It's amazing how dog shit comedy was in the late 90's early aughts until Tim and Eric came along and paved the way for ironic humor.

Edgy dipshit "comedians" that wanted to violently murder Barney in the 90's then shitty dude bro family guy humor in the early aughts.

I remember first seeing Tom Goes To The Mayor on adultswim and it being like a breath of fresh air. It felt like finally someone got how absurd it is to live in small town america.

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Kids in the Hall yo. They were doing jokes we do here now on Canadian public broadcasting and hbo for America. They even had a sketch called Fuck You, Taxpayers. Where they point out that part of their funding comes from the Canadian government and then intentionally waste money, Scott Thompson got to say 'Hi, I would like to use our publicly funded airtime to say that I should be allowed to masturbate in public." "WOW! What an opinion! One you probably disagree strongly with and didn't want to hear. But you still paid for it because...."
Studio audience: FUCK YOU TAXPAYERS
"And because the audience all had scripted lines in the sketch, we had to pay them all as speaking extras. They took home $500 (1992 money) just to watch a comedy show on your dime cause...for another speaking fee..."
Studio audience: FUCK YOU TAXPAYERS
Personal favorite monolgue is this:
https://youtu.be/mvBAtyFoFL8?si=Ce1Kqw-SGoAY215d
Favorite sketch with characters and stuff is this one
https://youtu.be/w7ApuaJrtck?si=G2VbwTAjJNyiY5f2
- I found YouTube links in your comment. Here are links to the same videos on alternative frontends that protect your privacy:
  Link 1:
  yewtu.be
  inv.nadeko.net
  yt.artemislena.eu
  piped.video
  Link 2:
  yewtu.be
  inv.nadeko.net
  yt.artemislena.eu
  piped.video
  
  Here's another, ROBOT
  https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=D2Ka2nkIi2I&pp=ygUMaGFtIG9mIHRydXRo
  This also has a pre-Ezri Daz Nicole DeBoeur as Laura

i remember not "getting" Tom Goes to the Mayor when it first came out. my politics at the time was some vaguely left-libertarian/liberal BS
now knowing that Tim is a leftist if I had time I'd love to rewatch some episodes (like many things though i just don't have the time these days)
- The episodes are 11 minutes, so they take less time than most stuff.

The comedy most important for my young sense of humor was MST3K, which is still chock full of gold material.

there was a lot of great alt comedy in the 90s with stuff like The State and Mr. Show. I'd argue that shows like that really paved the way for Tim & Eric (in fact, T&E got their big break thanks to Bob Odenkirk who produced Tom Goes to the Mayor)
Tim & Eric definitely brought that type of comedy more into the mainstream until it was no longer "alt" anymore. because yeah, at the time Dane Cook and Carlos Mencia were the biggest names in comedy
- Dane Cook and Carlos Mencia were the biggest names in comedy
  It was a very dark time
- The State, besides being great, gave birth to so much great absurdist and alt-comedy projects. David Wain's whole career is basically non-stop hits of incredibly funny shit.
  Plus, if you want to go further back in Odenkirk's DNA, he credits Janeane Garafalo with getting alt-comedy really going. She's fantastic in Wain's Wet Hot American Summer (the film and the first season of the TV series for sure are worth a watch).
  The Larry Sanders Show, which Garafalo was in as well, is worth a mention as a 90s pre-cursor to this type of humor as well. It's definitely still stuck in some traditional sitcom trappings, but it was way ahead of its time.
  There's a few things in the 00s that predate Tim and Eric in that same vein too. Whitest Kids U Know and Wonder Showzen immediately come to mind.
  Basically, Tim and Eric are super fucking funny, but alt comedy is a much wider world than them.
  
  Wet Hot American Summer is probably my favorite comedy movie. no plot, just bits and they all land. you can tell everyone in the cast really gelled and had a blast making that movie, which is essential to good comedy
- I was a kid during Mr. Show so I never got to see it but Bob Odenkirk is fantastic in literally anything he does.

Back in October 2021 I saw somebody mention Freaked during a Twitch stream, and having nothing better to do, I watched it a few nights later.

\ My favorite joke in the film was when the camera cut to a haystack next to nothing, and as we hear somebody falling out of an aeroplane, we wait in anticipation as he lands… next to the haystack. That is a perfect example of lazy comedy: when a joke is so predictable that you can literally flip a coin to vote on the only two possible outcomes. Awful. Don’t watch Freaked.
- Freaked
  Ouch you just dredged up some repressed memories I had of seeing that movie as a kid.

mr show erasure

unrelated but this post led me back to this and I just gotta say the Skeletor bits are just

What about Mitchell and Webb?
- I'm a burger american so I don't know british humor, but it's the team behind the "are we the baddies?" skit.
  
  Mitchell & Webb pulled british comedy out some very deep, dark, post-Little Britain doldrums
  
  Also missing out on the absurdist sketch humour of The Micallef P(r)ogram(me)
  
  And Peep Show
  Which to this day, I probably quote as much as The Simpsons
  And I love The Simpsons
  
  I've watched only a few of them but the mock Football TV spot absolutely slaps

The first Borat showed me a realm of funny I had not yet established trade routes with, it was awesome
- horrible racist stereotypes of Central Asians
  it gave us Nick Mullen
  
  Okay yeah I should establish that it is a problematic fav
  I was much more interested in how it captured a deranged side of post 9/11 America that I was steeped in but saw no representation of.
  Like people literally fled from him for approaching them while looking indistinctly foreign

if the metric is what's commercially popular, comedy has always sucked and will continue to suck until the end of time. there are a ton of people who are nationally/regionally touring who are so fucking good and you'd never know about it because the ceiling for that is basically writing for a late night show while doing sets or something
- :stavros-laugh: