December 16, 2012

Dueling Morgan Freemans

From Key and Peele on Comedy Central.

Keegan-Michael Key and Jordan Peele have to be the most confusing pair of names ever to team up in the history of comedy. (Besides all the long E sounds, the redunant Kee syllables, and the former's strangely front-loaded name, you've even got Michael Jordan buried in there.).

45 comments:

Anonymous said...

They're pretty funny.

They have a funny sketch about black college football athlete names:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gODZzSOelss

Anonymous said...

Is that the guy who stole the CDs in Empire Records?

Mr. Anon said...

If it weren't for black comedians, nobody could make fun of black people.

Anonymous said...

This dude's Obama is excellent: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vlxkcewBEe0

Anonymous said...

Funny that you bring them up. I never knew of them until this week when one of my former colleagues sent me this link. Perhaps you've already seen it, but considering how frequently we've talked about or made reference to the diversity of names, shall we say, your readers might enjoy this.

If the link for some reason doesn't work, just google "key and peele youtube, 'substitute teacher'." It's hilarious.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dd7FixvoKBw

a very knowing American said...

Oh no! I just sent Christmas cards to all five of them.

Jefferson said...

So many White people like Morgan Freeman because he does not fit the image of the typical angry militant race card hustling Black man who blames all of his problems in life on White folks.

That is why he has more appeal to White people than your Louis Farrakhan's, Harry Belafonte's, and Al Sharpton's of the world.

Anonymous said...

Started out funny, got tedious and ended weak. Still, props for taking on the subject of the "magical Negro".

josh said...

Good premise,but couldve been much funnier in the hands of a competent white guy.Black comedians have the advantage of freedom to do anything they want. What would Richard Pryor be w/o the freedom to relentlesly say,uh,a certain word?

Anonymous said...

Here's the thing about Key and Peele: Their sketches are well produced and often quite funny. But because Comedy Central has been looking for a new Chapelle's Show for the last ten years those sketches are framed by unwatchably uncomfortable audience interaction segments, so there's like a fifty-percent chance you're going to tune-out before you hit the next entertaining bit of the show.

Their show is still an improvement over Mind of Mencia, Important Things, and Pretend Time, however.

Anonymous said...

Yea K and P is basically defined by excellent ideas with a not funny enough writing team. The only superior skits I recall are the slave auction and dueling MLK Malcolm X dinner theate one.

Anonymous said...

What happened to the Chapelle's Show?

kudzu bob said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Anonymous said...

I think Chapelle's break down and the effective sidelining of Bill Cosby probally ruined black comedy by making it way to self conscious. I mean it is remarkable that Chris Rock's comedy has gone from including various jokes constructively critical of the black community to basically hate whitey. That's the problem of PC, just like affirmative action, once a group gets powerful enough they don't like to hear constructive criticism because a) they aren't used to it b) the mechanics of pc are such that the ability to be criticized is a mark of weakness and disorganization

Anonymous said...

When are you to address the Sandy Hook shooting, Steve? A diabolical killer shot a score of children, in addition to several adults -- including his mother multiple times -- to make sure that they were dead. Are there any racial lessons to be learnt? What role did the killer's IQ play in his actions? Could this have been a case of the Oedipus complex taken to the extreme? I'm sure that if the killer were black, Asian,Muslim or an illegal you would have shared your psychobabble with us already. What's the hold up?

Anonymous said...

When are you to address the Sandy Hook shooting, Steve? A diabolical killer shot a score of children, in addition to several adults -- including his mother multiple times -- to make sure that they were dead. Are there any racial lessons to be learnt? What role did the killer's IQ play in his actions? Could this have been a case of the Oedipus complex taken to the extreme? I'm sure that if the killer were black, Asian,Muslim or an illegal you would have shared your psychobabble with us already. What's the hold up?

kudzu bob said...

Speaking of Morgan Freeman, I like his explanation of why he drives a '97 Nissan Maxima, courtesy of Robot Chicken.

Laguna Beach Fogey said...

For a second there, Steve, I thought you were referring to Morgan Freeman, the African actor, and Morgan Freeman, the Jewish film-maker and producer of MTV shows '16 and Pregnant' and 'Laguna Beach'.

jody said...

I'm surprised the Stever Sailer commentariat didn't make any noise about the competency of white mass shooters.

26.

damning praise said...

