Andrew Dice Clay or Sam Kinison .
who’s the better comic .
just wondering.
Sam, but only by a margin of one trillion percent.
I still laugh at Kinison’s “move where the food is!!!” bit from decades ago, as cruel as it was. Can’t think of a ‘Diceman’ routine that affected me similarly, though his early 90s heyday coincided with the peak of my “anything popular sucks” period.
For what it’s worth, Doug Stanhope’s “Before Turning The Gun on Himself…” album just helped me through a brutal drive across hundreds of miles of ice-blasted interstate highway. For sheer venomousness, that fella is hard to beat.
I thought Clay was a comedic genius . . . when I was 12. Then 10 years later, remembering how great I thought he was, I rented a video . . . yeah, it was not good. And he’s gone nowhere with his career since then. He does all the same horrible jokes. They’re just as unfunny, but with the added bonus of having been heard a million times. And when he performs there’s a bunch of goomba guido morons who shout out the jokes in stereo at the same time. It’s basically my vision of Hell.
I can’t say that Sam, had he lived, would be much better in 2015, but that’s the upside of getting killed in your prime is no one gets to see you bottom out.
I’m going with Dice just because I’m more familiar with more of his jokes When I was 13 or 14 Adventures of Ford Fairlane was the greatest. Dice was my first intro to shock humor. Although, I agree with Gunnar in that his career pretty much stalled after 1990, and his current routines are completely unfunny.
I’m not trashing Kinison. Just not really familiar with much of his stand-up. there definitely is something to be said for a former preacher turned hellion and embraced a life of debauchery. only to die during his prime… smiting anyone?
People only think Kinison is a genius now because he’s dead.
I saw Sam live back in the 80s…it was quite an experience…I like both guys but neither are my favorite…
People only think Kinison is a genius now because he’s dead.
True.
I don’t know how much longer he could have succeeded with the same Schtick. In truth, most of us know him because of one or two key performances which were about 5-10 minutes long. The Dice-mania was certainly a thing of the times. It came at a time when it was new, shocking, controversial, and different. Now it’s just tired.
I could say the same for Lenny Bruce. People laid him universally as some avant garde champion of the edgy and taboo. But have any of you listened to him? Holy crap. Boooorrrrriiinnnggg!!!
I will try to watch some clips with Dice and Sam and give them a fairer head to head, because dying at your peek really is the unblockable Hadouken.
I gave them both a side-by-side comparison using their break-through appearances on “Dangerfields” (I’d forgotten that they had BOTH gotten their big break on the same show).
They both developed an iconic schtick, but I do think that Sam would have been able to change and grow with his material a lot better than Dice. Dice came on the scene doing dumb dirty nursery rhymes (which were funny). 5 years later he was doing the same thing. 25 years later . . . . he’s still doing the same thing.
SAM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OPW8NJzMOqw
DICE
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BWzI_Wn0ZwM
The persona Dice created at that time was pretty cool. And a lot of my disdain for the guy now is that he’s such an uncomfortable buffoon. He thinks he’s the character he created and it’s bizarre and weird, and not fun.
Watch this . . . it’s very awkward. Dice on the Tom Green show:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wm4uxL4M4eU
Dice…He thinks he’s the character he created and it’s bizarre and weird, and not fun.
Howard stern wrote the same thing in one of his books in the mid 90’s. He said it was really uncomfortable being around him.
[reply]People only think Kinison is a genius now because he’s dead.
True.
I don’t know how much longer he could have succeeded with the same Schtick. In truth, most of us know him because of one or two key performances which were about 5-10 minutes long. The Dice-mania was certainly a thing of the times. It came at a time when it was new, shocking, controversial, and different. Now it’s just tired.
I could say the same for Lenny Bruce. People laid him universally as some avant garde champion of the edgy and taboo. But have any of you listened to him? Holy crap. Boooorrrrriiinnnggg!!!
