Cutting Edge-Mature-Sick Humor in the jugular vein of Adult Swim Belushi Broken Lizard Carry On Cracked Dayton Edwin Family Guy Howard Stern It's Always Sunny John Waters Kids in the Hall Mad Mel Brooks Monty Python's Flying Circus Mr Show Mystery Science Theater 3000 National Lampoon The Onion SNL SCTV Second City Shaker The Simpsons South Park Stella Tim & Eric Trailer Park Boys Upright Citizens Brigade Whitest Kids U Know Woody Allen *OUCH! by MR. E ALL RIGHTS RESERVED BY AUTHOR*
William Melvin "Bill" Hicks (December 16, 1961 – February 26, 1994) was an American stand-up comedian, social critic, satirist, and musician. His material, encompassing a wide range of social issues as well as religion, politics, and philosophy, was controversial, and often steeped in dark comedy. He criticized consumerism, superficiality, mediocrity, and banality within the media and popular culture, which he characterized as oppressive tools of the ruling class that "keep people stupid and apathetic.”
At age 16, while still in high school, he began performing at the Comedy Workshop in Houston, Texas. During the 1980s he toured the United States extensively and made a number of high-profile television appearances; but it was in the UK that he amassed a significant fan base, filling large venues during his 1991 tour. He also achieved a modicum of recognition as a guitarist and songwriter.
Hicks was associated with the Texas Outlaw Comics group developed at the Comedy Workshop in Houston in the 1980s. Once Hicks gained some underground success in night clubs and universities, he quit drinking. However, Hicks continued to smoke cigarettes. His nicotine addiction, love of smoking, and occasional attempts to quit became a recurring theme in his act throughout his later years.
By January 1986, Hicks was using recreational drugs and his financial resources were badly dwindled. His career received another upturn in 1987, however, when he appeared on Rodney Dangerfield's Young Comedians Special. The same year, he moved to New York City, and for the next five years performed about 300 times a year. On the album Relentless, he jokes that he quit using drugs because "once you've been taken aboard a UFO, it's kind of hard to top that", although in his performances, he continued to extol the virtues of LSD, marijuana, and psychedelic mushrooms. He fell back to chain-smoking, a theme that would figure heavily in his performances from then on.
In 1984, Hicks was invited to appear on Late Night with David Letterman for the first time. He had a joke that he used frequently in comedy clubs about how he caused a serious accident that left a classmate using a wheelchair. NBC had a policy that no handicapped jokes could be aired on the show, making his stand-up routine difficult to perform without mentioning words such as "wheelchair."
On October 1, 1993, Hicks was scheduled to appear on Late Show with David Letterman, his 12th appearance on a Letterman late-night show, but his entire performance was removed from the broadcast—then the only occasion where a comedian's entire routine was cut after taping. Hicks's stand-up routine was removed from the show allegedly because Letterman and his producer were nervous about a religious joke ("If Jesus came back he might not want to see so many crosses"). Hicks said he believed it was due to a pro-life commercial aired during a commercial break. Both the show's producers and CBS denied responsibility. Hicks expressed his feelings of betrayal in a letter to John Lahr of The New Yorker. Although Letterman later expressed regret at the way Hicks had been handled, Hicks did not appear on the show again.
Letterman finally aired the censored routine in its entirety on January 30, 2009. Hicks's mother, Mary, was present in the studio and appeared on-camera as a guest. Letterman took full responsibility for the original decision to remove Hicks's set from the 1993 show. "It says more about me as a guy than it says about Bill," he said, "because there was absolutely nothing wrong with that."
Hicks's style was a play on his audience's emotions. He expressed anger, disgust, and apathy while addressing the audience in a casual and personal manner, which he likened to merely conversing with his friends. He would invite his audiences to challenge authority and the existential nature of "accepted truth." One such message, which he often used in his shows, was delivered in the style of a news report (in order to draw attention to the negative slant news organizations give to any story about drugs): Today, a young man on acid realized that all matter is merely energy condensed to a slow vibration—that we are all one consciousness experiencing itself subjectively. There is no such thing as death, life is only a dream, and we're the imagination of ourselves. And now, here's Tom with the weather.
Another of Hicks's most famous quotes was delivered during a gig in Chicago in 1989 (later released as the bootleg I'm Sorry, Folks). After a heckler repeatedly shouted "Free Bird", Hicks screamed that "Hitler had the right idea; he was just an underachiever!" Hicks followed this remark with a misanthropic tirade calling for unbiased genocide against the whole of humanity.
