Blog Post 1

Something that stood out to me whilst reading the selections of Mark Twain was his way of expressing humor. Most of Twain's humor comes from him poking fun at other people, often other writers. I find this interesting because I feel that today, poking fun at people is often easy humor. The Comedy Central roasts are all about making fun of the person being roasted, but these jokes are very low level jokes, though often funny. I see Twain as one of the first stand up comedians and his jokes were at the expense of others. If a comedian was to only make fun of other people today, they would probably be considered a lower level comedian, or at least one with unintelligent jokes. It would be like Frank Caliendo, who only makes fun of celebrities via impersonations. Today's best comedians use a much smarter level of humor, using whit, satire, and exchanges with a live audience. This is nothing against Twain or his writings, I just don't know how popular Twain would be today as a comedian with his personal style. "Fenimore Cooper's Literary Offences" is Twain ranting about how poor Cooper's popular book series was written. People do this every day while watching bad movies or television shows. Again, this isn't against Twain's writings, which I enjoy, just the humor he uses would not be considered very impressive today. One reason though is that Twain was an innovator for American comedy, and comedians have branched from Twain's style and have advanced it, therefore Twain's work would seem a lower level of comedy today.