Their show is still an improvement over Mind of Mencia

Yikes... That's almost a parody-blurb right there.

K and P is basically defined by excellent ideas with a not funny enough writing team

It's like MadTV with a production budget divided between fewer stakeholders, leaving more $$$ for promos & CGI

beowulf said...

OT (or maybe hyperfocused on topic)
Steve, did you see what unexpected direction the Finns took that Mannerheim biopic?

Finnish people are causing a storm over the casting of a black Kenyan actor to play the role of Carl Gustaf Emil Mannerheim, better known as the ‘Marshall of Finland’. YLE ( Finland’s national public-broadcasting company) has released a trailer for the movie “The Marshal of Finland”, where a Kenyan actor plays Mannerheim.
http://akenyangirl.com/2012/08/finnish-film-with-kenyans-depicting-europeans-causing-controversy-before-release/

That trailer is something. You know they had me until they showed the WWII Finnish Army (all black, of course) wearing computer-generated camo, then they lost me. :o)

Anonymous said...

No talk of the white shooter that killed 20 kids?

You would have probably had 20 articles on it by now if the shooter had been Asian.

Anonymous said...

This seems an odd posting for what happened in Newtown. I'm not sure the point of that statement, only that I usually come here for commentary/insights not found elsewhere. So far as I've seen on the Dissident Right ('Dark Enlightenment' is too Crowleyish a term for me, thanks), GLPiggy has linked to some interesting posts...

A.C. Nielsen said...

I haven't watched the channel in a couple of years but my impression is that Comedy Central tanked after Chappelle quit -- turns out there's not a surplus of underextended comics capable of putting on a quality series between film and live gigs, or at least not for Viacom wages...

Unknown said...

Ha I didn't mean to damn with false praise the ideas really are top notch but it's like the really want you to laugh at just the idea. It would be like if Chapelle had played the racial draft straight and actually have the races only draft mixed race people rather than have the Chinese draft the Wu Tang Clan.

Unknown said...

Ha I didn't mean to damn with false praise the ideas really are top notch but it's like the really want you to laugh at just the idea. It would be like if Chapelle had played the racial draft straight and actually have the races only draft mixed race people rather than have the Chinese draft the Wu Tang Clan.

Anonymous said...

When are you to address the Sandy Hook shooting, Steve? A diabolical killer shot a score of children, in addition to several adults -- including his mother multiple times -- to make sure that they were dead. Are there any racial lessons to be learnt? What role did the killer's IQ play in his actions? Could this have been a case of the Oedipus complex taken to the extreme? I'm sure that if the killer were black, Asian,Muslim or an illegal you would have shared your psychobabble with us already. What's the hold up?

Alcalde Jaime Miguel Curleo said...

The noticeable shift in my lifetime has been the increased cultural prestige of 1) involvement in the world-dominating entertainment industry, compounded with 2) being black, which doesn't yield much clout by itself without 1)

However, the difference between then (Richard Pryor era) and now is some portion of that clout accruing to spoiled brats like Kanye West & Aaron McGruder. I wonder if there's any parallel in our national politics... Hmmmm...

Anonymous said...

I'm surprised the Stever Sailer commentariat didn't make any noise about the competency of white mass shooters.

26.


They were mostly defenseless kids in a confined space, probably huddled together.

Anonymous said...

@Nielsen

You've missed a festival of post-Chapelle sketch-comedy failure.

Short of Mind of Mencia, Nick Swardson's Pretend Time has the most stupendous failure I've ever seen on the network.

Anonymous said...

not as good as Chappelle.

Mr. Anon said...

"Anonymous said...

No talk of the white shooter that killed 20 kids?

You would have probably had 20 articles on it by now if the shooter had been Asian."

Only because the New York Times would have had 20 articles on it neglecting to point out that he was asian. If he had been black, they would have been asking what white people had done to drive him to it. But because he was a white guy, the focus is just on guns.

There isn't much to say about it really - it's a pity the little puke didn't start by blowing his own brains out or that his Mom didn't put him down.

Mr. Anon said...

"jody said...

I'm surprised the Stever Sailer commentariat didn't make any noise about the competency of white mass shooters.

26."

It's really not something to make idle light-hearted banter about. It was a vicious, evil crime.

OSS said...

