Dane Cook steals material?!
 

I've never been a fan of Dane Cook, but now I actually have a reason not to like him. I never could understand his appeal, he always sounds like he's reading q-cards. Well apparently Joe Rogan (who has successfully shamed Carlos Mencia for stealing jokes) has taken aim at Cook.

Joe-Rogan-Exposes-Joke-Thieves.

In case you haven't seen Joe kick Mencia's ass, here it is.

What do you guys think of comics stealing from other comics and then becoming nationally famous? I don't listen to Mencia anymore because he steals, I've never listened to Cook and will continue to not. :shifty:

I don't listen to Mencia because he sucks. Dane Cook was pretty funny, not in his writing but in the way he delivered the material. Of course I'd like to think both of them could have stolen better material than what they did.

Mitch Hedberg was just the best there was at anything ever. He's not part of this, god rest his heroine addicted soul, but I just thought I'd throw that in there.

I like Robin Williams.

Everyone steals SOME material. Its part of the business.

Cue cards. Not q-cards :B

There's a distinct and profound difference between taking a bit and refining it for a completely new joke, and saying the same joke with different mannerisms.

For example, Louis C.K. took the "I hate my wife and we never had sex"-jokes and elevated it into, quite frankly, the funniest comedy standup I've ever heard. In that case, Louis C.K.'s 'stealing' is more akin to how Brian 'steals' FF1's storyline.

What Cook and Mencia and a lot of other hacks do is find obscure jokes, or just jokes, by other comedians and claim them for their own. This process is more akin to the countless 8-Bit knockoffs which are little more than bad mirrors of the true 8-Bit Theater.

Cook rode a style of flamboyant delivery that injected forced funny into mediocre (and now proven stolen) observations and built up a MySpace fan legion that was blinded by how much Dane, you know, actually knew them, man to realize how mediocre he was.

Mencia is a fucking pox on the world's taint and should find time between raping the corpse of Chappele's Show to put about three bullets into his balls.

I can't stand Mencia or Chappelle's show for the same reason I can't stand "Little Mosque on the Prairie."

Their jokes aren't, "Hey, here's a funny situation, and a funny joke wherein some of the characters happen to be muslim/mexican/black." Their jokes are "Hey, some of the characters are muslim/mexican/black. That's a funny situation."

Otherwise, I think stand-up has gotten progressively worse since Mitch Hedberg died.

Please, please, please don't say that you honestly put Chappelle's Show on the same level as Mind of Mencia. That's like saying that South Park is about the same quality as Little Bush.

Also, I get that Mitch Hedberg was good, and that his talent is now remembered at about ten times its actual value, but comedy isn't 'dead', nor was he ever the end all be all in the field. Listen to Zach Galifinakis (I'm not a great standup historian so I don't know when the whole "Look at what I've drawn on this paper" style started, but Galifinakis does it best), Louis C.K., Dave Attel, and David Cross, then try and moan about the how there are no good standups. I know that's a small list, but it's four times the amount of good comedy that's been put forth in this thread so far.

Or, I dunno, listen to the same Hedberg jokes over and over and say "Fuck it" to all new comedy, it really is a personal matter.

No. Honestly. All comedians, literally, rip off jokes constantly.

Go listen to Richard Pryor's stand up for awhile... then listen to Mitch Hedburg, Robin Williams, that crazy fuck who played the crazy fuck on taxi, George Carlin...

You will find jokes that are, verbatim, told the same by Pryor as the others. You'll also notice a lot more of them with slightly different wordings, but the same basic lead up and punchline. It IS the business. Comedy is about delivery more than anything.

I use Pryor, because he's, quite possibly, the most 'borrowed from' comedian of all time.

Yeah. Maybe we should make a new game... "The Six Degrees of a joke stolen from Richard Pryor".

Joke stealing accusitions aren't all that new, I mean there's still some murmurings about Dennis Leary stealing material (as well as delivery and on-stage persona) from Bill Hicks back in the early 90's. It's just that Joe Rogan seems to believe it's his mission to expose people who do. And, well, fuck Joe Rogan.