If I'd ever had the desire to watch a Mencia routine, I would've spotted that, too. "Himself" might've been the last time Cosby was funny.

Carlos Mencia = idiot

It's worth noting that such a routine could arise honestly. There's only so much stuff to write jokes about - "Hey, I made up that joke about airline food" only goes so far.

The pattern seems to be that the guy lifts material. But creativity is all borrowing, anyway - rearranging existing matter. This guy just isn't that creative about it. And I suspect that any comedian - if all his stuff were sifted through - could be accused of this kind of thing.

I would love to see a public showdown about this like on another sift with Joe Rogan.

If you ever hear Joe Rogan argue, he comes across as being very persuasive. On Penn Gillette's radio show he successfully defended the notion that the moon landing was a hoax on different occasions with nasa experts.

Ironically Penn did a Bullshit show about the moon landing.

Oh my. I heard that same P&T show and thought that Rogan came off as an ignorant dolt. All of the old arguments he trotted out were so tired and rehashed, they'd all been debunked like a billion times. it was just embarrasing to listen to....kind of like this clip.

Why is it in each and every one of these type of threads, one or two people defend mediocrity? Why??

Anyone who'd even dare to step on a stand-up stage would know Bill Cosby: Himself is a classic, so to steal from it, you'd either have to be extremely lazy or extremely stupid, and from the little I've seen of Mencia's act, he's both.

The guy is indeed mediocre, which equals death. There's no defense.

My point is that there are only a very few comics/authors/screenwriters/whatever that are entirely original. Almost none. All artists borrow - it's just that good ones do it creatively, adding their own twist which in effect makes something new. Mencia is lazy and a poor comic - but Rogan implies that there should be legal consequences. I can only see that happening if you steal a joke word for word. If you can't do a routine without exhaustively researching the history of comedy to make sure some else hasn't done something similar, God help us.

What's funny here is that even if Mencia did not intentionally bite Cosby's material -- which I sincerely doubt -- putting the two bits side-by-side shows just how awful a comedian Mencia is, and how great Cosby was. Cosby didn't have to scream, punch a stool, and say "bitch" to get the laugh, and he spent a full minute setting up the joke rather than rushing to the punchline in 30 seconds flat.

If you're gonna steal something, steal something that's your style. This joke was not his style.

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