Are there any racial lessons to be learnt? What role did the killer's IQ play in his actions? Could this have been a case of the Oedipus complex taken to the extreme? I'm sure that if the killer were black, Asian,Muslim or an illegal you would have shared your psychobabble with us already. What's the hold up??

As a state licensed and certified psychobabbler, the killer was a nutjob. I'm going to speculate that he didn't have a clear cut motive, or else the police would have let us know what it was. This wasn't an Omar Thornton, Michael Wade Page or Shareef Allman shooting, where the killers were motivated by racial animus.

Otis McWrong said...

Anonymous said...When are you to address the Sandy Hook shooting, Steve? A diabolical killer shot a score of children, in addition to several adults...I'm sure that if the killer were black, Asian,Muslim or an illegal you would have shared your psychobabble with us already. What's the hold up?"

You posted twice. Once is plenty for whiny, anonymous sarcasm and obnoxiousness. OTOH, you could always start our own blog and address the topics there.

Sideways said...

@Beowulf: steve posted about it months ago.

Lex said...

Morgan Freeman vs Bill Cobbs.

Michael Caton said...

I love these guys because I love comedy that's clearly driven by an idea. I think of them kind of as the modern Kids in the Hall. Problem with idea comedy is that generally the funniest moment is when the idea is presented, and then it's downhill (as observed in this thread), and you have to look for an exit strategy to end the sketch. Even Monty Python couldn't get away from that (see the Argument Clinic).

Anonymous said...

Since 1982, whites have actually been slightly underrepresented among mass murders. Source: http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2012/07/mass-shootings-map?page=2

u mad anon?


Matthew said...

WRT why Steve hasn't covered the Sandy Hook Massacre: Adam Lanza seems to be the most boring mass-murdering psycho ever to punish society with his existence. He left no manifesto, he had no criminal record, he had no known political beliefs, and he doesn't even seem to have had any friends of any sort. He apparently was the sort of loner that even loners would've considered "weird."

Why the mother of such a person would want to keep multiple firearms in her home is beyond me.

My guess is that he had a bad childhood, was teased and bullied at school, and so took it out on students attending the same elementary school he attended.

Anonymous said...

Re Adam Lanza: Father of Alleged Connecticut Shooter is VP of GE Capital According to Reports
Echos of the Batman Massacre – James Holmes father a high priest of computer economics at FICO – Allegedly investigating the LIBOR scandal which has indeed faded after the Aurora shootings… GE Capital is onwed by GE.

And then last Oct., in Manhattan there was the stabbing murder of two small children of Kevin Krim, allegedly by the nanny who was taken to hospital and put into an induced coma. Their father had just put out the story on a multi-trillion dollar pyramid scam, implicating the highest in the land, including Pres. B.O. and cabinet members. The mother, Marina and her daughter Nessie (sea names) were in swimming lessons when this happened. The children killed were 6 yr old Lucille (Light) and 2 yr old Leo (Sun).
What more can I say. They hide in plain sight, these corporate monsters we were warned about by Ike 52 yrs ago.
Cross them at your peril apparently. The lower and more evil the crime they force on you (to commit or to be the victim.)
Conspiracy schmiracy. Sherlock Holmes would be ashamed of what a investigative IQ sleuths today have. They will ignore anything the media tells them is "conspiracy" except the official story conspiracies.

TontoBubbaGoldstein said...

When are you to address the Sandy Hook shooting, Steve… …What's the hold up?

The Sandy Hook shooting did not correlate with many iSteve themes, as you noted. It didn't refute them, mind you.

*Sorry to go all Todd Beamer on your little thread hijack attempt.*

josh said...

Re Steve com,menting on Sandy Hook:WEll Bob Costas hasnt weighed in yet,as far as I can tell.Probbaly best that way.

Anonymous said...

When are you to address the Sandy Hook shooting, Steve… …What's the hold up?

The Sandy Hook shooting did not correlate with many iSteve themes, as you noted. It didn't refute them, mind you.

*Sorry to go all Todd Beamer on your little thread hijack attempt.*


12/17/12 5:19 PM

Get real - this is the guy who did an HBD posting about Ghanian footballer Mario Ballatelli just because he has gotten thrown out of a couple of soccer matches and happened to be adopted by a Jewish Italian woman.

Anonymous said...

" Mr. Anon said...
If it weren't for black comedians, nobody could make fun of black people."

Hahahaha! If this is what you took away from the sketch, they're making fun of people like you!