The Comedy Generation Gap
This is going to get rambly. I forced myself to watch all of Mel Brook’s History of the World Par 1. Every time someone mentions a classic movie I haven’t seen I put it on my queue and they sort of randomly show up whenever. Trying to be culturally literate and all. I’ve been wanting to pontificate on two things that I never got around to, and this movie seemed like a good locus for doing so. First is the concept of the generation gap, and the other is the aesthetics of comedy. Brass tacks: Mel Brooks sucks. He. Is. Terrible. His jokes are all sophomoric… no, more like gradeschool level, Laffy Taffy wrapper quality. Obvious, over the top, derivative, boring. So bad it’s embarrassing. Ok, that’s my opinion. Not fact. I guess. I remember seeing his movie Space Balls when I was in my low teens, and finding it hilarious. I saw it again a couple years ago and could hardly get through i...