Funnyordie is not funny

I love comedy, and I thought I got it until I spent some time at funnyordie.com.

The site is just as godawful as the content on it.  If this some random site I was recommended I'd understand, but this is Will Ferrell's site.

Let's digress.  I've been an SNL fan for as long as I can remember, and Will Ferrell ruled SNL when he was on.  I lived in Chicago and regularly was at Second City and Improv.  I even did stand up improv at Improv once.  I think I know funny when I see it.  I loved almost any character Will Ferrell played (and how did they come up with such brilliant characters with brilliant names like Jacob Silj).  I am right now boycotting SNL, ever since Ratchel Dratch and Amy Poehler joined.  I knew both of them from Chicago, and they are not funny.  They are an insult to the power trio of women who were at SNL before them.  I am talking about Cheri Oteri, Ana Gasteyer and Molly Shannon.  Now they were funny.

Back to funnyordie.  I am looking at Will Ferrell's picks (posted on October 9th...update your site man!).  The comedy idol is picking his top funny videos from thousands.  They've got to be good, right?  His top pick is called High Five.  I watched it a few times, at different days just to make sure it's not me.  It's not me.  The video is not funny, it's a joke.  His second pick Weng Weng Rap, is so so at best.  I still ask; why bother, putting your name next to this crap?  One of Adam McKay's favorites is a guy getting hit by a truck while filming a commercial.  Adam McKay who I also knew from Second City at the time Dratch was there and thought he was a genius.  But the videos they are endorsing are horrible.  Are these guys really serious about this site?

Here is where it gets worse.  I went to the various tabs (most viewed, most recent, most buzz etc) they've borrowed from YouTube.  The numbe one video in three categories, most buzz, most favorited and most viewed is a UGC piece from Will Ferrell and Adam McKay themselves.  It's called The Landlord, and it's gotten 50M views.  It's horrible...there is nothing funny about it whatsoever...why is a 2 year old girl calling Will Ferrell a bitc...funny?  Somebody please tell me why it is funny.  Because it ain't.

Here is what I think is going on.  While some comedy sites are regurgitating all sorts of old stuff (funnyordie has the fake Tom Cruise videos from 10 years ago), the world of comedy has moved on.

And there is one man, who has taken comedy to a whole new level, and I doubt anything else can really be funny unless it is at his style and standard.

That man's name is Sasha Baron Cohen...aka Ali G aka Bruno and most famously aka Borat.

People got sick of prepared shows and preferred real people in reality shows (I still belive it all started with 'When Animals Attack' btw).  Same is happening in comedy.  People went from prepared skits to reality comedy like Ali G does it.  It is far more unusual, far more revealing, far more offensive, and as a result far far more funny.  When Ali G pitches the Ice Cream Glove to VCs, that's funny, because what makes you laugh is how real his counterpart is.  When Bruno goes on the catwalk as the "Chrysler Muse" that's funny for the sheer guts of pulling it off, and probably above all when Borat gets on stage at that rodeo...that is immortal stuff.

So frankly, I am done with the other kind of comedy.  The new kind is far more powerful because you are just not used to where it will come to hit you.  The sooner the other guys realize this the better it is for them so we don't end up watching crap like the stuff on funnyordie.

Comments

[Matt Mihaly]

I see your point though I think it's more that those particular videos just suck.

I will say though: That little girl in the Landlord was cute as a button.

--matt

[Baris Karadogan]

Yes, she is cute...even cuter with a bad mouth.

But is it really worth Will Ferrell to get behind that? Make great movies...

[Syven]

One does not need to be living in order to laugh. If you draw a line with Andy Kaufman on one end and Lenny Bruce on the other, everything you ever wanted to laugh at is in-between - but those two, they were a class in their own.

In Kaufman and Bruce you have two people broke new boundaries. It is superficial of us to contend that any living comedian today is anywhere close to those two ground-breakers.

Comedy extends the grave, it is only we who for want of something different or new, fail to appreciate the depth in the comic being, ultimately when we all get old, the wisest of us end up laughing at the very lives we lead. Tragedy is the trajectory of depression and repression, but comedy is the realization that we can contemplate tragedy and that brings us to wisdom, the foolish notion that we are in control or that we can escape.

What Andy Kaufman and Lenny Bruce both did so well, was make comedy an intelligent life force to wake us up as human being - and in so doing demonstrate the reality of living a shallow life, for puerile liberty or in artificial happiness. Kaufman and Bruce, now there are two people who will teach you the value of laughter as transformation.

M.

[Baris Karadogan]

Andy Kaufman was in a league of his own. I think he was marvelous. Challenged the audience much the same way Ali G challenges his interviewees. Neither knows if what's happening to them is serious or one big joke.

[Funny Guy]

Nice article, I really appreciate your sharing!

[Barb]

Actually .. I think funnyordie is very funny. Sure, there are a few that don't tickle my funny bone, but there are a lot that do. And The Landlord? Hilarious.