Jordan Zakarin

The VHS of Comedy

Back in New Jersey for the evening, I was talking to my 15-year old brother - he was watching immortal clips from Chappelle’s Show, which was way before his time - when I mentioned the comedy that widened my eyes and inspired me to pursue this horrible path: the Saturday Night Live cast of the late 80s to mid-90s.

I’m not sure why it shocked me, or even more so upset me, but Reece - born in 1995 - had no idea what I was talking about. He had never seen Wayne’s World (the most formative movie of my youth), he had “I think kinda” heard of Chris Farley (what?!) but had never seen Tommy Boy, only knew of Adam Sandler’s more recent and regrettable work, and knew David Spade from Joe Dirt.

Yikes.

These were the men that informed my burgeoning sense of humor in the late-90s; I would buy stacks of the “Best of” season recaps on VHS (!!!) and watch them over and over again, delighting in the Chris Farley Show, the Super Fans, Wayne’s World, Church Lady, Matt Foley (and his van down by the river), Hans and Franz, the Hyper Hypo and so many more.

He didn’t know shit about them. Anchorman, released in 2003, was reaching back in comedy to him.

Phil Hartman died before Reece was two years old. I watched him weekly on News Radio. Lord.

Aside from making me feel generations apart and depressingly old, I sat Reece down for the first of many old comedy lessons. My dad used to do this to me, force-feeding me Monty Python and John Belushi (of course, I wasn’t complaining), and now it was my turn to educate a comedy naif.

Beyond a fun reminiscence of all the great comedy that absolutely shaped my brain, there’s actually a kernel of an important lesson to be taken from this. I think the gaps between generations - and the problems they tend to cause, politically and socially - happen because opposing groups assume that the other understands their values and knows where they’re coming from.

Sure, this is just comedy, but it’s representative of something more. Dana Carvey played Ross Perot in some amazing sketches, but Reece had absolutely no idea who Perot was. He didn’t get the gag behind the Patrick Swayze-Chris Farley Chippendales sketch - it recalls Swayze’s Dirty Dancing “Time of my life” - because the movie came out six years before he was born and is a cultural relic.

At first, it blew my mind, because I was so well versed in these things, and we’re still ostensibly of the same generation (stretching brotherhood boundaries at nine years apart). But it makes sense, and I’m sure there are cultural things that he knows about that are flying right by me (and which I’d of course call stupid).

I spent tonight teaching Reece about all these great things that I loved, but most of his friends won’t get that, and will go on, leaving what are becoming fossils in their wake. We’re all talking past each other, assuming that our experiences are THE experiences, the most important and should-be standards for others. I guess that’s why progress is always such a struggle - we’re all worshipping different acts and screaming that other people just don’t get it.

We should all stay up late into the night and laugh, I think.

Notes

  1. jordansheartsucks posted this
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