rant · moment 10 of 13
The 80s Comedy Bubble, Montreal, and Shakespeare for the Common Man
from Brighton Beach Memoirs · #96
Audio-only archive episode — no video to seek.
6 minTim discusses how comedy careers used to work differently in the sitcom-bubble 80s, critiques an identity-politics comic killing at Montreal while boring industry insiders, and gets into an argument about whether Shakespeare wrote for the common man, capped with a Tina Turner tangent.
- 28:02The 1980s comedy bubble created different circumstances for comics getting shows, with talented funny people landing sitcoms simply by being seen rather than following a career track.
- 28:51Comedy is one of the few professions with no floor, no ceiling, and values that shift constantly, making it genuinely wild compared to fields like law.
- 29:30Tim hosted Montreal comedy festival editions and observed comics who kill with live audiences but struggle with industry gatekeepers watching in the back.
- 30:24A Long Island comic gets huge laughs from the audience with jokes about her Jewish husband and explicit material, but industry people on their phones aren't interested.
- 31:22Without gatekeepers, everything becomes terrifying; great art requires someone like Scorsese, Kubrick, or Louise Grey to impose standards on what gets made.
- 32:04Tim's father argued that Shakespeare was written for the common man, a claim scholars use to support the idea that it's accessible to unsophisticated audiences.
- 32:39Shakespeare straddles both worlds—it works for the common person but also contains complex multi-level artistry that can't be denied, unlike simple pandering to the room.
Tina TurnercomedyShakespeareStanley KubrickScorseseMontreal Comedy Festival