"What makes it good/funny"
This for instance:
"Yeah, I was running at the mouth a little during that interview," the 85-year-old musical theatre legend explained. "Like I said in Sondheim On Sondheim I drink while I'm writing lyrics and I had just spent a full day trying to come up with an internal rhyme for 'bourgeoisie.' I'm not in my 30s anymore. Brilliance like 'personable/coercin' a bull' doesn't just pop out after one c****nay these days."
Internal rhyme for bourgeoisie is especially funny given how difficult it would be even for Sondheim to do that, and given that the Bunuel adaptation actually suggests such a rhyme. Making use of Sondheim's drinking while writing lyrics to explain his controversial comments is good and very clever. And recalling personable/coercin' a bull' is funny and clever because it parallels exactly the kind of internal rhyme challenge posed by bourgeoisie. Having Sondheim self-congratulate himself on the brilliance of that lyric from Company is amusing. The idea of him being let down by the aid of just a single c****nay at this stage of his life and career is droll.
(why does chard-onnay get bleeped out, btw?)
"Either you momentarily believe it, then feel like a fool and are bummed it's not actually happening - or else you don't believe it, in which case what's the point?"
I momentarily believed it and that made the punch punchier. I wasn't completely bummed out by it not being true because a) it's not exactly tragic if it doesn't happen, and b) it actually could happen; the joke has thrown down the gauntlet for it happening. Once I realized it was a joke, the point was seeing how they would build the joke. They built it well.
Updated On: 4/1/15 at 10:29 AM
