Compared to all the major issues today, this was a very, very minor incident. But it was one of the truly wonderful moments of television I have ever seen, and it just blossoms in greatness in my mind as time goes on.
It's a very brief moment from Colin Quinn's old show, "Tough Crowd," which was kind of a Crossfire for comedians. It was a highly explosive moment between Denis Leary and Greg Giraldo.
The closest I can date this incident is the vicinity of March of 2003. It was after Leary's show "The Job," highly-regarded but lowly-rated, went off the air, and before he started "Rescue Me," which still runs on F/X.
Denis Leary is a very famous comic, best known for his chain-smoking, rapid-fire invective-oriented material and bullying persona. Greg Giraldo is probably most famous for his appearances on Comedy Central's Celebrity Roasts. Giraldo's history is pretty interesting - he has a JD from Harvard Law School, worked as a lawyer for the massive Skadden, Arps law firm, leaving the firm after a year to pursue a career as a comedian. I would call him a B-list comedian - not exactly in the upper echelon, but always very funny and very sharp.
This incident happened a year or two after 9/11, and Leary, along with many other comics, had adopted a kind of "Nuke 'em into the Stone Age" attitude. Giraldo was a regular on "Tough Crowd" and was pretty clearly to the left of guys like Leary, although that didn't stop him from making pretty un-PC jokes - Giraldo would never let politics get in the way of a punchline.
This all is background for the incident to which I linked in my opening. I want to break this down step by step, because Leary got utterly annihilated in this clip, and it is a thing of beauty.
The topic was North Korea, who was known at the time to be developing a nuclear bomb. Giraldo was leading into a joke...
Giraldo: Or maybe there’s a non-violent way to solve the whole North Korea thing.
Quinn: Good thinking.
Giraldo: If you ask them – well, there might be – they’re asking for -
Leary gestured to Giraldo as if to interrupt him.
Giraldo: What?
Leary: There’s a non-violent way to solve the problem with a country that we hate, that hates us, that’s got weapons pointed at us? I don’t think so.
Giraldo: No, you’re right, like Russia, for example. That big Russian war.
The audience laughs lustily at the brilliant comeback. Leary looks as if he had just been blindsided, his entire worldview utterly demolished by a blithely-delivered throwaway line. Giraldo goes on to tell his joke.
Giraldo: You have to be strong about it, but there are approaches. There are economic benefits that we’re giving them in order for them to stop developing their weapons. I heard recently, they agreed to stop building nukes if American women agree to get their nails done at least twice a week.
Okay, this is not a genius joke, certainly not a politically correct one, playing on the Korean fingernail salon stereotype. But that is hardly the point. Leary listens to the joke, still utterly rocked by Giraldo's previous slam-dunk facial. So Leary, desperately trying to recover his manhood, but unable to compete on the issue, starts swinging at Giraldo's material
Leary: This guy writes so many jokes before the show, it’s not even funny. It’s unbelievable. He’s got a pocketful of them.
Quinn: They’re good ones, though.
Leary: I’m not saying they’re not good. I’m just saying.
"I'm just saying" - the explanation that explains nothing. I have always found that sentence just empty air, spoken merely to present an attitude devoid of substance.
Giraldo seemed to be astounded that Leary would regard preparing jokes for a comedy show to be a fault, and he responded with incredulity.
Giraldo: That’s kind of what we do here, Denis. I’m a comedy writer.
Then Leary falls back to the classroom bully vs. the nerd mode.
Leary: You’re the guy in school that did all the homework and then asked if there was any more that needed to be done.
I've seen Leary show up on many talk shows without preparing material, preferring to rely on his native brilliance to carry him through, shooting from the hip. When called on for not preparing material, he usually says, "I never liked homework." I have always found this as a sign of a lazy comic, trying to pull a hip persona, but actually coasting on his rep instead of continuing to work at his craft.*
In any case, Giraldo, who was indeed the brainy kid in school, and who had probably been put down by many a classroom bully in his day, struck a blow for every good student ever made to feel ashamed and uncool by the moron bullies, and came back with some nukes of his own.
Giraldo: That’s a good point. And if you would try a little comedy writing, maybe your show would still be on the air.
And then to top it off, throws this back in Leary's well-smashed face...
Giraldo: I'm just saying.
And Leary, halfway to raising his coffee to his mouth, sits like a statue, having been demolished in every way a comic can be demolished.
After that, the segment became VERY uncomfortable, with Quinn limply vamping to the break.
I read that after this show was taped, Quinn, a long-time friend of Leary's, gutlessly offered to cut the segment from the broadcast. To his credit, Leary declined the offer, and it was broadcast as is.
Leary is still far more successful than Giraldo. If I'm not mistaken, I believe that Giraldo has appeared at every Comedy Central Celebrity Roast broadcast since EXCEPT for the one for Denis Leary.
Also, to be fair to Leary, his Wikipedia page quotes him as saying he was a lifelong Dem moved to Independent, and backed Obama in 2008. Perhaps this clip shows him at his worst. Still, he had it coming.
I don't think there is a great lesson to be learned from this in terms of how to handle right-wing blowhards. But for me it was a very satisfying moment, and Giraldo's lightning-fast "Russian war" comeback should be the stuff of comedy legend. There are a lot of comics who are very successful with right-leaning PC-backlash bullshit (please look for Louie C.K.'s new show on F/X, and especially the episode where he gets into a fight with right-wing comic Nick DiPaolo). It's just nice to see the good guys win one.
*Although craftsmanship has never been Leary's forte. He took his persona and a good amount of his early material from Bill Hicks, the truly great comedian who was on the verge of realizing his legend when he was struck down by cancer in 1994 at the age of 32. After being diagnosed with cancer, Hicks quit smoking, but did not go public with his condition. When asked why he quit smoking, Hicks said, "I wanted to see if Denis Leary would too."
UPDATE: Diary title changed. I originally said he was a right-wing lout. Several commenters corrected me, and I had to change it in all fairness. But I still contend he's a mean-spirited, lazy plagiarist.