowledge (eg PDQ Bach) and written comedy (Joke books for kids, Dave Barry / Gene Weingarten, etc). My grandfather would be upset at the lack of Your Show of Shows, and my father would be upset at the lack of Mel Brooks. Also would make sense to include a few examples of failures or things that aren't funny.
I would throw Blazing Saddles alongside The Life of Brian in the “subversive comedy” block.
“Where’s all the white women at?”
My high school history teacher used the saying rape twice bit in class. Simpler times. Guessing there would be a fit today, perhaps even a lynching. Be well -
The lack of Your Show of Shows was the most glaring omission to me, subsidiary to the ~30 year gap in coverage that it would slot right into the middle of. YSOS was cutting edge for its time and remains genuinely funny, plus it pioneered the TV sitcom format, plus it launched or accelerated the careers of some of the most influential comedians of the 20th century (including Mel Brooks, so, good for your dad).
I also love PDQ Bach but don’t think it would make sense in a class for a general audience. Dave Barry is a legend but I think it would be better to save him for an entirely different class on written comedy, since everything else in this syllabus is live performance.
Also! W C Fields!
And I should have mentioned comics (Calvin and Hobbes, Asterix) as another example of written comedy.
Thanks, Jeff. I planned to be productive today, but now I have all those links in the syllabus to click on.
"Whiny Student Hell" is an extremely accurate way of characterizing my daily life as a teacher.
Also: alternative title "Voltaire, but retarded": brilliant! made me laugh out loud. Thank you.
For the comedy syllabus, what about anti-humor, or cringe comedy, like Neil Hamburger & Tim & Eric type stuff?
As a politically homeless ex-republican, one thing I enjoy about your blog is that I can hear criticisms of the extreme left that DON'T end with "...and that's why we shouldn't let non-whites into the country."
It's frustratingly rare to find commentators who will criticize the extremity of one side without supporting the extremity of the other.
Dick Van Dyke was a charming and handsome fuckup schlub. Not surprising at all that he had a hot wife. Heck, his current wife was 40 when he married her--at age 86. And they are still married 14 years later.
Oxbridge sketch comedy shows up in Life of Brian, but certainly there are a lot of British comedians who worship Peter Cook. Frog and Peach? Two Ronnies when newscaster has to read copy where all the 'e's got printed as 'o's?
https://tinyurl.com/yc2n7tj2
"still the highest-grossing movie of all time adjusted for inflation"
Helps that its initial theatrical run lasted over a year, and was followed by constant re-releases in the subsequent decades whenever MGM had a gap in their schedule to fill. So even adjusting for inflation doesn't exactly provide an apples-to-apples comparison.
«I probably disagree with the typical Wall Street Journal reader on Obamacare and climate change, but we probably agree that Joe Biden won the 2020 election and we should not model our economy on The Great Leap Forward. » I’m going to assume that you agree that those self-same conservatives played a role in getting us where we are today (the leap from climate change denier to election denier has seemed a very inevitable one to me, and SOMEBODY has been paying Fox New’s bills all this time). I’m also going to assume that it annoys you. I’m curious how MUCH it annoys you.
yeah, no. Climate change deniers come in 2 flavors. the first is denying the pseudoscience that the climate scientists used due to motivated reasoning to make the "Al Gore" level of assertions. It was less denial that something is happenning and more that there is no scientific basis of the level of assertions being made and this has turned political instead of scientific with how it is being used. The UN has kind of changed stances if you look at it because of this issue, and they are using proper science now, but since the results are so much tamer, media goes with the old stuff, so almost no one knows. the majority of people who were not behind climate change are here, because for instance, if the sea level was rising, how much of Florida would be flooded already. Like, Florida is at it's highest point only 21 feet above sea level and is unbelievably flat, so if the sea level was rising meaningfully, it would be flooded. That has not happened, many of the claims made are a "what do you trust? me or your lying eyes." situation. The still failure to won up to false claims that were pushed for political gain has kind of hurt Climate Change pushers in the eyes of these people, the same way that callig the Trump RNC at Madison Square Garden taking plave at a Nazi hotspot because the Garden was used as a Nazi rally like 90 years ago backfired, and until this is dealt with of course people will deny, because people don't trust political movements, and this is political and not scientific.
