There was a time when comedy clubs allowed jokes about anything under the sun, whether that was race or religion, but today, a lot of these comedians would be canceled.
Don Rickles
Don Rickles didn’t need to wait for a heckler to start picking on the audience. He’d spot someone and guess their background, then start making comments about them. Their face, their date, their clothes, anything went, really.
Fame didn’t stop him, either, since he was happy to make comments about people like Frank Sinatra and Ronald Reagan, too. He’d make jokes about all sorts of sensitive topics, like ethnic stereotypes and religion, too. He definitely wouldn’t get away with that today.
Bernard Manning
Careful hints didn’t really exist for Bernard Manning’s act, as he was the kind of guy to say the rude part out loud. It didn’t matter whether he was joking about black people or white people, men or women, basically everybody under the sun got a jab.
Manning often said that insulting everyone made it fair, although there were some people who disagreed even back then. Still, at least he had a chance to make those jokes. There’s no way an unedited version of his routine would fly nowadays.
Joan Rivers
Most people would change the subject when it came to things like suicide or the Holocaust. Not Joan Rivers. There was no such thing as off-limits with her, not aging, not illness, nothing. One of her most infamous jokes involved her comparing Heidi Klum’s dress to Nazis sending Jews into ovens.
She did get some criticism back then, but Rivers refused to apologize. She was someone who lost relatives in the Holocaust, after all, so Rivers argued that she had a right to make jokes. Making that sort of joke on a daytime show now would get her immediately canceled.
Richard Pryor
Several people arguing inside one body, that’s how Richard Pryor did his comedy routines. He’d switch voices and play all sorts of people, including cops and addicts, along with criminals and racists. He wasn’t afraid to make jokes using slurs, either.
It’s not like he was throwing around any of these words casually or anything, but still, he did use them. Some comedians try to copy his style today. They never go all the way, though, because they know it wouldn’t go down well.
Lenny Bruce
There were times when police officers would wait inside clubs while Lenny Bruce performed. That tells you how outrageous he was. Yes, he spoke pretty matter-of-factly about things like sex, homosexuality, drugs, and religion. It sure ruffled a few feathers.
He was even convicted of obscenity in 1964 because his jokes were that shocking. Bruce didn’t let that stop him, though. You won’t find many comedians in the modern age willing to break the law like Lenny Bruce did, he was that out there.
Redd Foxx
Redd Foxx’s real name was John Elroy Sanford, and he used to sell comedy records as adult entertainment. He became so popular that stores would sometimes keep these ‘party records’ behind the counter, as his routines were openly sexual. Radio stations wouldn’t touch them.
But even NBC couldn’t deny how hilarious he was, and they made him into a sitcom star. He did clean up his act a bit for TV. Still, his earlier material would never fit onto a family schedule now, and advertisers definitely wouldn’t work with someone so controversial. What a shame.
Paul Mooney
Paul Mooney had a way of making some audience members feel like they’d walked into the wrong meeting. At least, that’s how it was if they were white, he was a black comedian who took no hostages. His stand-up film Analyzing White America spoke about race pretty openly.
Mooney was able to control the room because he made it clear what kind of comic he was. He was open and he was direct. Those are two things a lot of comedians are sadly missing today in their routines.
Patrice O’Neal
Here’s the thing about relationships. Patrice O’Neal’s version of them treated them more like a long negotiation where both sides suspected a trick, rather than something romantic. Cheating, monogamy, sex, he’d joke about them all.
A lot of people today would probably see his takes as being too harsh. But that was kind of the point. He’d circle an idea for ten minutes and keep adjusting it until it hit. In the modern world, though, those same bits would get chopped into twenty seconds and sound way colder.Â
Gilbert Gottfried
Everyone knows how serious 9/11 was. Everyone except Gilbert Gottfried, apparently, because he made a pretty poor joke three weeks after the September 11 attacks. He opened a roast by saying his flight had to stop at the Empire State Building. Ouch.
The room booed, because of course they did. Gottfried then began an outrageously filthy version of ‘The Aristocrats’ and managed to win the audience back. It was such a very Gilbert Gottfried thing to happen. There’s no way anybody would be so daring today.
George Carlin
Seven words. That’s all George Carlin once used to make an entire comedy routine, just seven words, and it ended up causing an argument that reached the U.S. Supreme Court. It all started when a New York radio station aired one of his bits in 1973. A listener complained.
The result was an FCC case that set limits on indecent broadcasting when children might be listening. So yes, Carlin was so shocking that he managed to scare broadcasters back then. Just imagine what’d happen if he had tried that in the modern era.
Jackie Mason
There was something so impressive about how Jackie Mason could move from Jewish mothers to Italian families, and from Irish drinking to women, without taking much of a breath. A lot of that has to do with his own Jewish background.
It gave him the space to mock things about Jewish people, including Jewish anxiety and family habits. He didn’t stop with his own community, however, he just kept going. Post a single one of his clips online today, and it’d sound way meaner.
Buddy Hackett
Buddy Hackett had two versions of himself that he showed in public, and that’s part of what made his comedy work. He was cheerful and silly in movies, but in Las Vegas, not so much. His nightclub stories would cover all sorts of taboo topics.
He’d use language that network censors would never have approved. Yet the split worked because casino audiences and family audiences would stay in separate rooms. You couldn’t do that today.
Rodney Dangerfield
Rodney Dangerfield was another kind of guy who refused to take marriage seriously in his routines. He’d make jokes about how his wife cheated on him and mocked him. He’d make audiences laugh about how she avoided sleeping with him, too.
But then he’d turn around and make himself the butt of his jokes. He’d turn himself into the bigger loser, so that while his wife sounded awful, Rodney still came away looking worse. That was the joke. A lot of audiences today wouldn’t stick around to get to that point, though.
Bernie Mac
Family networks wouldn’t exactly rush to put the line ‘I’m gonna beat your head till the white meat shows’ on TV. That’s how Bernie Mac spoke, though, he’d use threats like that while describing life with his sister’s children in The Original Kings of Comedy.
It was a routine that was as exaggerated as it was loud. The absurdity of it all is part of the reason that Bernie Mac was so funny, but he wouldn’t get away with being so satirical on TV these days.
Freddie Starr
Freddie Starr was a star from over the pond who could be singing one minute, but the next, he’d be pulling a face and throwing on a costume. He’d start using accents that’d make modern television producers feel absolutely terrified.
He wouldn’t get an opportunity to make some of his famous jokes today, unfortunately. His impressions of other people would become an entire story before Starr even reached the next costume.
Sources: Please see here for a complete listing of all sources that were consulted in the preparation of this article.
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