A Manifesto for Better Comedy

» January 13, 2005 1:16 PM by Awol

Happy New Year, fans and family. Many so-called blogs make public their common resolutions for the upcoming calendar year, but we here at mightymcpilgrim.com will waste no time with such empty promises. Instead I present our new company manifesto.
-----------------------------------------------------

Dogmeh 05

… is a collective of concerned members of the microscopic nation of Mighty McPilgrim, founded in Sherman Oaks, CA in the winter of 2005.

Dogmeh 05 is an expression of concern to counter ‘certain tendencies’ in the world of sketch comedy today.

DOGMEH 05 IS A SEARCH & DESTROY MISSION!

Since the late 1960’s genuinely good sketch comedy has taken on the fetid and decomposing habit of cohesion and an oft-titillating stream of consciousness association of ‘comic’ ideas. This tendency toward unifying random hilarity is crushing true expression! The anti-establishment flavor of these shows has become BOURGEOIS and itself, established.

To DOGMEH 05 sketch linking is verboten!

Today an intellectual storm is raging in the world of short form jesting, the result of which will be semi-accessible ‘think pieces’ intended to cause laughter in the present as well as ‘on the way home.’ Such “way homer-ism” undermines the immediate and visceral effect of natural humor. Unstructured, freethinking association is the cause! A regimented procedural approach is the answer!

DOGMEH 05 will counter this progressive tomfoolery with an inarguable set of rules called the PLEDGE OF PURITY. The predictable transition of disparate sketches into and out of each other will be curbed! The illusion of referential and over-educated ‘humor’ will be destroyed and replaced with a gritty and realistic flippancy aligned with the cosmic insensitivity of TRUE comedy.

Here is the PLEDGE OF PURITY:

1. No sketch shall be centered on, or dwell upon, the comic doings of cowboys, robots, pirates, monkeys, sasquatchi, unicorns, midgets, homosexuals, or other mythical creatures.

2. Tagbacks are PROHIBITED!

3. Any attempt to segue from one sketch to another in a logical and cohesive manner will be ultimately, and fiercely frowned upon.

4. Manufactured humor (punch lines, sarcasm, et al.) shall be replaced by realistic, naturally occurring lighthearted ‘moments.’ Do not attempt to “write” a “sketch,” but rather witness a happening that is, in itself, funny.

5. Laughter has ruined the comedy genre. No relying on audience response! Audience response is futile. The audience is not an essential aspect to live performance, in fact they deter from it.

6. The highest form of humor is schadenfreude.

7. The participants shall never shave, bathe, shower, cut their hair or wear make-up for a performance as it disguises the true face of comedy.

8. There will be no writers. There will be no directors. There will only be the Funny.

Furthermore, I declare as a McPilgrim that I am not concerned with the populist reception of my work, and shall not be hung up on the ‘success’ of it as such. My job is not to entertain, but to spotlight truth in the painful crevices of comedic living.

Thus I make my PLEDGE OF PURITY.
Sherman Oaks, Thursday 13 January 2005

On behalf of DOGMEH 05
Andrew von Wollman / Nicole van Whiteberg