Sunday, September 4, 2011

Louie: Louis CK and Dane Cook



It's really quite amazing that this happened.

The backstory, if you care to know, is that a few years ago Dane Cook was accused of stealing jokes from Louis C.K. You can visit youtube to find clips of the specific jokes. While the jokes cover admittedly non-unique situations, the sentiment is that Cook stole them. This is the reasoning for the claim:

1) Dane Cook is not funny.
2) Joke X, spoken by Dane Cook, was funny.
3) Joke X is similar to Joke Y.
4) Joke Y was spoken by Louis CK prior to its being spoken by Dane Cook.
5) Therefore, Dane Cook stole the joke.

So, that's a thing that happened. People accuse Dane Cook of stealing a joke, and he gets shit on for a few years. Fast forward to this episode, wherein Louis CK has Dane Cook on his show, Louie, to talk about the joke stealing.

Now, in the galactic scheme of things, joke stealing may not matter all that much. But the fact that they took the time to address the issue on television, allowing each side to air their position? That is quite nice.

That being said, in an earlier episode this season (Joan) Joan Rivers guest stars, and she calls Dane Cook an asshole. Since this is all scripted, we've moved from having Joan Rivers call Dane Cook an asshole, to Dane Cook guest starring and speaking his piece on the "controversy".

Given that situation, it seems reasonable to take this all as a PR stunt, insofar as everything done in the entertainment business is a PR stunt. But even if it is a PR stunt, I can appreciate that this episode happened. Dane Cook and Louis CK sat down, cleared the air, and then discussed how envelopes are terrible gift-giving devices for 10 year olds.

2 comments:

Mike Lewis said...

Dane Cook on Marc Maron's Podcast.

Dane Cook stays of message for the whole episode - which is pretty impressive since Maron made Louis CK Cry and gets Carlos Mencia to admit that he stole jokes,

Roscoe said...

It's not so much a PR stunt as... Louis CK's comedic processes... which are wonderful, strange and kinda fundamental, examining all sides of what he wants to talk about.

Also? I'd wager Rivers is only semi-scripted... Still, CK left the bit in editing, so.. your point sorta stands.