Day: July 29, 2008

Just watched a rebroadcast of HBO’s 1995 Young Comedians Show (it’ll also air at 10 p.m. Pacific tonight), hosted by Garry Shandling from the U.S. Comedy Arts Festival in Aspen, and featuring a cast of, would you believe, Dave Attell, Eric Tunney, Dave Chappelle, Anthony Clark and Louis CK. Quite a lineup, eh? We know it’s 1995 because Shandling jokes about the O.J. Simpson trial and Lorena Bobbitt. First up, Dave Attell, and we see some now-classic Attell jokes, such as his take on porn ("whatever a man, a woman, another woman with a penis and a midget do…"), how women have all the power "because women have all the vaginas," why men cannot breast-feed, and on the difference between friends and best friends in moving. Only Attell reacts to and works the crowd. "Oh, I found the level?!" he says at one point. Attell jokes about starting to go bald. Smart, but dark stuff. Still true today. And that’s why so many comedians love him. Eric Tunney is a Canadian, and perhaps the only one from this crop that you don’t remember. Although his joke about Hitler ruining that mustache certainly has garnered more than a few fans over the years, hasn’t it? Dave Chappelle, even in early 1995, showed enormous talent, and in his opening line, paved the way for years of Aspen jokes about the lack...