This blog has a theme today: sitcoms.

The first post is about "And Just Like That" (and mentions "Leave It to Beaver" and "Seinfeld").

The most recent post is about "The Cosby Show."

And the only other post... well, I've got to shoehorn it in, but think about it. Everybody into the Oval Office. Maybe you think that's not funny, but I was raised on "Dr. Strangelove."

"Larry David had one of the stupidest op-eds in today's New York Times in which he compares Bill Maher having dinner with Donald Trump with having dinner with Adolf Hitler."

"Um, you know, Larry David, that's a form of Holocaust denial. Comparing Trump to Hitler is a form of Holocaust denial because Trump didn't have gas chambers, he didn't have shooting squads, he didn't take babies, and throw them into ovens, and if you're making a comparison what you're saying is Hitler didn't have any of those things either. So shame — shame — on you Larry David. You know, we used to be friends, boy. No more. And the one thing: about Larry David he stopped being funny, I don't laugh at his jokes anymore because I know they're not jokes. That's who he really is, so they're not jokes...."

Said Alan Dershowitz, trashing Larry David's trashing of Bill Maher's dining with Trump.

Here's David's NYT op-ed "My Dinner With Adolf" — free-access link — which begins:

Imagine my surprise when in the spring of 1939 a letter arrived at my house inviting me to dinner at the Old Chancellery with the world’s most reviled man, Adolf Hitler. I had been a vocal critic of his on the radio from the beginning, pretty much predicting everything he was going to do on the road to dictatorship. No one I knew encouraged me to go. “He’s Hitler. He’s a monster.” But eventually I concluded that hate gets us nowhere. I knew I couldn’t change his views, but we need to talk to the other side....

Read the whole thing. I gave you the free link. Now, I do think what Larry wrote there is funny. It just violates a rule of taste: You shouldn't compare anything to the Holocaust. 

We can talk about why that rule fell out of fashion. But whether Larry David is violating a strict and important rule or just going with the flow of the current taste within his hyper-elite stratum of society is a separate question from whether it's funny.

"The diagnosis of online irony poisoning tends to understate the extent to which social media’s rightward drift regulates so much else in life..."

"... establishing the terms and the tenor by which we enter that bustling intersection called discourse. The comedification of America has become the memeification of America.... The puerile hasn’t confabbed with the establishment so much as replaced it, with the latter’s permission. Jokes mingle with cruel and lethal austerity measures. At the podium during a rally held after the Presidential Inauguration, Musk raised a stiff right arm in what looked like a Nazi salute yet it was laughed off by the Anti-Defamation League as just an 'awkward gesture.' This month, Musk briefly changed his profile name on X, the social platform he owns, to Harry Bōlz, a brilliant display of homophonic potty humor that prompted a surge in an obscure cryptocurrency by the same name. This is where America lives and what America does. Nothing is funny, but everything is. And therein lies a sense of impotence, because our ability to discern the consequential ghoulishness of this nation’s policies–LOL that’s crazy!–doesn’t in and of itself constitute resistance.... Laughter does not speak for itself. We must ask after it.... We ask the universe, as one memesmith did, 'does anyone know if we have to maintain our senses of kindness and empathy despite the world constantly trying to destroy the individual and destroy feelings in impersonal society tomorrow.'"

Writes Lauren Michele Jackson, in "The End of Seriousness/Our unfunny times are rife with laughter that seldom offers relief" (The New Yorker).

I get to use my "Era of That's Not Funny" tag again.

How are you doing in the bustling intersection called discourse?

"The left wanted to make comedy illegal.... like, you can't make fun of anything.... Legalize comedy!"

Legalize comedy
pic.twitter.com/uKr6fiRI3K

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) February 20, 2025

And then, do you think this is funny, wielding a chainsaw? I mean, he's cutting thousands of jobs. Those are real people.

