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There were three great comedians in my formative years—Bill Cosby, Bill Murray, and Richard Pryor—and they wrecked comedy for a generation. How? By never saying anything funny. You can quote a Steve Martin joke, or a Rodney Dangerfield line, but Pryor, Cosby, and Murray? The things they said were funny only when they said them. In Cosby’s case, it didn’t even need to be sentences: “The thing of the thing puts the milk in the toast, and ha, ha, ha!” It was gibberish and America loved it.
The problem was that they inspired a generation of comedians who tried coasting on personality—they were all attitude and no jokes. It was also a time when comedy stars didn’t seem to care. Bill Murray made some lousy movies; Richard Pryor and Eddie Murphy made even more; and any script that was too lame for these guys, Chevy Chase made. These were smart people—they had to know how bad these films were, but they just grabbed a paycheck and did them. Most of these comic actors started as writers—they could have written their own scripts, but they rarely bothered.
Then, at the end of a decade of lazy comedy and half-baked material, The Simpsons came along. We cared about jokes, and we worked endless hours to cram as many into a show as possible. I’m not sure we can take all the credit, but TV and movies started trying harder. Jokes were back. Shows like 30 Rock and Arrested Development demanded that you pay attention. These days, comedy stars like Seth Rogen, Amy Schumer, Kristen Wiig, Melissa McCarthy, and Jonah Hill actually write the comedies they star in.
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Mike Reiss (Springfield Confidential: Jokes, Secrets, and Outright Lies from a Lifetime Writing for The Simpsons)