It's been just over 40 years since Lenny Bruce died. This is significant, because it means that stand-up comedy in its present form has been around for about 50 years. And in this past half century, there have been very few people who have been able to reinvent the form in a lasting way.
There's the Lenny Bruce School of Self-Exposure (a form which Richard Pryor absolutely perfected), the Mort Sahl School of Political Commentary (a style that lives on in "The Daily Show" and "Weekend Update"), and the Steven Wright School of Non Sequiturs (R.I.P., Mitch Hedberg).
There have been those who have done excellent jobs working within these boundaries, but really, nothing new has become available. Comedy Central's two new comedy albums by Greg Giraldo and Christian Finnegan showcase this fact and also show how easy it must be to get a stand-up CD made.
This is not to suggest that Giraldo and Finnegan are talentless; it's probable that few people reading this paper could do better. Still, they are just mediocre - nothing special - and highlight why comedy clubs serve drinks. As the albums progress, the laughs get louder, and it's not because the jokes are funnier. But the middle-of-the-road jokes these comedians deliver certainly seem funnier after consuming mandatory drinks for 40 minutes.
Both these comedians practice sort of in the Bruce School, though they'd make more sense as descendants of Woody Allen; they mix stories of their personal lives with general observations of the social mores of the day. Unlike Allen, neither one really has anything very interesting or impressive to say.
Finnegan stays basically within the realm of subject matter that all people can relate to: "Hey, you know that guy at the office? You know the one. He's always acting a certain way? There's one in every office."
"Yeah," the audience thinks, "I know that guy." But how does Christian Finnegan know that guy? The problem here is that these jokes (not just office ones) have all been explored in better ways by numerous other comedians. Office humor is an especially difficult genre to improve on after "Office Space" (1999) and "The Office" which point out the humor in the mundane daily grind.
Giraldo, too, talks about things like how, as he ages, his scrotum apparently elongates. The 40-something set in the audience cheers. It's admirable that he keeps his jokes honest and relevant to his own age, but it still doesn't amount to anything special or particularly funny.
All these topics have been covered again and again. What made Richard Pryor one of the best comics in history was his ability to be perfectly frank about his own personal life. Pryor would say things that made people genuinely uncomfortable, things that may not have elicited a laugh. His routine made audiences more uncomfortable than, say, hearing about Greg Giraldo's testicles or hearing Christian Finnegan tell an audience member that her parents must have had sex in order to procreate.
The same problem must face painters. For centuries, painters have been painting nude women. There's little a painter can do to make his nude women seem more interesting than his predecessors'. It is only through personal honesty (van Gogh choosing unusual people as subject matter) or real reinvention that these things get interesting. And this is why Giraldo and Finnegan will never be great comedians, though it's nice that they make a living at it.
This well illuminates why it is generally a bad idea to try and reinvent comedy. There's better comedy out there to enjoy, and hopefully it's not too conservative a notion to suggest some of the old classics.
