The Aristocrats

So I rented the movie The Aristocrats last night.

The fact that this movie managed to get an NC-17 rating, in spite of having no violence, no sex, and no nudity should tell you something.

Basically, this movie is a documentary of a joke. A joke known as "The Aristocrats" (surprise, surprise). It's a joke which is never told in front of an audience, but has nevertheless been deeply rooted in the consciousness of stand-up comedy.

The joke begins in pretty much the same way: a family walks into a talent agent's office plugging a new act. The punchline is: "wow, that's a hell of an act," the talent agent says, "what do you call it?" The Father replies: "The Aristocrats."

Now, on the face of it, this might not seem very funny, but in between the opening lines and the punch line, they can, and do, put just about anything their warped minds can dream up. We're talking everything from simply crude, to vile, to downright disgusting. As Paul Reiser put it in the film, "I believe in some countries you can be put to death for what goes on in the most tame versions of this joke."

Basically, you shift from laughing so hard you can't breathe, to looking at the screen in complete shock that the comedian they happen to be showing actually just said what you think they said.

And as one who watched Full House in his youth, I will never look at Bob Saget the same way again.

The cast is, in a word, phenomenal. They got over a hundred very famous comedians; George Carlin, Drew Carey (who has the coolest name of all the comedians they got), Hank Azaria, Tim Conway, Carrie Fisher (I will never look at Star Wars the same way either), Matt Stone and Trey Parker, Whoopie Goldberg, Eric Idle, The staff of The Onion, Kevin Nealon, Gilbert Godfreid (who, hands down, gave the single funniest rendition of the joke), Paul Reiser, Chris Rock, The Smothers Brothers, Penn and Teller (The former was actually one of the producers of the film), Jason Alexander... The list literally goes on and on, but I can't remember most of the others. Like I said, they got over a hundred comedians for this thing.

I have here a link to the South Park version of the joke. Be advised, this file is probably not something you should watch at work, and should not be viewed by anyone with delicate tastes. You have been warned.

Definitely worth seeing.