Alex Explains Some Jokes

Let's talk about this Andy Samberg roast of James Franco.

I love the concept and I love the brutal honesty (assuming it WAS partially-honest and not pure fiction), but I'm just not crazy about the execution. It all felt like needy, high-school-level self-deprecation. So I'm going to talk about it for several hundred words and at the end you're going to wish I hadn't.

First of all, anytime you diss some kind of abstract, indie, ironic, whatever comedy, you always have to add this disclaimer:

I get it. I actually get the joke.

I'm a huge Harris Wittels fan (RIP) and a huge fan of Paul Rust, Scott Aukerman, etc. This Andy Daly set is really, really funny to me, and the only thing I don't find funny is the audience rubbing it in that they immediately get it (settle down, man, they get it). I'm a freak for weird comedy (okay, that's probably overstating it). I'm a total comedy hipster (no, that's definitely too far, man). I love people who take conventions and completely overturn them (okay, fair), to the extent that they completely bend your expectations for all other sets going forward. So, to be perfectly clear, I get that Andy Samberg was doing an ironic roast here. While Samberg's set is original in its own right, it immediately evokes Norm MacDonald's infamous Saget roast (a seminal bit of comedy for me!). And Samberg's set is obviously in a similar vein as Norm's, being both mockeries of the stilted conventions of the comedy roast. It's the kind of set where people who don't find it funny get "roasted" by people that do for liking Dane Cook and Larry the Cable Guy, etc.

But I don't find it that funny, and I would like to explain why I'm such a boring person. Please indulge me.

What killed the bit for me is that not only was Samberg being ironic, but the character Samberg was playing was also being ironic, in-character, and so it made it more uncomfortable and awkward than funny. The character himself wasn't someone you could crack jokes at/with, or even smile at: Like most self-deprecating people, the character Samberg played wasn't really self-deprecating so much as neurotically self-absorbed and transparently desperate for respect and compliments. Great example: With Aziz, Samberg's character saying he had a "unique perspective" in lieu of a racist joke was likable and cute, but it was the kind of likable and cute compliment that desperately-lacking-in-self-confidence white 14-yr-olds offer up to a minority classmate to show they're cool & not racist like all the other roaster 8th-graders.

Which is alright. That's a real, authentic person he's wormed his way into, and that's cool. I may have been that guy a little bit. And don't get me wrong: I think Samberg NAILED that low-self-confidence, self-deprecating character exceptionally well. But for me, it just isn't comically fertile. It sort of felt like a "neat idea, I'll pass on the 15-minute version though" improv character from Comedy Bang Bang. Also, Samberg's set was surely unconventional, but in my view it was unconventional to a fault. To wit: There wasn't any convention, to the point where there wasn't any context, to the point where there was never even enough structure to serve as set-up. And without a good set-up it's hard to deliver punchlines. Yin and yang, figure and ground, etc. It's hard to fault the late-night-and-CBS-sitcom viewer who doesn't get what he's trying to do. And, if I do say so myself, it's hard for you to fault me for not finding it funny, at least if you're me, which you're not, unless you're me writing or proofreading this, but then you're not my intended audience and I shouldn't address you specifically, but I did, because I'm self-absorbed... well, not really self-absorbed; it's more like I'm self-aware and prone to lapses in self-control whose product (this sentence) I will later defend in a much more lucid and sober state.

Anyway, so: Also, Samberg hams it up to the extent that anyone who doesn't "get it" has never paid attention to comedy seriously (even as a novice). He says "Who's my next VICTIM?" so obviously and on-the-nose that anyone with any experience with auditoriums or lectures! knows exactly where he's going to the point where the rest of his set becomes obvious. So much for the subversive angle, YouTube commenters - this is no more subversive than a talk-show host acknowledging writers! 

And from a delivery angle, Samberg's set works as solid improv, and he's a capable comic actor. But this set doesn't work as self-contained improv, and shows why great improv usually has a straight man/woman/child/sentient-humorless-computer to play off of. Compare (again, they're different sets, but) with Norm's subtle, perfectly-sincere delivery of old chestnuts that would've been tame in the 1920s. It doesn't require a straight man because the absurdity is front and center, and so is the context! The figure and the ground are given and so we can adjust our focus properly.

Even if comedy is simply about refocusing our mind's eyes in absurd, impossible, or otherwise just-plain-clever ways, there ought to be something sharp in sight by the end, after we've been squinting for a few minutes. Otherwise, whether the comedy is funny becomes bound up in faith, mysticism, and, above all, the social guard rails of a million hipsters lined up along Highway 1 to prevent anyone's opinions from going too far out of bounds. Nah. For me, there has to be a "there" there, as they say. Otherwise we're all the Jimmys Fallon of our particular circle of favored entertainers and humor becomes simply the tautological province of assumed-funny people. Sets have to bomb sometimes so we can rebuild them. Well, then, shouldn't it be "sets have to be bombed so we can rebuild them"? Why isn't it "that set really was bombed [by the audience]"? And why do we park in driveways, anyway? And above all, sets need to be grounded in a clear vision, even if the vision is quite inconsistent, screwy, and even kinda stupid. Samberg's vision was smart but it was out-of-focus, blurry, and never fully communicated a great comedic image to the audience.

I loved "Hot Rod" and some Lonely Island stuff and generally I've seen stuff by Samberg that's great, but this set just bugs me, and I had to say something, something which is even less entertaining than I find the original set. I get it, but I can't get into it. Different strokes for different folks. And the dark roast/barista joke was solid, Andy.

Anyway, I'm off to unsuccessfully vivisect some frogs by explaining jokes to them until they die. It's my party trick. I'm not great at parties.