Guy walks into a bar … actually, it was a screening room, and he walked out with a big smile on his face, having spent the better part of 86 minutes busting a gut while some of the fun-niest people on the planet deconstructed and delivered variant versions of “The Aristocrats,” the world’s most ribald joke. The brainchild of comedians Paul Provenza and Penn Jillette (of Penn & Teller fame), “The Aristocrats” is a celebration of the comedic craft featuring the very biggest names in the business — George Carlin, Chris Rock, Whoopi Goldberg, Drew Carey and Robin Williams among them.
The joke itself is a sort of secret handshake among stand-ups that has been around for ages yet is rarely performed in public. It begins with a family pitching an act to a talent agent and ends with the punchline for which the film is named. What comes in between is a blank canvas that the teller fills in with all manner of fecal matter, incest, bestiality, obscenity and violence. The film was shot at various locales — dressing rooms, TV sets, hallways — on consumer cameras without the benefit of elaborate lighting set-ups and sound equipment, and it has a definite afterhours, locker room feel to it. We’re seeing these people in their element, letting loose in a way one imagines they might when the cameras are off and they’re amongst friends. Not only are the world’s biggest comics letting us in on the joke, they’re providing a clinic on technique and style. Highlights come from some unlikely sources, including Bob Saget, Howie Mandel and especially Gilbert Gottfried, whose hilarious rendition of the joke at a Friars Club banquet just weeks after the 9-11 tragedy literally had people rolling on the floor. (Not rated. Running time: 86 minutes)
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on July 29, 2005. Read the original PDF.