Second set are the crazy denialists, and those are also the ling time anti vaxxers who also were fringe lefties before Trump consolidated the random crazies (i.e. all crazies who were not socialists) under his banner. These are the most outspoken climate deniers, so people who don't realize why people were dnying the global warming catastrophism think this is where all fo the deniers are. It is not, but these are the crazies that have always been there and are what you are tinking of, but are not the majority of those who are climate deniers.
The catastrophic histrionics of global warming probably had more to do with the current situation than the people denying it.
I mean, flooding in Florida is worsening. This doesn't refute your larger point about people making crazy overblown predictions, but it's not nothing.
"In the last decade, flooding has gone up 400 percent from high tides and 33 percent from rain, according to the study, published this week in the journal Ocean and Coastal Management. The high waters are blamed on a regional sea level rise that's much higher than the global rate, a warning that waters can rise at different rates across the Earth."
https://weather.com/science/environment/news/miami-flooding-increase-over-past-decade
That’s great. The general public doesn’t view it that way, and the general public also doesn’t you’re digging for research papers. Until you get where a lot of of the general public living in Florida is experience experiencing flooding issues that are greater than in the past then to the general public there are no flooding issues in Florida compared to the past.
The general public doesn’t really trust research papers anymore after some of the ridiculous stuff that’s been published in recent years. Every attempt to try to legitimize trans athletes using a research paper just further discredits research papers in the eyes of the public because to the public. It’s just common sense that there’s an advantage and you can’t refuse that common sense with a research paper. That’s the real issue with that subject. It’s something where they ran into the common sense of the masses that isn’t going to move.
It’s like if a research paper said gravity doesn’t exist even if it has all the scientific proof behind it to indicate gravity doesn’t actually exist. That’s just gonna discredit scientists from the general public because it’s like yeah what’s keeping me on the ground there’s something doing that might as well call gravity. I’m not gonna trust of research paper compared to the fact that I’m not floating up in the air.
So yeah, because research papers aren’t really viewed as evidence of stuff anymore because of activists using them as a cultural to try to push activism rather than actually doing science with them it doesn’t really matter how many research papers are done on this you need to actually get people on the ground in Florida thinking that there’s a flooding issue happening until that happens well to them there’s no flooding problems in Florida so all of that catastrophic stuff is bunk.
This is because the issue is perception not reality so you need to find evidence that effects perception not something that proves it in reality.
I dunno, as a Floridian, I can attest to the fact that people notice the increased flooding in Miami without anyone needing to look at research papers. Could it be that you don’t live down here?
Musical comedy GOATs
“I’m On A Boat”-Lonely Island/T-Pain
“Uneasy Rider”-Charlie Daniels
“Yackety Sax”-Benny Hill Show montages
Beethoven’s 9th Symphony as used in A Clockwork Orange
Unforgivable lack of Tim Minchin here
Revolutionary types: Society should change!
Society: You know what, you're right. Fair point.
Society: *changes*
Revolutionary types: How dare society be different before it changed!
Pan: Or: "We are out of live targets so let us go after dead ones!"
For low budget comedies, I’m surprised you didn’t include Clerks.
When you do a survey of media, you can't just watch all the media ever. You have to pick a small number, and you're generally looking for it to fit one of a few (not mutually exclusive) criteria:
1. Works that perfectly exemplify something you want the students to learn about
2. Works that are seminal, works that added something new to the landscape and inspired others
3. Works that are part of "the culture", you learn about them so you know what others are talking about - and there are always more of these than can be fit in any course, but they're good for rounding things out
Which criteria do you think Clerks fits more than what Jeff listed?
If Rodney Dangerfield hadn't appeared on your list, I was fully prepared to cancel my subscription. But then there he was! Crisis averted.