(1987)
Much of Hicks's routine involved direct attacks on mainstream society, religion, politics, and consumerism. Asked in a BBC interview why he cannot do a routine that appeals "to everyone", he said that such an act was impossible. He responded by repeating a comment that an audience member once made to him, "We don't come to comedy to think!", to which he replied, "Gee! Where do you go to think? I'll meet you there!" In the same interview, he also said: "My way is half-way between: this is a night-club, and these are adults."
Hicks often discussed conspiracy theories in his performances, most notably the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. He mocked the Warren Report and the official version of Lee Harvey Oswald as a "lone nut assassin." He also questioned the guilt of David Koresh and the Branch Davidian compound during the Waco Siege. Hicks would end some of his shows, especially those being recorded in front of larger audiences as albums, with a mock "assassination" of himself on stage, making gunshot sound effects into the microphone while falling to the ground.
(1984)
On June 16, 1993, Hicks was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer that had spread to his liver. He started receiving weekly chemotherapy, while still touring and also recording his album, Arizona Bay, with Kevin Booth. He was also working with comedian Fallon Woodland on a pilot episode of a new talk show, titled Counts of the Netherworld for Channel 4 at the time of his death. The budget and concept had been approved, and a pilot was filmed. The Counts of the Netherworld pilot was shown at the various Tenth Anniversary Tribute Night events around the world on February 26, 2004.
After being diagnosed with cancer, Hicks would often joke that any given performance would be his last. The public, however, was unaware of Hicks's condition. Only a few close friends and family members knew of his disease. Hicks performed the final show of his career at Caroline's in New York on January 6, 1994. He moved back to his parents' house in Little Rock, Arkansas, shortly thereafter. He called his friends to say goodbye, before he stopped speaking on February 14. He died of pancreatic cancer on February 26, 1994, at age 32. Hicks was buried in the family plot in Leakesville, Mississippi.
INTERVIEW: AUSTIN PUBLIC ACCESS (10-24-1993 1:30am)
LAST SHOW: IGBY'S (Nov. 17, 1993) L.A., CA.
On February 7, 1994, a verse Hicks had authored, on his perspective,
wishes, and thanks of his life, to be released after his death as his
"last word", ended with the words: "I left in love, in laughter, and in
truth and wherever truth, love and laughter abide, I am there in
spirit."
COPYRIGHT 2007-2014 OH BOY! 3LAWNVIEWAGOGO / ALL RIGHTS RESERVED MR.E.
THE GROOVE TUBE (1974), written, directed and produced by Ken Shapiro, is a low-budget comedy film that satirizes television and the counterculture of the early 1970s. The film was originally produced to be shown at the Channel One Theater on East 60th St. in New York, a venue that featured R-rated video recordings shown on three television sets, which was a novelty to the audiences of the time. The film stars Shapiro, Richard Belzer and Chevy Chase, and features "Move On Up" by Curtis Mayfield in its opening scene. The news desk satire, including the signature line "Good night, and have a pleasant tomorrow" was later used by Chase for his signature Weekend Update piece on Saturday Night Live, although in the film he does not appear in this segment.
Among the skits are:
"The Dealers," a lengthy feature about a pair of urban drug dealers (Shapiro and Belzer) introduced by a wildly overdone, hip title segment."
Koko the Clown," a mock children's television show in which Shapiro, as the show's Bozo-esque host, reads erotica (specifically a page from Fanny Hill, with promises of Marquis de Sade the next day) on air during "Make Believe Time."
A public service announcement for venereal disease that covertly (though more and more obviously as the camera zooms in, to humorous and/or shocking effect) used a real penis.
A parody of sponsored television cooking shows in which Shapiro, as a female baker seen from the shoulders down, mixes and bakes a special 4th of July "Heritage Loaf" while repeatedly using handfuls of the fictitious "Kramp Easy Lube" brand of shortening, a spoof of the "Kraft" name.
Several spoof TV commercials are featured, including a few for the fictional Uranus Corporation (pronounced with the stress on the second and third syllables). One Uranus commercial touts the amazing properties of its space-age polymer product "Brown 25" (which looks suspiciously like human feces): "It has the strength of steel, the flexibility of rubber, and the nutritional value of beef stew."
The Groove Tube was originally released with an X rating.
KOKO THE CLOWN
KRAMP TV KITCHEN
JUST YOU JUST ME
TV NEWS
BUTZ BEER
FOUR LEAF CLOVER
and a FULL MOVIE in a similar vein:
VIEWER DISCRETION ADVISED (1998)
Ted Smith is a young man with multiple personalities who goes to his
psychiatrist as a completely new person for each visit. He mentions that
he sometimes views his life as a scene in a TV show, which leads to a
series of movie and TV spoofs between each of the psychiatry segments.
