Unfortunately, in my opinion he could be funny, and he was, but, he got lucky and became one of those viral things emailed around offices worldwide, which then got to the ears of the people with the money, who then threw money at him, being 'the next big thing', which meant he got the tour, the live dvd, the TV show, etc, but the problem was, he only seems to have about half an hour's material.
Nowadays, that's fine for an obscure, jobbing comedian doing occasional spots in clubs, that's 3 10 minute sets you can cycle around, to avoid repetition, but, if you're suddenly on TV, every joke done on TV is dead, you need to dump that set and write new stuff.
Essentially, it's part of the reason I think that we moved on from the club comics of the 70s to the 'alternative comedy' wave in the 80s, that new comics were not only writing their own material, rather than using the same jokes from the 30s and 40s, but, they were writing a LOT of it. Not all of it gold of course, but it was new and fresh.
It's why you'll usually see any winner of X Factor, American Idol etc fade into obscurity after 6 months, unless they're really lucky and build a solid fanbase early on. (that and of course, Simon Cowell wanting them gone to make way for next year's winner).
If Jeff Durham had adapted his act a bit more, came out with a whole fresh set of material each year, then I don't think there'd be such a backlash, as it is, many feel he's still coasting along on the success of going 'I KEEL YOU'.
As for the claims of racism, I think if you can't mock murdering fuckknuckles, who can you mock? Exactly how do you do the voice, and get across who it is, without doing the accent?
Maybe he shoulda have done him with a Belgian accent, and it'd have been fine?
TL;DR version:
If he hadn't ended up a viral web link of a youtube clip, there'd be no problem, trouble is, 90% of people have seen everything he does, and now he's got nothing left.
Nowadays, that's fine for an obscure, jobbing comedian doing occasional spots in clubs, that's 3 10 minute sets you can cycle around, to avoid repetition, but, if you're suddenly on TV, every joke done on TV is dead, you need to dump that set and write new stuff.
Essentially, it's part of the reason I think that we moved on from the club comics of the 70s to the 'alternative comedy' wave in the 80s, that new comics were not only writing their own material, rather than using the same jokes from the 30s and 40s, but, they were writing a LOT of it. Not all of it gold of course, but it was new and fresh.
It's why you'll usually see any winner of X Factor, American Idol etc fade into obscurity after 6 months, unless they're really lucky and build a solid fanbase early on. (that and of course, Simon Cowell wanting them gone to make way for next year's winner).
If Jeff Durham had adapted his act a bit more, came out with a whole fresh set of material each year, then I don't think there'd be such a backlash, as it is, many feel he's still coasting along on the success of going 'I KEEL YOU'.
As for the claims of racism, I think if you can't mock murdering fuckknuckles, who can you mock? Exactly how do you do the voice, and get across who it is, without doing the accent?
Maybe he shoulda have done him with a Belgian accent, and it'd have been fine?
TL;DR version:
If he hadn't ended up a viral web link of a youtube clip, there'd be no problem, trouble is, 90% of people have seen everything he does, and now he's got nothing left.
