I’m always grateful to anyone that will introduce me to a new comedian, a good movie, or great music. It’s a gift that lasts a lifetime.
Dennis Miller’s been around for a while, but if you’ve never seen his performance, in particular his early specials, you’re in for a treat.
Miller is as close as it gets to an intellectual comedian since the late Lenny Bruce, Mort Sahl, Nichols & May, or when Woody Allen did stand-up.
Miller’s machine-gun style of sub-text and obscure cultural allusions is breathtaking. At his best, he leaves you awe-struck at the flood of clever stuff that just pours out like a torrent. I’ll admit that some of his references leave me puzzled, being obscure media warhollian 15-second ephemera. But most of it is really funny: intellect, outrage, lethal satire. Maybe this is what Jonathan Swift was like with the Irish Baby bit.
Some of my favourites are “Dennis Miller: Mr. Miller Goes to Washington” (1988), and “Dennis Miller - Black and White” (1990). If you can’t find them at the video rental store, they’re worth buying. The “At the helm of the bobsled” routine almost had me apoplectic.
Miller did a few cameos in abominable movies (“Bordello of Blood”, 1996). He got his start as a smarmy newscaster in Saturday Night Live. But he’s at his best taking over the stage, skewering America with his trenchant observations, in the school of Ambrose Bierce. His language is occasionally coarse, but it is used in context, and not for mere shock effect.
He has had a successful regular show on HBO. Having to deliver weekly excellence is a lot of pressure, and he doesn’t always shine. His opening monologues (“rants”) are often bang on. His guest interviews are uneven, and his viewer phone-in segment is dumb. Still, beats most of what’s otherwise on the tube.
Another very funny man was Sam Kinnison. An iconoclastic, rabid little troll, he was nevertheless hysterical. He influenced Jim Carrey and Miller. Check out his Necrophiliac bit on VHS. His response to the Ethiopians: "Hey, we just drove 700 miles with your food and it occured to us that there wouldn't be world hunger -- if you people would LIVE where the FOOD is! You live in a...DESERT! Nothing grows here? Dammit, you see this? This is SAND...we have deserts in America, but we DON"T LIVE IN 'EM!" As a matter of fact I’m ordering “Sam Kinison: why did we laugh?” DVD from Amazon. For more info check out http://www.dvdverdict.com/reviews/samkinison.php.
Update as of May 2007: I withdraw my endorsement of the present-day Dennis Miller. His latest CD, "All In", panders to the Las Vegas audience with bigoted, chauvinistic wisecracks that insult the intelligence. His early stuff is still good.