The Aristocrats

The Aristocrats. 2005 THINKFilm.
Featuring: Quite a few people
Producers: Penn Jillette & Paul Provenza
Director: Paul Provenza
Buy The Aristocrats from Amazon, and then, visit the official site.

This is Walt Disney's 1970 animated feature about a story of aristocratic cats, and how they have to regain a stolen inheritance and rescue their kidnapped mistress from their butler with help from an alley cat, and...what?

Ah, gotcha.

In the world of stand-up comedy, there is a joke known as "The Aristocrats", which involves a man pitching an act to a talent agent. Usually, the first line of the joke is "A man walks into a talent agent's office", and the punchline involves a shocked and impressed agent asking "And what do you call the act?", which is always answered by the first man as "The Aristocrats!" In between, whoever is telling the joke is expected to ad-lib the most shocking and disgusting acts they could ever imagine, for as long as they can (one comedian is claimed to have stretched it out for 90 minutes), and believe me, they can get really vile and dark.

The movie itself is a long series of interviews with many recognizable comedians and actors, discussing the joke, their experiences of using the joke, and of course, performing their own versions. Bob Saget's version is particularly memorable, and he even requests a video copy of his joke be sent to his Full House co-stars. Trey Parker and Matt Stone also contribute an animated South Park version of the joke where Cartman tells the joke, and then professes not to understand it after finishing.

The Aristocrats was controversal for two reasons: first, Sarah Silverman's version of the joke which involves being booked on The Joe Franklin Show where her punchline was a deadpan allegation that Franklin had raped her during a rehearsal. Franklin considered filing a defamation suit against Silverman, but director Paul Provenza explained during the commentary track that he had spoken to the talk show host about how it was only meant to be a joke (Silverman told Penn Jillette that it would've been a great publicity stunt had Franklin actually sued her). AMC Theaters refused to show the movie in any of its theaters, claiming that the movie had a "very limited appeal", which does sound like a really flimsy excuse to me. Don't know how you feel about it.

Highly recommended, but why did I choose to watch this at 9:30 in the morning?!