Today on Fresh Air Keegan-Michael Key and Jordan Peele of Key & Peele talk about a sketch that takes place on a slave auction block. They discuss how they took something unfunny and made it about something else:
Peele: [We had] the desire to use that powerful visual as a jumping off point, as something that is provocative and something that only Keegan and I could do. There was nobody else out there that could tackle this and create a sketch about an auction block. Now, I’m the kind of guy who, if somebody says, “There’s no way to make this funny,” I want to prove that wrong. I believe that with the right nuance, with the right touch, you can emphasize the funniness in anything. That’s just my comedy ideal.
… So how do you make this universally funny? How do you prove people wrong that this is not about laughing at slavery, this is not about laughing at the victims of slavery and what our ancestors had to go through? The answer to me was to make it about humanity, to make it about people, to make it about something universal, and also to point out the fact that Keegan and I, with this cushy life that we’ve grown up with in the late 20th century, we are not equipped for the physical and emotional fortitude to do what our ancestors did. For me, there’s a certain amount of respect that I felt like we were observing by putting ourselves in that situation, by not “slaving it up” with our dialect but just using the way we talk. Really, that was the project, if we were in that situation, our vanity would come into play.
Soon Fresh Air will be hosting Amy Schumer to discuss her new show Inside Amy Schumer on Comedy Central. Above, a skit from the show where Schumer plays the cancer card after hearing one of the writers, Tig Notaro, has cancer. Notaro actually did have cancer and her life-changing stand-up routine about her diagnosis with breast cancer and her mother’s death led Louis C.K. to say, “The show was an amazing example of what comedy can be. A way to visit your worst fears and laugh at them.” Her routine later made an appearance on This American Life, which is what made Fresh Air interested in bringing her on the show. It was a really great interview.
For good measure, a Fresh Air interview with Louis C.K. about Notaro’s routine.
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“ “ When I first heard the song, just a few years ago, I just thought he had written it for me. [It’s] just a beautiful expression of how we are toward each other as people — we don’t think that we are sufficient for each...](https://64.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_mceyew2RE91qdl86po1_500.jpg)
When I first heard the song, just a few years ago, I just thought he had written it for me. [It’s] just a beautiful expression of how we are toward each other as people — we don’t think that we are sufficient for each other; that no one wants to know the real me or the whole me.
— From Fresh Air, Steven Colbert on Ben Folds Five’s “The Best Imitation of Myself”
Photo: Kris Long
Is there video of this performance?
Not online. It’s from the taping of this episode.
PS Listen to that Fresh Air interview. It’s wonderful.
“You get a feeling that everybody of the sort that I’m modeling really has one foot out of the boat right now, and I really I hope Mitt — I mean listen, I have my own political views, but as a performer I hope he does something positive tonight so that there’s something for me to rally behind, because that’s what my character wants to do. … He wants to have a candidate that he can champion, and that just doesn’t exist in Mitt Romney right now. He’s just a walking wound.”