I will try to watch some clips with Dice and Sam and give them a fairer head to head, because dying at your peek really is the unblockable Hadouken.[/reply]
I couldn’t agree more about Lenny Bruce…talk about a cure for insomnia…the guy is held in such high regard as this cultural icon and I just don’t get it…
[reply][reply]People only think Kinison is a genius now because he’s dead.
True.
I don’t know how much longer he could have succeeded with the same Schtick. In truth, most of us know him because of one or two key performances which were about 5-10 minutes long. The Dice-mania was certainly a thing of the times. It came at a time when it was new, shocking, controversial, and different. Now it’s just tired.
I could say the same for Lenny Bruce. People laid him universally as some avant garde champion of the edgy and taboo. But have any of you listened to him? Holy crap. Boooorrrrriiinnnggg!!!
I will try to watch some clips with Dice and Sam and give them a fairer head to head, because dying at your peek really is the unblockable Hadouken.[/reply]
I couldn’t agree more about Lenny Bruce…talk about a cure for insomnia…the guy is held in such high regard as this cultural icon and I just don’t get it…[/reply]
Its because he said “cocksucker” in one of his routines and got arrested for it numerous times. He is the reason comics are allowed to swear. Its not so much his comedy its what he did for comedy. He was also one of the first topical comics i imagine jon stewart and any other topical comics wont be as funny soon as 60 years pass. Same reason why the “news” on snl isnt really funny anymore either after some time passes
Yeah,I get that but as far as his routine went it was just coma-inducing…sooooo boring…
Yeah,I get that but as far as his routine went it was just coma-inducing…sooooo boring…
It’s really funny. I just know that so many people that use him as a reference point have never actually heard his stuff. Hey, I was just as guilty. No, I never went around praising the guy or anything, but when topics about edgy and ground-breaking comics and such came up Lenny Bruce would invariably get put up and since hardly anyone had actually heard his stuff we’d all just kind of nod . . . “Well, yeah, I mean, you know . . . Lenny Bruce . . .of course!”
It really wasn’t until just a couple years ago (thank you, YouTube, for making all this possible) that I made the decision to go actively into his stuff to see what it was all about.
Yikes. Like Queer said . . . more effective at putting you to sleep than a bottle of Valium with a bottle of NyQuil as a chaser.
But, going back 45 years . . . . let’s also remember that “Midnight Cowboy” was RATED X when it came out. 99% of it could be aired on daytime network TV now (certainly less shocking or harmful than 10 minutes of Maury Povich).
Re: the ‘having one’s career saved by death,’ I sometimes wonder what the careers of universally acclaimed comics like Bill Hicks would be like if they didn’t die young.
Particularly when you get tagged as an “extreme” artist of any kind, audiences are going to expect ever more intense deliveries of shock, and it’s a rare person who can make that their m.o. for a decades-spanning career. I have a feeling even someone with the energy of Bill Hicks would eventually falter in that role, and get an ever-growing number of disappointed audience members constantly expecting another rant along the lines of his “Hitler was an under-achiever” bit.
A very extreme case, I know, but I have had many speculative conversations on how GG Allin’s career would have progressed if he’d not died.
A very extreme case, I know, but I have had many speculative conversations on how GG Allin’s career would have progressed if he’d not died.
I think that, if he finally started doing just whatever he wanted musically and easing up on the self-immolating aspects of his performance, he’d probably be slain at the hands of a “fan.”
If someone felt it worth their while to kill Dimebag Darrell onstage, I wouldn’t put it beyond some of GG’s following to feel similarly ‘betrayed’ and murder him in some gruesome way.
Interesting theory. I found it sad to watch a number of later performances when people are basically screaming for him to cut himself up and eat shit and stuff. It’s hard to explain. It just felt so . . . empty.
HAHAHHAHAA!!!
I love Dice’s performance here.
Seriously, I wish more people were like him in this clip.
i fuckin love Dice