The Last Laugh ?

A couple of nights ago my wife and I watched a documentary on Netflix about Don Rickles.  It was directed by the legendary John Landis (Animal House) in 2007.

Why did we watch?  Because with all the crap that’s going on we just needed to laugh.

Rickles was a comedy superstar with a unique style and delivery.  He had disdain for everyone.  Johnny Carson had him on the Tonight Show more than a hundred times.  He dared to rip Frank Sinatra and Sinatra laughed his ass off.

Midway through the doc, we looked at each other and asked would Rickles have survived as a comedian in 2022?  Would he have been banished from every stage in America?  Would he have fallen victim to the “c” word?

Why do I ask? Because Mr. Warmth made fun of people, and today that’s verboten.

He made fun of their ethnicities, their accents, their weight. He made fun of whatever would get him a laugh.  All Italians were mobsters, all Jews were old and cheap, all Latinos were Puerto Ricans and all Asians owned Chinese restaurants.  Hell, he even made fun of President Ronald Reagan’s age at his second inauguration!  Webster introduced Rickles…do you think this would fly today?

As Jimmy Kimmel said on his show the night Rickles died at 90 years old, he made fun of the vegetable platter in his dressing room.

Just last year, Dave Chappelle’s jokes got him canceled by the LGBTQ community, GLAAD and the Black Justice Coalition.  The “trans community” heaped tons of pressure on Netflix to pull his special.  I don’t think Chappelle is as funny as Rickles, and that’s probably a generational thing. But kudos to Chappelle for standing his ground and to Netflix for backing him up.

Chris Rock says TV shows aren’t funny anymore because “everybody’s scared to make a move.”  Would All in the Family get green lighted today? Remember Archie’s son-in-law, that dumb meathead Pollack?
What about The Office and consistently offensive Michael  Scott? Not a chance.  These just weren’t goofy sitcoms like My Mother the Car.  We’re talking about groundbreaking and historic TV shows.

So the other night, even though in today’s pc culture it clearly is NOT pc, we laughed when Rickles rolled his eyes at a middle-aged and overweight woman, we laughed when he told a Japanese fan he spent three years in the jungle during World War 2 looking for the guy’s father and we laughed when he ridiculed Sammy Davis Jr. for being Black and Jewish.

Does that make us misogynists and bigots?

Rickles said; “I make fun of everybody, that’s America.”

Well Don, it was. Sadly America has lost its sense of humor.