Monday, May 17, 2004

Canonical Rant - On the basis of funny impersonations

Impersonations are extremely not funny, neither in concept nor in practice. Despite this undeniable truth, comedians and neighbors will persist on doing them anyway. Normally they just make the impersonator look Foolish and racist but people keep doing them like puns or limericks but without the witty humor or complex patterns.

Why?

Because people laugh at impersonations regardless of quality. Its the surest example of "'A' for effort"

Based on this, I stopped putting effort into impersonations. In fact, the best impersonations sound exactly nothing like the person whom is being mimicked, but you are using your "kooky" voice or for the "I'm-so-Stephen-Wright-that-I-have-a-package-of-instant-water-but-don't-know-what-to-add-to-it-ba-bump-bump" crowd, your laconic voice.

The Canonical Example



Is from The Good Life, the highly unsuccessful show that launched the moderately successful career of DrewCarey and proved that just because you are the son of a semi-famous sociologist doesn't mean that everything you do for TV will mean that you will have great writing gigs (John Martin was also a writer for "Homeboys from Outer Space"), and it goes like this:

Sean Connery and Tom Jones Having Breakfast


"Hello Sean"

"Hello Tom"

"Would you pass the Orange Juice"

"Yes, of course"

"Too late or still too soon too soon to make lots of bad love and there's no time for sorrow. Run around, run around with a hole in your head 'til tomorrow."
-----They Might Be Giants