Ben and Soccerdude
This was going to be a comment on Ben's blog (I'm referring to the MIB=Satan post), but I'm turning it right into a post of my own, because I am outraged! The comment was:
whoa whoa whoa
what
am
i
missing
?
so his show isn't that great. fine. who cares...we all know that the shorts he makes (that nobody will ever put on tv) are amazing. who cares if what he's best at doesn't work for tv. shouldn't he be able to make extra money somehow? you're absolutely full of shit if you tell me you wouldn't do a shitty klondike commercial for tens of thousands of dollars!
everyone who was on the state is very open about how hard making it in comedy is and a number of them have done shit they didn't want to. you guys are have the audacity to discredit him almost entirely because he is on shitty vh1 shows and bad commercials?
he's definitely not the funniest person to come out of the state, but he's still really funny. and i don't think he's not awesome because he's in a klondike commercial.
in fact, i believe i was just listening to your butt buddy, jordon morris, go on about how bad he wants to do a del taco commercial because he would be so fucking good at it.
Right to Repair!
10 months ago
22 comments:
if Michael Ian Black was good at commercials, then maybe we wouldn't be so hard on him
Ok.
its a little silly to compare me doing a commerical with MIB doing it.
Yeah, fuck yeah, I would do a commercial for tens of thousands of dollars...I dont have any money, and I think there is a real difference between me doing something a little crass for an amount of money that would change my life and a millionaire doing the same thing so that he or she can buy more stuff.
Going off of what Adam said, I think it is OK to do stuff for money, but its one thing to do a commerical that retains some of what makes you special, and another to do the most coroporate, shilly commercial of all time.
If Will Arnett or someone did like...a really really funny, very distinctly Will Arnetty commercial for Dell computers, it wouldn't bother me, but this does.
The reason I care that his show isn't that great is because i feel like he could do much better, he has an amazing oppurtunity to be on television and do something funny, and I don't feel like they made the most of it. that bums me out, just like it would bum me out if a band I loved came out with a crappy album. Would it not be ok to say that the album sucked?
of course making comedy is hard. But I didn't say that I hate Michael and Michael have issues, or that IT made me mad, I just said that I don't think its very good, and I'm continually surprised by everyone telling me that they think its so funny
Also, I think that with comedy, seeming honest or genuine is particularly important The experience with comedy (particularly with standup) is an experience with identification, maybe more so than with any other artform.
We do not demand of an author that the voice of his protagonist is his voice.
When a comedian performs, and he does a bit in the same way that you heard him do it on TV or on his album, its a little bit of a bummer. Even though you, of course, know that that is how comedians get good, because you sort of feel like he was being dishonest with you when you heard him do it, like he was sharing a story with you.
When I see a comedian shill for a shitty product, it bothers me much more because it takes away from that relationship that they work so hard to cultivate with an audiance.
a few things here.
i think you think he's a lot lot richer than he is. yeah, he's a millionaire. but so are your parents. i bet they would be in a stupid commercial for a shit load of money, so long as the product wasn't offensive in any manner. it would be silly not to.
and you seem to think that he is doing this commercial so he can run to best buy and purchase big screen tvs and ipods. at the risk of this getting maybe too weird to keep talking about, it should be mentioned that he has a family and kids and probably wants to send them to school and shit. and he definitely is not the kind of rich where if he stopped working today that that would all work out.
and it also seems like you seem to know that comedy central will just let michael ian black put anything he wants on his show. that's certainly not the case.
ALSO...i'm completely confused by you saying that in comedy (particularly stand up) the experience with identification is more important that in any other artform!?!?!? that's preposterous.
(also, just because mib has started doing standup in the last couple years does not mean he is a stand up comic)
and yes, it would be okay to say that an album sucked if it wasn't good. that would be entirely different than saying, because a band came out with a shitty album that THEY suck. entrance's new album kind of sucks, but im not 'bummed on' guy blakeslee.
none of us work in show business. you have no idea what the ins and outs are. and sure, you could cite a million funny people who don't do shitty commercials, but they haven't been offered them. mib has a fan base of people that have never heard of the state that is much larger than his fan base that has. it's too bad he's not most recognized for his best work, but he's been handed this opportunity to make a ton of money. fuck it.
and don't you dare tell me that patton oswald only takes jobs that let him act in a distinctly patton oswald sort of way.
patton oswald is fucking funny. but im sure as shit that he wasn't funny on the number of episodes he did for disney's kim possible. do you think it's awesome that he did a voice for grand theft auto? he's definitely a millionaire.
and lastly, you ignored jordon morris talking about how bad he wants to do a del taco commercial entirely.
rodney dangerfield, one of the greatest comedians ever. in ladybugs. should we be bummed on him and let that take away from the how brilliant he was because he took an easy opportunity to make a ton of money?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jIi8oHxcT-w
yeah, he says he finally gets respect, but is this distinctly rodney dangerfield?
and what about zach galifianakis in out cold or whatever that snowboarding movie was called?
point of fact - my parents are definitely not millionaires...(although this was irrelevant anyway)
also, I listened to that JJGO and it was pretty clear that he was joking about being in a del taco commercial (unless we're talking about different episodes)
I guess I'm also a little confused by the vitriol of your response, I didn't say that I hate Michael Ian Black, and I didn't say that he was worthless and awful, i just said that I am dissapointed to see a comedian that I really like do something so shitty. You respond as though I said that he was the worst person in the whole world for doing this. It sucks. It sucked. Why is that offensive to say? It sucks when Patton Oswalt does that stuff. But you know what? A LOT of comedians DONT do those things, for the reasons that I suggested.
I also didn't say he was the only comedian to do this, I think it is always lame when comedians do this sort of thing.
