For some reason, it was removed from youtube.

It's available on the website here.

>> ^bareboards2:

Huh? Uploader did what?

Here's the Episode with Larry David.

I'm just going to give my opinion here, mostly because George Carlin is my hero, and because I'm interested in the topic:

Regarding things being offensive:
There isn't any topic known anywhere to human kind that won't offend someone. Whether it's daisies or pancakes or pinwheels someone, somewhere, can be offended by it. I guarantee it. This is just my opinion, but I don't think that anyone has the right to 'not be offended.'

Regarding comedians:
People mostly don't seem to realize the importance of humor in all of our lives. Comedians play a very important role in the collective human community that cannot be replaced. They help us deal with parts of ourselves that would otherwise be unacceptable for us to even sometimes think about. Just like the court jester who might otherwise get himself beheaded if he were a normal person suggesting the king was fat. Almost all humor, successful or not, makes people feel uncomfortable. The very best humor makes people really uncomfortable. Laughter itself is a response to these same situations and events that we just have a little-bit of a hard time dealing with. I think this is why comedians, while onstage, are given a free pass. Even their televised specials get edited for content, but the only time a comedian gets kicked off stage in a club is when no one is laughing. What they're saying implies a lot more about the people laughing than it does about the comedian. Follow me?

And it's important to remember that most comedians are artists who are immersed in their material. Most have specific routines that are worked out over and over again, tweeking the tone and meter until they become almost meaningless to the comedians themselves. This is why you rarely see experienced comedians laughing at their own jokes, they've just heard them too many times. And even when they are performing improvisationally, like Tosh was during the event in question, they aren't saying things that they think are funny, specifically, they are saying things that they think the audience will find funny. It may seem like a small distinction, but it can make a big difference in understanding why some jokes are made. Some comedians have a style based on saying shocking, offensive things, and it's they're job. They are paid to make an audience laugh, and whether you like him or not, Tosh gets paid.

And the particular incident and joke:
This whole thing was brought up by a woman who was at a show and heard something she didn't like. She retorted back from the audience that rape isn't funny. To which Tosh retorted back that it would be funny if the woman was "raped by like five guys." Now, according to the woman, that made her actually fear for her safety and she got up and left. I'm not going to debate her sanity, if she really felt threatened, then that's terrible and I feel bad for her. But there are a few things that need to be pointed out here:

1: Tosh didn't threaten anyone. Had he said: "you five guys over there should rape this woman," it would not only be offensive to many people, but it also could have been perceived as a legitimate threat that, maybe, could have been pursued legally.

2: Hecklers are always dealt with harshly. And so should they be. Complain all you want about a person outside of a show but when you go to a comedy club, you have agreed that it's that person's time to talk. And so has everyone else who paid money to listen to them, not you. They're up there making a living, succeeding or failing at the expense of their own ass, not yours. It should be noted here that the woman said she left the room to the laughter of the entire audience.

3: You do not have the right to not be offended, especially if you are at a fucking comedy club. There was a pretty famous incident with Joan Rivers when she was joking about deaf people on stage, and a man in the audience stood up and started yelling at her because his daughter was deaf and he didn't find her jokes funny. Well, Joan Rivers responded that her own mother was deaf, and that she'd had to deal with that on her own terms. Comedy was something that helped her deal with that (because comedy is a useful tool) and if he didn't like it, he could go fuck himself. And that's the thing, you never know people's story. The girl at Tosh's show couldn't know Tosh's experience with rape, just like he couldn't know hers. And if you don't think people who've experienced a major tragedy can joke about the horrible events in their lives, I invite you to go watch some Bob Saget material. Humor is subjective. Saying you don't think something should be allowed because it's not funny, is exactly the same as saying something shouldn't be allowed because you don't think it's funny. Whatever it is, you can bet that someone out there finds it funny, even if it's nonsense.

Rape jokes are hardly ever funny. Even Carlin's few never got much of a laugh. But jokes are thoughts, and I'd really rather people stop trying to police thoughts. If someone finds a joke threatening, then deal with the threat, not the joke. And if someone finds a joke offensive, well...

Also, equating rape to diabetes is just moronic.


I'd put the order something like Holocaust > rape > diabetes in terms of offensiveness potential. And I think Holocaust jokes are just fine. I think that people making Holocaust, rape, pancake, diabetes, and "everything else" jokes is a positive thing for the world, even if most of those jokes have no particular insight. I don't think it matters whether a joke is good or insightful as to whether it's an "OK" thing to do.

If a comedian tells jokes I don't like, I think of that person as a bad comedian, not a bad person. Sounds like this guy did some poor material. I probably wouldn't go to his show. I don't want to hear poorly done rape jokes (as it sounds like these were). I'm 100% in favor of people sharing the type of comedy someone does - it helps people make good decisions on what they watch. But I don't think his intention was anything other than to entertain; from this I don't think we know anything about whether he's a bad person, just whether he's good at his job.

I think people should try not to be offended by things, and if they can't then they shouldn't go to comedy shows where jokes like this are likely to happen. Personally (and for personal reasons) I can't deal well with media that has violence against human infants (or even sick children). It affects me physically; I pretty much have to turn away. And I've heard arguments that movies and games and whatever shouldn't have violence against children. While I have no desire to see babies hurt in a game, I am 100% against any kind of ban (hard or otherwise). I shouldn't get to decide this for other people. Let people decide what to produce and what to watch.

We'll never agree on some set of "community standards" for what's acceptable in a comedy show - the best solution is just to publicize what kind of comedy a person does; then people can decide based on that whether it's a show they want to see and/or participate in.

You might as well add this to the death channel.

Notice the 3 cars.

Black, White, Black

He slams into the first one and when he starts turning only the one white and black car can be seen.

Because the first Black car was probably totally pancaked.

>> ^rich_magnet:

It's amazing how little damage the truck seemed to take. I guess it had a decent "crumple zone" in the front.
In this case, the "crumple zone" would be the two passenger cars it pancaked.


Vehicles with "crumple zones" take disproportionately large amounts of damage in order to absorb energy, so that less is transferred to the passenger compartment.

inb4 jokes about hoisin and pancakes.

*cooking

How about pizzas, pancakes, etc.?

>> ^PlayhousePals:

Bet you could flip a giant pancake with that! =oD


Now, you made me hungry.

Bet you could flip a giant pancake with that! =oD

uhmm... i have no idea what the hell is happening, where is my bunny with a pancake on his head?

Shouldn't have had that extra stack of pancakes at breakfast! =oD

60 dollar pancakes??? WTF

thanks!!
In reply to this comment by legacy0100:
*promote

In Soviet Russia this is how you make pancakes.