the studio audience liked his act ..

Back in 1982 this would have been funny. I thought it was funny back then but I was just a teenager.



"I will not go down in history as the greatest mass-murderer since Adolf Hitler!" - Merkin Muffley

I just watched the film for the first time and thought it was very good. His act was legitimately pretty funny even though it was clearly heartbreaking as well.

I havent watched this as a child until recently hah but it felt a little bit creepy at Times when he spoke about his parents. But yes people laugh because in my opinion this movie was to show that acts with good timing and craft are almost all the same, only camera matters. Back in the days that was more than enough to land on time magazine and all the others. There were no cameras in every phone, no YouTube, no cel phones, no screens just one tv and couple of channel with maybe one two standups during week. That was more than enough to get famous for every average performance and trust me since that there were so little media channel alot of good talent went wasted and media slowly adjusted quality, because for so many millions back then every joke was fresh and only being in front of the main media channel was what mattered. Getting just 5 minutes in front of a screen giving out average performance was enough to have standups in clubs and tv's for the rest of your life (well not really haha)

If a random person off the street was given a prime time late-night talkshow slot with the opportunity to tell stories about himself, audiences would laugh because they're cued to laugh. More importantly, they will convince themselves that his material is funny because anyone who is given exposure at a prime time level is "supposed" to be funny. As far as the audience was concerned, just being on the show stamped Rupert's act as being funny, in the same way that millions of people find reality show celebrities "interesting" because the mass media tells them that they're interesting.

They didn't get Hicks or Carlin either.



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I watched the movie some months ago and I don't remember it 100% but I do remember I truly thought it was funny. I was expecting it to be stupid and embarrassing but I truly found it funny. I don't watch American stand up comedians so I don't know how their acts are over there but where I live (Spain) it is very common for comedians to talk about depressing childhoods in a funny sarcastic way, but the audience isn't supposed to believe them. Maybe that's why I found it funny. But I'm still unclear regarding whether I should find it funny or not.