> comedians are supposed to be subversive
No, that's just your preference. Jay Leno and Norm MacDonald are not subversive at all; just funny. Most of the Smothers' comedy was family-friendly, but they did push a few buttons sometimes.
> I hope you talk in a more informed way about time you know
Totally unwarranted.
A famous schtick of his on his podcast later on was to get other comedians to accidentally joke about the 9/11 events, and then he'd frame them as monsters for making light of the situation. He got fired from SNL for railing on OJ Simpson and his executive buddies at NBC, he got 'removed' from Silverman's JASH 'collective' for making jokes about 'Arabs', and he subverted the Friar's Club roast by refusing to be rude and only saying 1940s formal-appropriate Vaudeville-act stuff.
The SNL stuff was big news in entertainment at the time. He got interviewed by all the big late-night shows about it and the unfair process, was on Stern, etc etc. The whole nation sort of rallied behind him and agreed that SNL/Lorne Michaels acted unfairly at a time when the entire nation was also seemingly against Simpson.
His outward clean-cut demeanor and presence is exactly what made him so subversive.
https://ultimateclassicrock.com/norm-macdonald-last-weekend-...
Norm MacDonald are not subversive at all
> Totally unwarranted.
Well, they do like their comedy "subversive", so what else could you expect?
if it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck...
With your suggestion that Norm wasn't subversive, like other replies have stated, you're not well informed yourself, so hopefully other conversations with you come from a better informed position too.
Having a different opinion doesn't make you uninformed. Or didn't they teach you that in middle school?
And yes, I was wrong about Norm, although doing topical satire doesn't automatically make you "subversive." Lenny Bruce was actually subversive and got arrested and sentenced to jail for it. Richard Pryor was subversive. George Carlin was sometimes subversive.
Bill Hicks was my favorite subversive with his not just making marijuana legal but mandatory and suggesting that everyone should have at least one psychedelic experience (large unspoken asterisk stipulating of those that can). Squeegee that third eye clean!
Probably the best and biggest subversive ever? Eddie Murphy. He went HARD in the same manner: getting you to laugh at his extremeness when the joke is, it's actually not a joke, it's something he's observed. If he just made a case for some of the stuff he brings to your attention it wouldn't go over, but pick just the right spot to go way over the top…
He wasn't joking, and wasn't wrong. I don't think it counts as subversive anymore when you're just going that hard. Nobody's gonna be fooled, they'll sign up or they'll peace out.
To my mind, being properly subversive means getting over with the people… you can't really flip the table unless your feet are under it. Yeah, Richard Pryor was utterly subversive. He could seduce anybody with the openness of his comedy, but it meant something and the real target might not have been what it looked like it was.