79
Hey, Bill,
Us Again.
A Few More Q’s:
Are there subjects
that are too taboo
for comedy?
I mean, everyone and
everything is fair game.
But in the current
environment, there are a
lot of things that people
don’t want to touch.
I’ve talked to a lot of com-
edy people who now look
back at things they
did, myself included, where
you go, “Oh, man, I
would never do that now.”
Such as?
A good example is [SNL
Weekend Update club kid]
Stefon saying “midget.”
Also, any time I played
different ethnicities. By
virtue of being a sketch
show, we had to do that.
But I remember play-
ing Chinese people, and,
I mean, there’s a lot of
stuff that I’m just like...
What led to that
shift among you and
fellow comedians?
Having a racist misogynist
for a president.
Is the election
really the defining
moment?
You have a guy in office
who would walk over some-
one dying in the street
if they were African-
American, or Hispanic, or
a woman. I think
people are sick of that
and hurt by it. And
by telling jokes that hurt
people’s feelings, in
a weird way you’re aligning
yourself with the presi-
dent, who is the worst
insult comic in the world.
No 12
The comedy bubble is bursting.
Its storied institutions are husks
of their former selves, and the
old guards are fading. Mad mag-
azine is kaput. The late-night cir-
cuit is run by toothless Jimmys,
too close to power to speak truth
to it. Saturday Night Live is still
led by its septuagenarian cre-
ator, who held the show back
from mentioning Harvey Wein-
stein after his downfall: “It’s a
New York thing,” Lorne told the
paparazzi. What a riot.
And what of live comedy?
Clubs are flailing, one rent hike
away from nonexistence. Yet they
remain set in their old ways, wed-
ded to two-drink minimums and
male-heavy lineups.
Then there’s the Internet—
or what’s left of it. A moment
of silence for the fallen: go90.
Seriously.tv. Super Deluxe (see
No. 19). Pour another for those
that survived by becoming more
like the TV studios they were
supposed to disrupt: CollegeHu-
mor, Jash, Funny or Die. The new
streaming powerhouse, Netflix,
seems less interested in making
good comedy than all comedy. It
also paid industry aristocrat Jerry
Seinfeld $100 million for a couple
of stand-up specials and a show
about driving fancy cars with his
famous friends. In July, the plat-
form lost $26 billion in a week. Is
it too big to fail? Stay tuned.
If the bubble has burst, we’re
hardly in a comedy recession.
The proliferation of formats has
created massive new audiences.
It’s also given comedians new,
direct ways to reach those audi-
ences and to make money from
them. Social media, live stream-
ing, podcasts, Patreon: These
allow joke tellers to work outside
the old, tired systems. The future
of comedy won’t be determined
by institutions; it will be guided
by we the people, and those who
make us laugh. —SETH SIMONS
COMEDY,
MEET
DISRUPTION.
YOU’RE
GONNA LOVE IT.
No
13
Netflix I Think You Should Leave, Tuca & Bertie • Amazon Fleabag • Showtime Desus & Mero • Hulu Shrill • FX What We Do in the Shadows
No 14
The Curious
Problem of
Surely the co–head writers
and Weekend Update
anchors have their moments.
But Che has a habit of
hectoring female critics on
social media, and he
defended Louis C. K.’s much-
maligned recent stand-up
appearances. For his part,
Jost has made transphobic
jokes, then refused to
apologize when questioned
about them. Too often, it’s
not their jokes that go viral;
it’s their missteps.
—GABRIELLE BRUNEY
No
16
ONE THING
(AMONG MANY)
SNL GETS RIGHT:
MENTAL
HEALTH
Love it or can’t stand it,
SNL deserves credit for
recently tackling one of the
most important, most often
ignored issues of our time:
mental health. And no cast
member has done more to
advance the cause than Pete
Davidson, who has used the
show as a platform to share
his struggles with border-
line personality disorder.
It’s not just him—check out
“Friendos,” a music-video-
as-therapy-session by a
Migos-esque crew. Bonus: It
features Donald Glover and
A$AP Rocky. —DOM NERO
BOWEN YANG
He cohosts one of our favorite podcasts,
Las Culturistas (see No. 9),
and the excellent live show “I Don’t Think So,
Honey!” He’s a staff writer for SNL.
And this year, after Yang, twenty-eight,
appeared in a sketch as a sassy
Kim Jong Un, fans urged the show to add him
as its first (!) Asian-American
cast member. We couldn’t agree more.
15
SNL’S (^) NEXT CAST MEMBER IS
SHOULD BE
N
o