 

Must Watch Video: Elon Musk Has Been Knighted At CPAC After Receiving The Chainsaw For Bureaucracy

» WATCH/SHARE THE LIVE X STREAM HERE:https://t.co/7NYWKPuERO pic.twitter.com/mFe0unDA7u

— Alex Jones (@RealAlexJones) February 20, 2025

That's Argentina's President Javier Milei, handing Musk the chainsaw, so I went to Milei's feed to try to get the video to embed from Milei's feed, where I got a bit distracted. For example, he reposted this:

 

On this day, February 21 1964, the Rolling Stones released the single Not Fade Away in the UK. Originally a Buddy Holly track, the Stones recorded their version at London’s Olympic Studios and it became the band’s first Top 10 hit in the United Kingdom! 🇬🇧 pic.twitter.com/kkM69cBxUz

— The Rolling Stones (@RollingStones) February 21, 2025

So much masculinity: 1. Comedy, 2. Power tools, 3. The Stones.

ADDED: What is the evidence that Javier Milei loves The Rolling Stones?

"We try really hard now, and have for a long time, to be clear that Goofus is not all bad, and Gallant is not all good..."

"We just try to be really clear that Goofus isn’t always bad. He’s not. He’s just often making choices that aren’t thoughtful or safe."

Said Christine French Cully, the current editor in chief of Highlights, quoted in "THE COMIC STRIP THAT EXPLAINS THE EVOLUTION OF AMERICAN PARENTING/What eight decades of Goofus and Gallant illustrate about society’s changing expectations of children" (The Atlantic).

Every installment of Goofus and Gallant now has a line at the top that reads “There’s some of Goofus and Gallant in us all. When the Gallant shines through, we show our best self.”

But isn't that exactly what every kid reading Goofus and Gallant in the old days figured out on their own? It was funny because one kid was always good — too good — and one always bad — absurdly bad. I think putting that label on implicitly says we're not trying to be funny anymore because we think you're dumb.

There are some nice examples of the old strip, notably this gem from 1955:

"The major Iowa newspaper that published a political cartoon depicting MAGA voters yelling racial slurs at Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy issued a formal apology..."

"... over the weekend after the GOP hopeful slammed the depiction as 'shameful.' The Quad-City Times executive editor Tom Martin wrote on the paper’s website Friday that the 'inexcusable' cartoon was intended to 'criticize racist ideas and epithets' but instead featured a phrase that 'is racist and insensitive to members of our Indian American community.'... [The cartoon] depicted a campaign rally... Ramaswamy was drawn, saying, 'Hello my MAGA friends!' Three angry White men in the crowd each responded to his appearance with a racial slur. One screamed, 'Muslim!' getting the candidate’s religion wrong. Ramaswamy is a self-professed Hindu. Another [yelled]... 'Get me a slushee, Apu!!!' and a third [yelled]... 'Show us your birth certificate!!'"

The NY Post reports.

Before the apology came out, Ramaswamy tweeted: "It’s sad that this is how the MSM views Republicans. I’ve met with grassroots conservatives across America & never *once* experienced the kind of bigotry that I regularly see from the Left. Iowa’s ⁦ @qctimes ⁩ absolutely has the right to print this, but it’s still shameful."

Let me connect this post to the previous one, about the chant at the Drag March — "We’re here! We’re queer! We’re coming for your children!" Somebody thinks they're being very funny and they're cocooned with people who like the direction the satire is going.

“It’s all in good fun. If you’re taking it like that, then that’s a you problem. Not an us problem."

Said Kelly Autorina, "a longtime parade veteran" and "'huge supporter' of drag," quoted in "NYC Pride Parade revelers sound off on controversial Drag March chant: 'Just adding fuel to the fire'" (NY Post).

The chant was "We’re here! We’re queer! We’re coming for your children!"

Of course, it was satire. The question is whether it's too cruel — or impolitic — to satirize the fear that drag performers are trying to sexualize children. 

