Comedy Week II: Surfing the Transgressive: Why's Louie Less Lucky Than Sarah?

Psssst. So, did you hear?

Sarah banged God.

You heard me.

For real.

In the season finale of her eponymously named Sarah Silverman Program, whose finale aired on Comedy Central last week (it will follow in Canada in about 4 weeks,) everyone’s favorite trash talking sexy Jewish girl got it on with the man upstairs, then tried to get rid of him in the morning when he got all clingy.

After greeting God, (who was black, of course) as “God’s black friend,” Silverman pulled the age-old sucking the thumb as sexy come on trick to get God to be ‘into her.’

It’s actually really hard for me, even as a Catholic, to do justice to this stuff. You know what? I need to turn to the professionals.

Tere’s no one more diligent in cataloguing the many transgressions than the Parents’ Television Council. Let’s hear it for them, folks. They provide this stuff to get their side outraged about the filth that anyone can see on television, (which, besides miscegenation and illicit sex, could lead to dancing.) Though they mean it to fire up their base, I’m hoping that reading it you can see the funny for yourself. In any case, the synopsis of the content in the last episode of THE SARAH SILVERMAN PROGRAM is brought to you by them:

God and Sarah copulate.

God: "You're a little monkey aren't you? Who made your monkey? Who made you?"

Sarah: "You did."

(Editor’s note: Oh SNAP – what is more offensive to the PTC here, the fact that she just slept with God or that while sleeping with God she surreptitiously declares support for evolutionary theory? Mmm. I feel warm inside like tollhouse cookies.)

Sarah rejects God the morning after their tryst.

God: "I had a really good time. A really, really good time."

Sarah: "Thanks. Me too."

God: "Come to Heaven with me today."

Sarah: "Today?"

God: "We can see the past and the future. We can fly. And I will introduce you to Thomas Jefferson."

Sarah: "Oh, awesome. I told my friend Natalie I would help her move, though."

God: "I could stop time."

Sarah: "That is so sweet. Oh your pants are over there. I mean not like I'm asking you to leave. I just mean if you can't see it from this angle of still being in my bed."

God: "Right. I should go."

Sarah: "Okay. Um. Alright. I guess I'll see you around sometime."

God: "Do you mean it? Or are you just saying that?"

Sarah seeks help from God.

Sarah: "I learned that people in wheelchairs are allowed to have marathons, which to me seems like cheating, but what are you going to say? And I learned that You exist, and that You're black. And I think that's amazing. I mean I'm not one of those people that are like 'Oh, God is black, is he going to steal the moon or something?' And finally I learned that giving is its own reward. Which is really kinda like saying there's no reward for giving. Unless you're really into the process of giving, and that's a reward to you. But how many people, I don't know. Can you meet me half way? You're kinda breaking my balls."

That doesn’t even get into the climactic bit where God tries to get back with Sarah by pretending to be her father and manipulating those feelings she has about the old man’s approval into…

I can’t go on.

The eagle-eyed who may have watched the program probably would have cottoned onto the fact that this "season finale" was most likely actually the original pilot for the program. (Tipoff: the relationship between Sarah's sister and the cop is yet to be established, and the Gay friends don't yet have their personas down.)

What was funny about that was that I found this ep far and away the funniest of the series. Now don't get me wrong. Like every geek accredited, hetero-identified male with an interest in comedy, I'm somewhat devoted to Sarah Silverman. Yes the fact that she's hawt doesn't hurt...nor does the fact that she nails Jimmy Kimmel (Oh My God, think men across North America. He's hideous! All I have to do is get a talk show and she's mine.)

But the series so far has been the edge of her act -- the pretty girl who says transgressive things. I was looking for teeth. She's cruel and solipsistic and insensitive, but where was the real transgressive comic guts?

Well, sleeping with God? Then trying to brush him off? Okay, Sarah. I'll give you that one.

The truth is that I'm one of those tired old people who believes that comedy is at its best when it's making you uncomfortable. When it deals with things that you simply cannot talk about any other way, because it hurts so much to do so. (Wow, I really do use the italics a lot. Motherfucking commenters!)

I believe that racially, America is further apart today because the black comics play to their niche, and the whites to their own. For all the talk of the hood and the gangsta lifestyle, there is no incendiary force like Richard Pryor (or, don't laugh, in his time) Bill Cosby out there insisting that you pay attention and listen. For all the good Tyler Perry has done for his community, I don't believe whitey feels too bad for having largely taken a pass on Madea.

Whereas, once upon a time, if you didn't know Pryor back to front? You were over as a comic hipster, my man.

