rant · moment 6 of 19
Comedy's Middle-Class Roots and Vaudeville Freak Shows
from We're Gonna Get Ours · #37
Audio-only archive episode — no video to seek.
2 minTim traces stand-up's lineage to vaudeville, dust bowl circuses, and freak shows, and jokes about being a carnival elixir salesman accused of biting a woman's breast.
- 15:03Very few people doing comedy are destitute; it's a middle-class pursuit.
- 15:30It's interesting when super wealthy, jet-setting people from established fortunes choose to pursue comedy.
- 15:47Comedy descends from vaudeville, which descended from Dustbowl circuses and freak shows.
- 15:59Those circus characters and their legacy can't be taken away from comedy, as Mike Lawrence pointed out.
- 16:15Tim jokes that traveling shows must have been full of sexual predators, like a historical wave.
- 16:30Tim performs a bit as an elixir salesman defending himself against accusations of misconduct at a traveling show.