TVSquad

Via Funny or Die, the site that brought you Adam McKay's cursing daughter, Pearl, comes this clip (below) of comedian Zach Galifianakis doing his stand-up act for a crowd that just won't cut him any slack. I guess Zach's brand of dry, irreverent humor just doesn't sit well with the colonists.

Strangely enough, while I found the juxtaposition of Zach on stage and the crowd of stoic men and women mildly amusing, I found myself laughing the loudest at his actual jokes. I guess that works too, unless Zach wanted me to laugh specifically at the fact he was bombing. I'd hate to think I'm appreciating his video in the wrong way.

Based on his stand-up and his work on Saturday Night Live, I always gathered that Colin Quinn wanted to be seen as an everyman, the sort of guy you could have a beer with and watch a football game; somebody who wouldn't be offended if you swore or cracked an off-color joke. Whether or not this also made him funny is, like anything else, subjective, but his comedy show/gabfest on Comedy Central certainly had a unique approach, though I'm not certain I watched it because I enjoyed it, or because it followed The Daily Show and I wasn't really doing anything else at the time. The basic idea of the show is that Quinn and four comedians (some regulars, some guests) would talk about current events and what annoyed them. Quinn's theory was that comedians always told the truth and never held back, which is true, and it gave the show an edginess other shows didn't have. The reason the series didn't last, I feel, is that uninformed opinions, even in the guise of jokes, grow tiresome after awhile, and the novelty of the show wore off quickly. Once in awhile a more thoughtful comedian would appear on the show, but was typically shouted down by the regulars. That's fine, since it was a comedy show after all, but listening to five guys prattle on about subjects they know nothing about gets old no matter how you dress it up.