So let's take away the marketing pull of the hot Hebrew babe and look at another comedy experiment that crashed and burned in 2006, now lovingly preserved forever on DVD.

Lucky Louie divided people from the start. The HBO show wasn't cuddly like Entourage. It wasn't hooky like Six Feet Under. It was foul and a bit mangy. There were drugs and sex and jokes about killing your wife and masturbating in the closet. They didn't go over too well.

Louis C.K. has been plying the comedy trenches for twenty years. He is not sexy. He's a redhead goofus. But in 2006 he did an amazing thing. He went old school for a sitcom -- a show that not only was filmed in front of a studio audience, but which featured minimalist sets, just like the old days of The Honeymooners. This was his intent. (And in case you didn't get it, the pilot opens with a long version of a classic, "Why?" bit. Though somehow I doubt that in vaudeville days, this ever ended with "Because God is Dead."

Lucky Louie's target was the minefield of the lower middle class marriage. It was not the impossible ideal of Friends, where six marginal people all managed to hang out in an apartment that would cost 3500 a month. In Lucky Louie, there was never enough money. Your wife was pissed at you because she worked more. You worked part time and took care of your kid and felt trapped. And that kid? Sure she was cute, but you also weren't interested in showing her to be a cute kid. More often than not, in the way of little kids, she was a monster.

Lucky Louie was about what happens to a lot of us; when we realize that our dreams aren't going to happen and this life that we have is about as good as it's going to get and somehow, that kind of sucks.

Lucky Louie, unlike The Sarah Silverman Program, didn't hide behind the veneer of irony or an outsized character. Louie was not noble. His wife, Kim (played by Pamela Adlon, the voice of Bobby on King of the Hill) was adorable, but also kind of a pill who caused as much trouble as she solved. This is not a show about how the wife is always right. But it is a show about how, sometimes, relationships hide uncomfortable truths.

The episode where Louie calls his wife an unmentionable name during sex because he's mad at her, and she gets into it because he's....passionate. Well, there was no funnier half hour on American TV last year. Ditto the ep where the couple figures out there's nothing they can do to stop their daughter acting out.

Then there were moments like this...totally NSFW moment.



It's no wonder it didn't last. Watching the show, never for a second did you want Louie's life. They didn't glamorize his kid or his marriage. His friends were imperfect and screwed up. Like Roseanne, probably the last show in this lineage, the pain of never having enough money informed every scene. Unlike Roseanne, because it aired on HBO, they could say fuck. And did. A lot. More than Ian McShane ever dreamed (though never in front of the kid.)

So Sarah's getting her 2nd season on Comedy Central, where she'll continue to bang God. And I'll watch. And enjoy. But Lucky Louie, a show I always admired and frequently busted my gut at, chose to try and find funny from the uncomfortable truth of American life. It's no wonder that HBO ran in the other direction as soon as they could.

Louie would never have subscribed to HBO. In fact, openly stealing cable (and using it to babysit your kid cause you're too hungover) is a plot point. And when they have the discussion of whether to have another kid? Well, let's just say they don't sentimentalize.

Louie: Look i would love to tap that ass.
Kim: So Tap it
Louie: I want to, but my dick is too aware that your pussy is a chamber of financial ruin.

The show looked horrible to begin with, so the transfer isn't an issue. There's a couple of fairly interesting docs, and a couple of bitter commentary tracks from people who've obviously just gotten the news that the show isn't coming back. (They ordered 8 scripts for a second season.) This is definitely a worthwhile set if you're interested in pushing boundaries in scripted comedy. It's part cautionary tale, part lab experiment -- that's what I like about it and that's also why I think ultimately its legacy will be viewed more kindly than it is now: as a failed HBO show of no real consequence.

You can make whatever connection you like - about the pretty girl vs. the homely guy. But what I suspect is that 20 years from now somebody will be able to watch Louis C.K. (who thankfully seems to have a winner on his hands with the new Chris Rock Movie) and Pam Adlon in this show and recognize truth, while Sarah, Deity-shtupping notwithstanding, will seem as quaint as the sweet broad comedy of John Ritter pretending to be Gay for old Mr. Roper.

In the end, Lucky Louie probably never had a chance, despite clever writing and painful truth, because of things like this. Just watch this clip.



I mean, the Parents TV Council didn't even bother to be offended by the show. I should have known then it was screwed.

EDIT: I'm adding one more clip here as commenter Gdott reminded me of it below, and it kind of rocks on the theme of the PTC and stuff above. I will warn you though that this clip is ... really, really raw. I'm right on the edge of thinking, "woah. Too much."

Which is why I love it even more.

So, thanks Gdott for the reminder of this Lucky Louie clip where comic Jim Norton debates the existence of God: