Maybe we should consider some of the "Monica" joke writers for this
award if being funny and popular is all that really matters.  I do
enjoy  Pryor's comedy in some of this works, but not all.  Still, I do
not consider him anything like Mark Twain.  But who is?






Vern Crisler wrote:
>
> At 09:35 AM 10/28/98 -0500, Matthew Uzzle wrote:
> >Why are there so many conservative, sanctimonious individuals out there?
> >
> >Of course you should rent the video so that you can judge for yourself the
> >similarities between Pryor and Twain.  Having seen many of Pryor videos and
> >being very familiar with Twain, I fall short when trying to pinpoint
> >similarities.  Judged on each of their respective merits, both were genius
> >in their day and both are quite funny.
> >
> >
>
> Well, "conservative" and "sanctimonious" are not necessarily synonymous, and
> second, even if they were, the point you are making seems irrelevant to me
> since the discussion was whether the kind of raunchy "humor" practised by
> (say) Pryor is on the level with real humor, and moreover, even approaches
> Twain's literary and comic genius.
>
> In short, it has nothing to do with daintiness, but rather with quality.
> Being raunchy or dirty, or striking political attitudes in one's putative
> humor, does not entail that one is funny, or even ever will be.
>
> I also think that conservativism and a certain degree of "sanctity" ended up
> helping Twain's humor, so that he avoided for the most part writing too much
> of that silly and sophomoric kind of *1601* comedy.
>
> Regarding your second point, it's nice to hear someone remark on the lack of
> similarity between Twain's humor and Pryor's, and that each should be judged
> on their respective merits.  Which naturally leads to the question at issue
> on this somewhat unresponsive list.  Given the incongruity between Twain and
> Pryor, why was Pryor given the MARK TWAIN prize?  (A Rabelais prize would
> seem more appropriate, for instance.)
>
> I'm with those who think a MARK TWAIN prize should be awarded to those
> humorists who can span both the arena of stand-up comedy and also the arena
> of literary comedy -- with emphasis on the latter.  A prize geared more to
> stand up comedy makes it look as though Twain were just a funny man, a
> clown, a jester, a mere joker, and not a literary artist first and foremost.
>
> Sincerely,
>
> Vern
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