The Perfect Political Joke

What makes political comedy so difficult?

Creating good comedy is a challenge. Making good political comedy is even harder. But the most difficult thing? Writing a video essay about political comedy.

YouTube’s copyright gremlins have been all over this video, so the free version had to be censored a little bit. In fact, I had to wait for whoever owns the rights to PCU to release my video at all, under fair use. The video was done last week, but only just now became available publicly.

But paying subscribers are able to watch the complete version right here on Substack. So if you want an uncensored 20 minute dissection of a 15 second comedy bit, you know what to do…

Speaking of copyright,

Casey

and I just recorded the latest episode of Public Domain Theater—Nosferatu. We’ll post that in a few days.

In the meantime, if you find this video essay funny and insightful, please do hit the like button and share it. That really helps the discoverability on Substack.

Sources

Today’s video essay included clips from the following movies: Starship Troopers, Three Ages, Lion King, Finding Nemo, Zootopia, Joker, Rejected, Final Destination 5, Final Destination 3, Final Destination 2, Inside Out, The Dark Knight, The Seventh Seal, Fantasia, It, The Incredibles, Tropic Thunder, Robin Hood, The Hobbit, Am I Racist, Steve Jobs, Interstellar, PCU [see below], Die Hard, Spider-Man, A Man for All Seasons.

The essay also includes scenes from these shows: The Kids in the Hall, The Simpsons, The Dick Cavett Show, Talking Funny, Saturday Night Live, 60 Minutes, Borat’s Guide to the USA, Family Guy, 30 Rock, It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia, Rocky and Bullwinkle, Garfield and Friends.

And, of course, the most important source was Dan O’Shannon’s in-depth look at comedy, What Are You Laughing At?

Darth Vader for Vice President

Although I didn’t mention it in the video, I’ve tried my hand at political comedy. Some friends and I put together a presidential campaign for Emperor Palpatine, with Darth Vader as his vice president.

This was back during Obama’s second run, just… (checks calendar), twelve years ago?

College Days

I wasn’t kidding when I said PCU isn’t available anywhere. There was only one way for me to get the clips I needed.

Which is unfortunate, because it really is a beloved movie for a certain generation.

Vice even did a nice oral history of the PCU (from which I gleaned some of the anecdotes in the video).

I really thought college was going to be like this back in the 90s.

Further Viewing

Here’s some more entertaining videos that I couldn’t work into the video essay. After all, I showed some restraint and kept it under 20 minutes!

Weird, Al

I mentioned in the video that Weird Al usually avoids politics in his parodies. The last couple of election cycles, he has done auto-tuned satire of the presidential debates, but A) they weren’t parodies, and B) he still stuck to mostly “politics is crazy” without taking a side.

Reason-able Disagreement

In the essay, I pulled a brief clip from Reason Magazine’s YouTube channel to illustrate making fun of “both sides.” Here’s another recent one that just killed me—

On the flip side, here’s a fun video from Ryan George (of Pitch Meeting fame), doing the “neither side” thing—

Musical Mockery

I also pulled a clip from “Party in the CIA,” which might actually be my favorite Weird Al song. If you’ve never heard it, here’s the whole thing—

Reason also has a guy who does song parodies. This one isn’t even-handed in the slightest, but it’s super catchy—

And here he is making fun of security theater—

On the Offensive

Speaking of airport security, as I was researching this video, I found a scene from Friends that was cut after 9/11.

Similarly cut for fear of offending anyone, I don’t know how the following deleted scenes from Who’s Line is it Anyway got out, but I’m glad they did.

Comedian in Clips Getting Coffee

There were a few clips of comedians discussing their craft that I couldn’t fit into the video essay. In no particular order, here are John Mulaney, Bill Maher, and Norm Macdonald.