How Dane Cook eats a Reese's

[spatch]

MAD Magazine, in its last few great years before Bill Gaines died, ran a short one-pager about how different stand-up comedians would tell the "Waiter, there's a fly in my soup" joke. Steven Wright's began "I went to a restaurant... I had reservations, but I went anyway..." (ok, that's a great line) and George Carlin observed "They don't always fly, man, sometimes they crawl... but you never see anybody saying 'Waiter, there's a crawl in my soup!'" Whichever writer did that one, they did an amazing job capturing each comedian's voice.

Recently on the Something Awful forums, there's been a thread on which comedians folks find unfunny and annoying. And the name of Dane Cook, College Favorite, was bantered around a lot. Now the thing about Dane is... well, Dane's that dudebrah who Typical American College Kids wanna hang out and slam a few beers with, and his jokes, his rambling monologuing jokes with screams and flailing about and stuff, are just the kinds of stories you'll hear at some of the better parties when someone's blotto enough to tell about the time they nearly shat themselves on Father McCoughlin's lawn in front of Kasey and Joanna. It's only funny because the guy telling it's being a complete spaz about it.

In case you're not quite familiar with Cook's delivery, SA Forums goon D14BL0 (hey, that's the handle) has gone and, in the tradition of MAD Magazine, demonstrated how Dane Cook would tell the joke "Why did the chicken cross the road? To get to the other side!" All emphasis and spelling is D14BL0's, and he captures Cook's voice perfectly.

So there I was walkin' down the sidewalk with my WALK MAN, listenin' to some tunes, minding my own business. When SUDDENLY. This CHICKEN. Is standing there at the crosswalk - which, by the way, I found out is not actually a cross that you walk on, but a walkway, for which you cross streets - This chicken [chuckle] is standin' on the fucken crosswalk. And he's looking up at the sign on the other end, and he sees the big red hand. You know, the one that looks like an Indian saying "HOW!", right? Ha! Ha! Ha! This chicken means business, my friend. He is obeying the laws of walk crossing.

So he's waiting for the sign to change, right? And when it finally changes, he BOLTS across the street. I mean, this little fucker was runnin like a Kenyan, right? So right now, I'm confused, and intrigued. I'm intrigued. I'm sittin' there just amazed. A chicken. Crosses the road. At a cross. Walk. And then runs to the other side.

So what do I do? I fucken follow that chicken. I chased him down for four fucken blocks, man. Four fucken blocks. I was pushing over old ladies PSH GET OUTTA DA WAY GRANDMA, right? So I'm chasing this chicken, right? In broad daylight, in heavy peh-des-tree-ann traffic, and I finally end up catching up with him. So I catch my breath and go "Hey bro. Dude. Why'd you cross that street back there, man?" And he looks up at me and he says "To get to the other side".

You've been a great crowd, goodnight.

Comments

[genarti]

I used to have friends quote him at me and my reaction was "Um... okay? I will assume this is funnier in context?"

And then I heard some, with the same friends. And I've decided that, basically, his jokes are the kind that aren't all that funny for me on their own, but they are kind of funny to quote with friends who also catch the reference.

Of course, so are lots of other things, so... I am not sure if this is a defense of its merits or not. But nonetheless.

[spatch]

A lot of humor is dependent on the delivery. In Dane's case, the humor often is solely the delivery.

Mitch Hedberg had a similar problem; sure, he had some great one-liners ("I'm against protesting, but I don't know how to show it") but most of his rambling jokes were funny because of the way he delivered his lines. Only del_the_psycho has been able to crack my shit up with delivery-dependent line of Mitch's, especially when she nailed his intonation perfectly on "Smokey the Bear is way more intense in person."

[del-the-psycho.livejournal.com]

I am indeed proud of this fact as well. Going up those thousands of escalators just happily droning his lines back and forth was a good day.

[del-the-psycho.livejournal.com]

I found Eddie Izzard to be a lot like that. People would quote him at me, and my overall reaction would be, "...I'm going to assume this is wildly hilarious when in context, or when he says it."

And that's how it works; his lines just aren't all that humorous to me unless it's him doing the delivery, as opposed to people who risk hurting themselves with their desperate attempts to mimic a British accent.

[spatch]

Yeah, Izzard's another comedian whose work is best in the delivery (face it, folks, you can't make Executive Transvestite jokes if you're not cross-dressing while telling them!)

I think the only routine that I've enjoyed hearing said by someone else is the puberty one ("It should be done in one day! Go to school: 'Sorry I'm late, I dunno why I was late...' and at the end of the day, 'Right, I'm going home to get a job with a drill.'")