How Soon Is Too Soon? (And Other Classic Questions And Conundrums About Comedy)

humor = tragedy + time

OK, but then the logical next question is: How much time?

If it’s OK, at this point, to joke about, say, The Spanish Inquisition… what about, for instance, the Holocaust? Or AIDS? September 11th? The MeToo movement?

…The delta variant?

There’s a line there somewhere, right?

Or are some topics just never going to be funny?

GUESTS:

• Mike Bent - Teaches writing in the Comedic Arts program at Emerson College, and he’s a performing comedian and magician
• Shawn Murray - Shawn Murray is a comedian, writer, and the host of Nobody Asked Shawn
• Carolyn Paine - An actress, comedian, and dancer
• Ferne Pearlstein - A documentary filmmaker who directed The Last Laugh
• Caleb Warren - Assistant professor of marketing at the University of Arizona

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Colin McEnroe, Catie Talarski, and Chion Wolf contributed to this show, which originally aired February 21, 2018.

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