The linked article ends with this quote from Jimmie O’Brien, "a 66-year-old gay man from NYC: "I think humor is the truth that breaks everything. When humor comes out, that’s where inspiration comes from. When it doesn’t come out, it’s repressed. And then it comes out as anger." 

And yet we no longer feel free to openly mock gay people (something that was routine in mainstream speech and entertainment a few decades ago). And it's certainly not a generally understood social norm that the person who says something "in good fun" can brush off anyone who takes offense at their fun. 

But laughing at your opponents is a tactic. "We’re here! We’re queer! We’re coming for your children!" is very funny in the Drag March context. But when you're in a larger social/political battle, you've got to consider how that will look clipped out. 

In this "Era of That's Not Funny," is the problem too little humor... or too much?

I've been running my "Era of That's Not Funny" tag for quite a few years. I don't like the suppression of free speech, and putting some topics off-limits for humor is a subcategory of that suppression. But that doesn't mean everyone should have free rein to make any sort of joke about anything to anybody on any occasion. There are infinite considerations of taste, decency, and funniness. There are differences between what can be said by a professional comedian late at night in a club and what can be said by a stepmother at a child's funeral. How much loose talk do we really want? There's also the free speech that comes in the form of telling jokesters that's not funny. Or — because maybe it is funny, really funny — You're an asshole. 

Anyway, the issue of the day is all those jokes about the implosion of the Titan submersible. I'm reading a WaPo editorial by Molly Roberts titled — unhumorously — "What internet jokes about the submersible disaster say about society."

The 90s are back... for people who never lived through the 90s, I guess.

This is Levi's now:

"I asked Sean not to joke about it. I said, 'Honestly, I don’t think it looks good for you or for anybody to joke about it. You can speak about it if you want, but I don’t think you should joke about it.'"

Said Donald Trump, quoted in "Trump says he told Hannity not to joke about Biden’s cognitive ability" (The Hill).

When did you first become sensitized to the mocking of women?

I wonder, this morning, as I scan the comments on yesterday's post, "Whatever you think of [Dylan] Mulvaney’s transition, or her rather cloying girlishness... [s]he traffics not in anger or cruelty, but in whimsy and joy."*

Here's what I'm seeing (boldface added):

Sebastian: "Exuberant mockery of women, subversion of common sense, and in-your-face-take-that-deplorables-middle-fingerism....

Michelle Dulak Thomson: "[A]ll I can say is that he doesn't traffic in 'whimsy and joy.' He is a sick individual who mercilessly mocks women. Which is evidently OK these days...."

"Players accuse the parents of enlisting their kids as combatants against the sport, urging them to launch projectiles (footballs, Nerf darts, etc.) into their courts...."

"[A] petition to stop the pickleball 'takeover' has garnered nearly 3,000 signatures. Its backers – which include the influential Greenwich Village Little League, and at least four other downtown sports leagues – see the West Village as a tipping point: if the city doesn’t step in now, the insatiable pickleball players could monopolize untold open spaces across the city. Lydia Hirt, a local pickleball organizer, described the characterization as 'unfair,' noting the group has worked to share space with other park users. 'Pickleball is a super happy, fun sport, you know, it's called pickleball,' said Hirt, who also runs a pickleball lifestyle newsletter called the 'Love At First Dink.' 'We all just want to enjoy New York’s limited outdoor space.'"

From "'Utter takeover': Pickleball invasion prompts turf war in West Village" (Gothamist).

The anti-pickleballists are hardcore. They don't just get signatures for their petition. They garner them.

That phrase: "super happy, fun." What does that remind me of?

 

No, that's just happy fun ball. So far from a whiffle ball, but let's move on, because it's not super happy fun.

I google the phrase and the top hit is "Super Happy Fun America." Oh, no! It's right wing! Wikipedia says: 

"Chloë Grace Moretz opened up about suffering from body dysmorphic disorder after a 'horrific' 'Family Guy' meme of herself went viral, admitting she became a 'recluse.'"