I certainly do not think its preposterous to say that comedy needs more identification than any other artform. It is the only thing I can think of where the performance almost by definition, is about the inner workings of the speaker's psyche. Music can be , but it certainly doesn't need to be. Writing certainly doesn't need to be. Maybe you disagree with that, but if you say that something is preposterous, you need to articulate why.It doesn't have to be true for everyone, but thats how I feel about comedy.
Again, most comedians have to do stuff that is not there best work, that they are not super proud of. Kinda shitty movies, sort of shitty shows. But that is different from doing a commerical for...Klondike, or like, gatorade, or Shell gasoline, or Safeway. There is a difference between sacrificing something of your art and sacrificing all of it for a product.
Rob Huebel, of Human Giant was recently on JJGO, and he talked about doing an olive garden commercial before he was rich, and how they took advantage of him and told him he could just improv and do other stuff. And they just took made it into a stupid boring olive garden commercial, and how intensely embarrassed he was, that he told them they could not continue to show them on the air.
Klondike is owned by Unilever
Unilever has "attracted a variety of criticisms from political, environmental, and human rights activists...for causing deforestation, for testing products on animals, and for making use of CHILD LABOUR" see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unilever#Criticism (it gets way, way worse) they are famously an evil corporation.
So I do think that the product is offensive.
but again, why so mad about this? I really didn't say anything that brutal, just that it was a bummer to see a funny comic do a shitty commercial for a shitty product.
again, doing a shitty comedy or kids show is not the same as doing a commercial like that. I loved ladybugs when I was a kid!
yeah, so klondike sucks, but thats a different argument. and i'm behind that (although that is a slippery slope and there aren't too many products that any of us use that are actually good and im sure you buy tons of shit from that same company). but thats why i put that disclaimer while talking about your parents doing a commercial. i also think it's pretty inappropriate to discuss your's or anyone's parents finances, but i'm not sure how you define a millionaire, but i thought it was net worth. and there house is deffff a lot o money.
and no, im not so mad. it's just that you didn't say that its too bad he does these shitty commercials because he's really funny. (because that's hard to argue with) you said you were super bummed on him. and proposed that he just wants to be on tv soo bad like he gets off on being famous and star fucking or that he would do anything to be on it. which i don't think is really the case. i think he wants to be rich and not have to worry about shit. and probably started to occur to him after trying for 15+(?) years that that was not going to happen with sketch comedy.
i heard that episode about the olive garden. and of course that is soo awesome to stick it to them and make them redo the entire thing. but he probably wasn't in a situation where he actually needed the tiny bit of money they gave him. that's drastically different from getting, what i assume, is a HUGE sum of money from klondike (again if the company that owns klondike sucks, that's a different conversation).
i don't know how joking JM was about DT, he did say he goes out for commercials. he does have that spokesperson voice, just like jesse. he would be good at it. seems serious to me.
and i think that the identification thing is preposterous because all artforms are result of one's own identity. are we talking about the same thing, because i'm confused about how you are approaching this maybe.
and i don't see why it's so lame when comedians do that stuff. i mean of course it sucks that they can't be doing what they do best, but who knows...without doing disney shows or grand theft auto maybe PO wouldn't have gotten ratatouille and then not have been able to have the freedom to do the next thing true to his artform. if comedians need to do shitty commercials in order to continue doing the great things they do, then fuck it. at least they can stay in comedy.
sure it can be romanticized that john doe didn't sell out his comedy and do a boring commercial, but it's not so romantic that you don't even know who john doe is because nobody knows his comedy and now he's old and dead.
sure i think selling out sucks. its really too bad. but i think mib is super funny. i think mmhi is way funnier than a load of shows on tv. and given that its on comedy central their creative freedom is probably fairly minimal when considering what they would probably do if they could do anything. im not bummed on him. and i dont think he'd do ANYTHING to get on tv.
I'd to quickly reiterate my point, even though I don't really care that much either way, because this argument seems to have taken weird twists and turns.
I don't care what company MIB is shilling for, I don't care how much money he does or does not have.
Those commercials suck.
In my opinion MMHI sucks. I don't watch it. It's all On Demand, but the last time I tried to watch a few more episodes, it made me really uncomfortable for the great majority of the show.
It is disappointing to see someone who I do respect do work that does not resonate humorously in me whatsoever. You might even say, I'm bummed on his recent work.
oh and if Jordan Morris did a bad Taco Bell commercial, I would be bummed
if he did a funny one, that would be great
well i guess that's different too. i think mmhi is funny. not amazing, but i definitely laughed a lot.
I guess I just think about comedy in a way that I don't think about other things, but in general, I am able to completely remove what I think of someone's personality from what I think of their art. For example, i love Aretha Franklin, I don't care that she is a Christian, but if she were a comedienne, I think it would be much more of a problem for me.
If Philip Roth did a commercial, I'd think it was super lame, but it wouldn't bother me in the same way, because for me, the written word, and even songs, are a step removed from direct personal interaction. Comedy, to me, is the only art that I am totally unable to dissociate from personality.
If I were to find out that say...Aziz Ansari was a conservative republican, I really don't think I would be able to listen to his comedy anymore.
If I were to find out that...Brad Pitt was a republican it wouldn't stop me from going to his movies, if I were to find out that Jonathan Richman was a conservative , itd bum me out, but I 'd still be first in line to get his new album.
I don't suggest that that is the way everyone feels or should feel, but it is my relationship with comedy
well that's fair enough.
im glad this is over, tbh
me too.
I love you so much.
I love you both
& Sawyer
oh guys. lu2.
A. That show is not that funny
B. MIB is.
C. I would kill a man for Klondike bar.
What up guys?
hey Brian
sigh, not much man.
look, brian, this isn't really a good time
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