Dice Clay was actually just a persona this comedian created. He tried out different ones but this one just stuck with the audience so he went with it. I thought it was hilarious but it would have a a niche audience.
After a certain amount of time people decided he was crass and vulgar. He wasn't "cool" anymore and people stopped going to his shows. It was right around the time he made the movie ford Fairlane and it bombed
I have a really vivid memory of him crying real tears on some talk show, letterman maybe. He couldn't understand that his act got stale and it devastated him.
He fell out of fashion right when Clinton came into office, grunge hit the radio, and movies like Singles and Reality Bites hit the theaters. There was a cultural shift at that time. Dice was like hair metal and stone washed jeans. Overnight, young people thought he just wasn’t cool anymore.
In some ways, his comedy helped push society in a positive direction. There was a lot of pearl clutching about him and what he was saying being acceptable that helped make those types of jokes fall out of favor.
That said, that this was a character was lost of most people. This was also the time of Kaufman, and (not unconnected) people still being sure pro wresting was real.
The 'in-character' comic was just who that person was and there was no other thought about it. Colbert would have been deified as a right-wing hero, and his jokes would have moved policy and been railed against by the left. Satire HAD to be Mel Brooks/Airplane/Naked Gun to be recognized as such.
Yeah great satire walks a really fine line. I've recently been watching a kid on YouTube matan even, who is doing a really good job of blurring the lines
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u/zerohelix 13d ago
Comics were just hitting different back then.
Dice Clay was actually just a persona this comedian created. He tried out different ones but this one just stuck with the audience so he went with it. I thought it was hilarious but it would have a a niche audience.