The Aristocrats movie review & film summary (2005)

Two extremes in joke-telling: Style No. 1: As tight as a haiku. Not one wasted word. Told with aggressive brutality. Ends with a punch line that ends with the punch word. The last word delivers the joke. Then, bang, it's over.

Style No. 2: The joke-teller's purpose is to sadistically control the time and attention of the other person by an elaborate and unnecessary recital of the setup. He lovingly adds irrelevant details. Uses one or more accents. Chuckles during the telling, to prompt you that he's funny. Inverts the punch line, so the pay-off comes at the start, not the end, of the final sentence, which then meanders in anticlimax. Then provides a helpful explanation of the joke. ("See, the bartender was talking to the duck, not the woman.") In the worst of all possible worlds, he finds his joke so funny that he actually repeats it, to be sure you properly appreciated it. Anyone who tells a joke this way should not be trusted in positions of authority.

The perfect joke in Style No. 1, as told by Henny Youngman, Rodney Dangerfield, Lou Jacobi:

Guy goes to a psychiatrist.
Psychiatrist says, "You're crazy!"
"I want a second opinion!"
"All right, you're ugly!"

Now for a joke in Style No. 2, which can easily go five minutes. I will mercifully condense it:

A carpenter dies and goes to heaven and tells St. Peter he is looking for his son. His description of the son matches Jesus. The son appears. "Father?" says the son. "Pinocchio!" says the father.

I am constantly amazed that the people who tell this joke don't realize that every single person in the English-speaking world has already heard this joke 500 times. The joke-teller relentlessly spins it out for minute after minute, while his captives stand there with glazed eyes and a rictus that he mistakes for a grin.

I will now describe two versions of another joke.

Style No. 1.
Guy goes into a talent agency to pitch his act.
“What do you do?” asks the agent.
“We come out and crap on the stage.”
“What do you call yourselves?”
“The Aristocrats.”

Style No. 2 now has an entire movie devoted to it. It is famous among professional comedians, we're told, as the Dirtiest Joke of All Time. Here's how you tell it. After the talent agent asks “What do you do?,” the other guy describes a long series of the most depraved and disgusting words, images and actions that he can string together. Absolutely nothing is off limits. The act can involve incest, bestiality, matricide, bodily waste, vomiting and other sudden voidings, necrophilia, bondage, whatever. It is described in racist, sexist and obscene terms. After the litany is complete, the agent asks “What do you call yourselves” and the guy replies, etc.