One nice thing about the Web is that you can just watch the funny parts of Saturday Night Live, no commercials, no bleeping.
7:46 am, December 22, 2006 -- 13 comments
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“Dick” is still considered profane enough to bleep? America is still so puritan. Especially compared to, say, the UK, where they freely say “fucking cunt” in the Office and it’s not given a moment’s notice.
If you make profanity special, then people will keep on making a big deal about it, and it loses any artistic merit that it could have ever had, and you end up with stuff like “my dick in a box” being seen as cutting-edge humor.
I like to think that the Web will cut into that “if it’s profane, it must be funny” approach. I think it’s interesting that much of Adult Swim still has that “hee hee look what we’re getting away with” feel, while the most popular webcomics are relatively tame. Even Penny Arcade, which is no stranger to the swear, doesn’t give me the sense that they’re trying to push limits, because there are no limits to push.
Having said that, I like Dick in a Box because it’s amusingly immature. I’m certainly not shocked by the use of the word “dick” (in fact, it took me a moment to realize that the censored part would be the word itself) but the idea of wrapping your dick up in a pretty little box and presenting it to your girlfriend amuses the less intellectual parts of my brain, and the idea, on top of that, of a slow love song about how a dick in a box is much more romantic than a diamond ring, well, that’s funny to me.
Am I the only one who thought that it should have been “cock in a box”? “Cock” is just inherently a more funny word than “dick”. I think I read that in a New Yorker article.
Huh, I watched the bleeped version and thought it was Cock in a Box. Which is actually a funnier phrase.
Speaking of dicks, a conservative group is objecting to the uncensored net version:
http://www.comcast.net/entertainment/index.jsp?fn=2006/12/22/231122.html
I can understand their concern. The word “dick” can cause good god-faring, prayer-saying youngsters into habitual masturbators, drug addicts, and San Francisco liberals.
Not really up on FCC regulations and stuff, but from the usages I’ve heard on a local radio morning show crew (Frank Show in Tucson & Reno), it seems that “dick” is acceptable to use if it doesn’t refer to a part of a man’s anatomy. I’ve heard them many times them say “don’t be such a dick” on the air. I don’t think they are allowed to attach head to it though.
Obviously in that clip they are refering to a litteral dick in a box. I agree with Lore’s statement about the “if it’s profane, it must be funny” aspect of the clip. Most of the the time though, I’ve been a bit put off by that stuff. Maybe it is because I see it relied upon so many times. Even more of the “its not funny, so we need to add bad words” thought that I figure must have gone through the creator’s minds.
Maybe I’m just jaded or maybe it was the quantity that it gets used that makes me saddened. I just felt that the punchline was reached at the 55 second mark when he first said the tag line and realized how much more there was left.
Of course, I don’t seem to mind the ocasional ‘cockbite’ from Rooster Teeth and “godless couch fuck” brings a smile to my face as well. I guess I like quality over quantity in the ‘mature’ language in my online amusement.
Was that Justin Timberlake?
Also, for years I thought it was “Godless Couch Slug”. But it’s funny either way.
For what it’s worth, I think it would be just as amusing if it were “my penis in a box” only a bit lyrically clunky. Frankly, the word ‘penis’ is more giggle-worthy to me than ‘dick’.
My sense of humor peaked when I was 13, what can I say.
Something happens to Justin Timberlake when he’s on SNL; he transforms from that over-produced, annoyingly quasi-funky pop singer to a funny, not-taking-myself-too-seriously comedian-singer (see “Dick In a Box” and the “Barry Gibb Talk Show”). I think it has something to do with allowing the writers to do with you what they will, rather than limiting your singing/acting to situations that make you look good.
Um, and that wasn’t even the funniest bit on that SNL. I have no clue whether it is on the web, but “Hip Hop Kids” was much more amusing, in my opinion.
Long-term, mind, the fiercely excellent performance of “My Love” is what is going to be remembered, should there ever be a one-segment per episode SNL thing. My guess is that T-Lake sold as many more copies of his album as Gwen Stefani did a couple of years ago when she did her incredible “Hollaback Girl” for the first time in a performance way.
Yep, I have to agree that the internet has pushed the limits of profane humour as far as it will go, and instead people have to focus on making things actually funny instead of profane (expect to see the Wayans brothers selling pens on the street soon).
Example: SexyLosers – a dead webcomic that was notable for being perverted in the extreme, but consistently funny because the filth was the medium, not the punchline.
My favorite part is the fact that the girlfriends look so totally into it.
The funniest part of that skit was the parody of early 90s R&B videos. They got it dead on, although maybe a little more soft-focus close-ups were called for.
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