The NY Post reports.

I'm unfamiliar with whatever it is that makes Chloë Grace Moretz a celebrity, but she was photographed in a very silly outfit that got made into a meme put alongside this truly hilarious "Family Guy" lady:

 

Why not laugh at what's clearly funny? To react by becoming recluse and then openly shaming the humorists is to reinforce the dynamic that has given us The Era of That's Not Funny.

We're being intimidated into believing that ridiculous things should not be laughed at because people may have mental conditions like "body dysmorphic disorder" that may be worsened by a failure to coddle them with kindness.

If you're photographed in a bad outfit, try to wear a good outfit next time you're out and about delivering pizza of whatever it is you do that's made you famous. This wasn't a case of mocking the shape of her body. It was her own choice to wear terrible clothes. And by the way, I think the choice of clothes is hostile to women. That she did it to herself is actually sad.

"Kimmel playing dead on the ground right next to a black woman accepting her rightful place in the future of tv is such a stinging metaphor."

Somebody tweeted, quoted in "Emmys: Jimmy Kimmel Lying Onstage During Quinta Brunson’s Speech Spurs Backlash/The late-night host pretended to be passed out throughout the 'Abbott Elementary' star's big moment, which a number of social media users found disrespectful" (Hollywood Reporter).

Are you following the latest awards-show racial brouhaha? Apparently, Jimmy Kimmel committed to a comic routine — that he would fake being dead drunk and pulled onto the stage by his foot and then, at the end of the presentation and thank-you speech, dragged off — and the award was won by a black woman. So he lay there at her feet while she had her moment, and that was deemed disrespectful by people who were looking for something to talk about. 

It's hard to do comedy when earnest honoring is the order of the day. But it was an award for best writing in a comedy series — so the subject was comedy. Yet, because a black person was honored, we're told (by some people), comedy was inappropriate. Is that what black people involved in comedy want for themselves? Jimmy Kimmel had himself dragged across the floor. He abased himself utterly. And still, it's not enough. It's wrong. He'll have to apologize now, according to the norms of the Era of That's Not Funny.

Who is censoring Jamie Foxx?

Maybe, like me, you heard Bill Maher, on his HBO show this week, expressing outrage that "gatekeepers" were refusing to release a Jamie Foxx movie. 

As The Playlist puts it:

Initially scheduled for a February 16, 2018 release to coincide with that year’s NBA All-Star Game, “All-Star Weekend” has yet to make it into theaters..... 

"Religion, a medieval form of unreason, when combined with modern weaponry becomes a real threat to our freedoms."

"This religious totalitarianism has caused a deadly mutation in the heart of Islam and we see the tragic consequences.... [W]e all must... defend the art of satire, which has always been a force for liberty and against tyranny, dishonesty and stupidity. 'Respect for religion' has become a code phrase meaning 'fear of religion.' Religions, like all other ideas, deserve criticism, satire, and, yes, our fearless disrespect."

Said Salman Rushdie, in 2015, after the Charlie Hebdo attack, quoted at HuffPo (and at Rushdie's Wikipedia page).

From NBC New York: "Who Is Hadi Matar? NJ Man Suspected in Salman Rushdie Attack Had Shia Extremist Sympathies."

"And if Dark Brandon transforms from parody imbued with implicit eye-rolling to enthusiastic exaggeration of the president’s capabilities..."

"... there’s no joke there at all anymore. So, the comedy has turned to tragedy, and if Dark Brandon isn’t dead yet, he probably will be soon. An additional hazard for the hipper, nihilistic early adopters of this trend, assuming everything ironic on the internet does really become genuine: If they’re not careful, maybe they’ll start liking Biden, too."

Writes Molly Roberts in "The Dark Brandon meme can’t escape death" (WaPo).

