Dave Blanchard read this post, then sent me this message and it got me to thinking…
I guess this might be about politics, but really it's about comedy writing.
Yesterday, writing about MAD Magazine, you wrote that "it's one of the reasons I became a writer of comedy." In that light, I wanted to get your take on MAD's approach to political humor, and the current state of political humor among comedians.
Growing up back in the 1970s, the best places to go for political commentary (for me, anyways) was MAD Magazine (and sometimes Johnny Carson's monologues). The basic premise to MAD's political humor, as I distilled it, was that you can't really trust ANY politicians—not liberals, not conservatives, not Democrats, not Republicans. They ALL had their hands in your pockets, they ALL would say anything and do anything to get elected and stay in office, and there really wasn't much difference between either of them since the ideologies they promoted and pretended to espouse were basically a sham. They were in politics for one reason and one reason only: power (synonymous with money).
It was a very cynical take that MAD had then, but hard to argue with. And whenever TV comedians, like Carson, would deliver political commentary, they tended to skewer whoever was in power with an equal brush, poking fun at and exposing the idiocies of both parties.
But somewhere along the way, that kind of universal distrust and mockery of all politicians has gone by the wayside, and we're left with comedians and commentators who deliver their jokes and takes with blinders on, as if the stuff one political party does is ALWAYS outrageous, while the stuff the other party does is just normal stuff, nothing to see here or comment on. MAD would never pass up the opportunity to roast politicians on both sides of the political aisle. Like you, many of today's political comedians say they grew up with MAD, but they seem to have forgotten MAD's basic lesson: Don't take sides — go after all of them!
If nothing else, it seems like comedians are cheating themselves — and their audiences — out of a lot of prime opportunities for laughs. If somebody can't see that there are a tremendous number of knuckleheads on both sides of the political aisle, and that both sides are capable of doing great damage to our country, then I just wonder if the whole idea of "political humor" died an ignoble death years ago.
So anyways, my question: Are there any comedians right now that you think do a great job of lampooning all sides of the political spectrum, in the classic sense of "none of these bozos is working in your best interests so why should you believe anything they say?" I really can't think of anybody who fits that mold.
I don't think MAD's motto, even if some of its staffers said it was, was ever really "Go after all of them!" I think it was more like "Apply the same level of skepticism to all of them." When a Bill Clinton is caught being naughty with an intern or a Donald Trump is caught doing just about anything Donald Trump does, they get a lot of attention from those who mock public figures because the jokes practically write themselves. Many politicians as individuals do little to hang jokes on and MAD never went after anyone if they didn't think they had a good joke.
MAD was also never that political. It couldn't be. For one thing, there was a long lead time in publishing. Political humor today is instantaneous. If a politician says something outrageous or falls off the stage at Noon Eastern Time, comedy writers respond to it such that Seth Meyers is ready two hours later to record something or Stephen Colbert or others are ready by their recording times. And all are doing their monologues after hours of jokes on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, etc. If you wrote something that same day for MAD, it would reach the audience in four or five months. At best.
It's always had that lead time. Most political humor is topical, especially these days. It has the shelf life of potato salad. And like MAD, a good political comedian never goes after anyone unless they think they have a good joke.
It isn't always possible for comedians to go after everyone. Not everyone gives you good hooks to hang jokes on. Think of it as if you were writing jokes for one of those old Dean Martin Roasts. If the "honoree" that week was Jackie Gleason, you could do fat jokes and drinking jokes. If it was Don Rickles, you could do jokes about him being mean and vicious. If it was Phyllis Diller, you could mock her appearance. But what would you write if the subject was Jack Lemmon?
You could do it but it wouldn't be the bonanza of one-liners you'd get if it was some star known for being fat, drunk, promiscuous, cheap, ridiculously wealthy or anything like that. If you had to write jokes for a roast of Dick Van Dyke, you could poke fun at this accent in Mary Poppins…and that's about it. On the other hand, I'll bet even comedy writers who love Trump and hated Obama would admit that jokes about the latter were difficult to come by but Donald is the gift that keeps on giving to professional joke writers. As was Bill Clinton.
I also wonder if people these days really want a topical comedian who slams all sides. A lot of the comics who attempt that seem like they don't really have any points of view. They're just saying whatever they think will get a laugh. They also tend to just build on stereotypes: Fat jokes about the fat politicians, old jokes about the old politicians, horny jokes about the ones with sex scandals, etc. I think Jay Leno's one of the best stand-ups of the last few decades but I never felt that his political jokes rose above that level…and he was attempting to never seem like he was on any side. Fortunately for him, he was real good at other topics that he did seem to care about.