In addition to the obligatory horror movie parody, there are also riffs
on game shows, cable news channels and commercials.
COPYRIGHT 2007-2014 OH BOY! 3LAWNVIEWAGOGO / ALL RIGHTS RESERVED MR.E.
Mystery Science Theater 3000, often abbreviated MST3K, is an American cult television comedy series created by Joel Hodgson and produced by Best Brains, Inc. The show premiered on KTMA in Minneapolis, Minnesota on November 24, 1988. It later aired on The Comedy Channel/Comedy Central for another six seasons until its cancellation in 1997. The show was then picked up by the Sci-Fi Channel and aired for another three seasons until its final cancellation in August 1999.
The show mainly features a man and his robot sidekicks who are imprisoned on a space station by an evil scientist and forced to watch a selection of bad movies, as part of a psychological experiment, and frequently preceded by short public-domain non-educational films. To stay sane, the man and his robots provide a running commentary on each film, making fun of its flaws, and wisecracking their way through each reel in the style of a movie-theater peanut gallery. Each film is presented with a superimposition of the man and robots' silhouettes along the bottom of the screen. The film is interspersed with skits tied into the theme of the film being watched or the episode as a whole.
Hodgson originally played the stranded man, Joel Robinson, for four and a half seasons. When Hodgson left in 1993, series head writer Michael J. Nelson replaced him as new victim Mike Nelson and continued in the role for the rest of the show's run. The robots, Crow T. Robot, Tom Servo, and Gypsy, are puppets created from a variety of household objects, manipulated and voiced by other cast members who rotated over the course of the show's run.
Zombie Nightmare is a 1986 zombie film directed by Jack Bravman. This movie was filmed in the suburbs of Montreal, Canada. In the beginning of the film a little boy named Tony Washington (Jesse D'Angelo) watches his father William Washington (John Fasano) play in a baseball game. On the way home Tony, William and Tony's mother Louise (Francesca Bonacorsa) see a young girl (Tracy Biddle) about to be raped by two teenagers. William saves the young girl from being raped but is killed when one of the rapists stabs him.
Years pass, and Tony (Jon Mikl Thor) is now grown up. When Tony comes back home, Louise reminds him about the groceries. Tony leaves to get groceries. Meanwhile, a group of teenagers Bob (Allan Fisler), Amy (Tia Carrere), Jim, Peter, and Susie are at a bar. They are soon kicked out because they are underage. Bob suggests they try to find some sleazy chicks and they take off in a car, driving recklessly down the street.
Tony, now a musclebound teenage baseball player, is leaving a small grocery store where he had helped disrupt an attempted robbery. As he steps out of the store and into the road, he is run over by the gang of teenagers. Tony’s mother contacts one of her neighbors, a voodoo priestess, who happens to be the young girl who was saved by Tony's father earlier in the film when Tony was a child. She resurrects Tony as a zombie. Zombie-Tony goes on a killing spree, hunting down and killing the teenagers responsible for his death.
The police captain, played by Adam West, turns out to be corrupt, and is one of the original attackers from the attempted rape of the young voodoo priestess. He follows Tony to the cemetery where he shoots and kills the priestess and her zombie, only to be pulled down into Hell by Tony's father.
Michael J. Nelson as Mike Nelson
Kevin Murphy as Tom Servo
Trace Beaulieu as Crow T. Robot and Dr. Clayton Forrester
Frank Conniff as TV's Frank
Jim Mallon as Gypsy
Mary Jo Pehl as Magic Voice and Cokie Roberts
COPYRIGHT 2007-2014 OH BOY! 3LAWNVIEWAGOGO / ALL RIGHTS RESERVED MR.E.
I recently returned to school; as of yet I don't have a major, but I have had a lot of minors...
I was accused of "statutory rape," but my lawyer got the charge reduced to "unlawful entry"...
He argued, how can you call it "rape" if she was already dead?...
When found in a skid row motel with a missing girl's corpse in the bed, it's best to tell the authorities that the room was like that when you checked in...
As an international superstar I try to set an example by giving back to the world and consider my trolling tween chatrooms for confused and lonely girls with daddy-issues a vocation...
I formed a charity to help promiscuous teenage girls- get their start...
I'm single, but "carried a torch" for my ex just long enough to set fire to her new boyfriend's car...
I don't regret one day of our relationship- it was a Thursday...
I want a real skinny girl; not because I think it's sexy, but it's likely she'll have poor self-esteem or a drug problem (those chicks'll do anything!)...
However, I am a sucker for big tits...
My dream is to settle down with a woman with whom I can have a child she wont try to drown...