I go onstage and it's like I'm leading you into battle. You're not all going to be here at the end. — Doug Stanhope
Rolling Stone Magazine’s latest issue purports to be a comprehensive look at modern comedy, and yet I found it wanting because the name Doug Stanhope was nowhere to be found. There was a long salute to David Letterman; fawning over the incredibly hip Tina Fey and Judd Apatow; and some old time respect for Albert Brooks, Billy Crystal, and Don Rickles. There was even an analysis of some guy, who is so incredibly post-modern that he reproduces Garfield comic strips, minus Garfield.
Bill Hicks? One short mention in a grid describing him as the Lewis Black of 15 years ago.
Here’s the truth as I see it, Stanhope is the finest, most challenging stand-up alive, and the only real modern name worthy of being mentioned with the true risk takers of the genre, the guys that risked being strung up after nearly every early performance - Lenny Bruce, Richard Pryor, George Carlin, and Bill Hicks.
Stanhope can’t be judged by his reputation or his earlier material, and he certainly can’t be assessed by his ability to cash in as the next “hot” commodity. Here’s how he describes his only real mainstream televised outing. “There are still cultures in this world, like so removed from society, that in the Amazon there are still tribes that still believe … that the camera can steal your soul, which I always thought was ridiculous until I did The Man Show.”
Joe Rogan, Doug's fellow bad Man Show substitute for Jimmy Kimmel and Adam Carolla, then went on to make a ton of money hosting Fear Factor, while Stanhope wound up doing one Girls Gone Wild commercial that to his horror was played on six cable stations every night from 2 am to 5 am for what must have seemed to Stanhope to be the next forty years. Could this career have gone any worse?
Stanhope then had to watch FOX News report the arrest and jailing of Girls Gone Wild CEO Joe Francis, while playing video clips of Stanhope’s commercials in the background, likely inducing a good two thirds of the country into believing that it was Stanhope who was the one going to prison.
"I wasn't the guy who committed the rape. I was just the one who was paid to make the rape funny."
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Article comments
1 - Matthew T. Sussman
"Media darling Bill Maher, essentially, stole Stanhope’s joke and made it palatable for human consumption"
Or maybe just better and funnier.
"Stanhope is funny enough to be Dane Cook"
That's not a compliment in any of the lower 48 states.
"but his only real goal is to be an absolutely honest, gutsy stand-up, who says exactly what he thinks"
Yes, because in this crazy, YouTube, unfiltered-thought, 4chan world, what we need more of in this society is people who tell us what they really think! Even if it's not funny!
2 - Brad Laidman
My point about Cook is that if Stanhope wanted to go mainstream and beg for success like Cook by doing Burger King routines he could.
He's hilarious nonetheless.
Maher still both stole the bit and used to more to be silly and avoid the real issue, which is abortion. Stanhope will be just as hilarious on stage about this when he chooses to. His original intent was more of a heartfelt controversial jab.
3 - o hai!
Bill Maher has never been funny, never.
He's a sourpuss, and a self-important douche. I worked with him for years and the only way to get him to do anything rruly funny you would have to trick him into thinking it was either his idea or that something he said was the inspiration for it.
One of his browbeaten lackeys probably stole the idea and wrapped it into some sort of "What about Levi?" discussion.
Stanhope never has said anything bad about Bill, but Bill has always had a hard-on for Doug for some unknown reason.
4 - Derek
Great blog. I would agree with you 100%. Stanhope is one of my all-time favourite comedians and it's a shame such genius is overlooked. When a guy like this is playing in dirt-clubs while a hack-thief like Dane cook sells out Maison Square Garden, you know there is something majorly wrong with the majority of the population.
5 - Merkin Muffley
I think he can still make it big. Guys like Jim Jeffries, Jim Norton and other are hitting in big and Stanhope is from the same strain as those guys.
6 - Brunelleschi
Great article.
Stanhope rules! It's libertarian. in-your-face, from-the-gut.
He needs to keep scaring people out of their chairs.
7 - Nick Carefoot
My theory on Stanhope is that his real mainstream popularity will be posthumous or in his description post-humorous.