This news of the inevitable death of the "Dark Brandon" meme comes one day after I blogged "Meet Dark Brandon," which was based on an August 8th WaPo column "Brandon returns, darkly: Democrats turn an insult into a pro-Biden meme." 

That column was written by Matt Viser, whose newest column — "Biden, trying to tout his policies, faces a familiar intruder: Trump" — I just blogged in the previous post.  

Please don't get the impression I'm suddenly a Matt Viser fan. I blogged those columns to write criticism, not to praise them. 

I'm pleased if I contributed at all to the decline of the "Dark Brandon" meme. What I said — sarcastically riffing on something Viser said — was : "Sure, why not? Tap into the zeitgeist! The zeitgeist is fascism, right?"

Now, I'm seeing my quote in light of Roberts's line: "everything ironic on the internet does really become genuine." Should I infer Don't make fun, because it will come true? One more reason to say we're living in The Era of That's Not Funny.

"In any case, many of us feel suspicious of the color-and-shape manipulations of these images. They're nudging us too much..."

"... insisting that we feel awe. It's a little like the January 6th Committee's over-produced show that insists that we feel anger and outrage. And some people don't think hardcore pornography is sexy. What X thinks is so sexy is exactly what makes it not sexy at all to Y. Maybe something subtler, something more real. Something human."

I blogged on July 14, as I resisted the hoopla, and noticed a column in WaPo by Alexandra Petri titled "James Webb Space Telescope images ranked by how good they look to eat."

Now, I see this in the news: "A prominent scientist posted an image of a distant star he said was taken by the Webb telescope. It was actually a slice of chorizo" (CBS).

The scientist, Etienne Klein, put up his silly post on July 31st, 17 days after Petri's jovial scribblings.

"The world is different than it was when I was a little kid. What I always thought was funny as a little kid isn’t necessarily the same as what’s funny now."

"Things change and the times change so it’s important for me to figure it out. I think it’s a sad dog that can’t learn any more. I don’t want to be that sad dog and I have no intention of it."

Said Bill Murray, quoted in "Bill Murray admits behaviour on set towards a woman led to halt to film/Actor describes incident that took place during production of Being Mortal as a ‘difference of opinion’" (Guardian).

"Particularly for his wife. And she’s got alopecia. So… not a happy home life."

I got through the entire blogging day yesterday without mentioning Will Smith, but this morning, reading the comments in last night's cafe, I took the prompt to watch a clip of Joe Rogan talking about it. 

That's a 15-minute clip. I still intend to watch the rest of it, but 5 1/2 minutes in, I found myself wondering what Ricky Gervais has said about the incident. Ricky is brilliant, and he's a stand-up comedian who's hosted awards shows and roasted the big stars. Here he is at the 2020 Golden Globes. 

I would expect Ricky to defend the role of the comedian versus the stars, but all he did was one little thing, retweet this tweet from the British "Office" twitter feed that shows the tiniest clip from an old episode of the show:

“And she's got alopecia. So... not a happy homelife." pic.twitter.com/b1NYWWIncX

— David Brent Music (@DavidBrentMovie) March 28, 2022

ADDED: From that 2020 Golden Globes performance: 

 

"Let's go out with a bang. Let's have a laugh at your expense — shall we? Remember: They're just jokes. We're all going to die soon. And there's no sequel."

Oh, but the "just jokes" defense — just jokes at the expense of the hyper-privileged — that's not going to work anymore. It's the Era of That's Not Funny, and the preening empaths are out there in force telling you never ever ever ever to joke about anything that's actually physically wrong with a person. Or something like that. Can we still laugh at bald men? At bald white women? Who knows? I'm guessing we've reached end of the entire tradition of comedians on stage at awards shows making fun of the stars for the amusement of the little people out there in the dark. Whoever they get to emcee will be telling the stars they are wonderful and beautiful. Will Smith smacked the comedy out of the whole show. Get all the jokes out ya fucking mouth, from now until the end of Hollywood.