Mainstream comics leave countless jokes on the table.
Just consider the Biden administration, for starters. The material practically writes itself, from the president’s near-daily short circuits to VP Kamala Harris’ word salad speeches.
Ideology keeps getting in the way.
The same holds for the woke mindset. Comedians ignore how the Left labels every third word as racist, problematic or downright offensive.
Think “peanut gallery,” “hooligan,” “American,” “immigrant,” “grandfather” and “submit.” So many hate crimes in just one paragraph, no?
Bill Burr finds plenty to laugh about in the woke mindset.
His 2019 Netflix comedy special “Paper Tigers” skewered woke platitudes with wit and wisdom.
Here’s a withering take on the devolution of the MeToo movement:
The stories were big at the beginning … then, they started tapering off. Until six months in, they just sounded like bad dates. ‘He was 10 minutes later, the chicken was cold… I think I was raped.’
Now, Burr is going back to the woke well for his upcoming Netflix comedy, “Old Dads.”
The Oct 20 release, starring, directed and co-written by Burr, follows three men who embraced fatherhood later in life. They run headfirst into a Gen Z culture they neither understand or appreciate.
The film co-stars two underrated stars, Bobby Cannavale and Bokeem Woodbine as Burr’s fellow “Dads.”
The trailer leans hard into the generational divide between the titular fathers and their peers. When a younger dad tells Burr’s character, Jack, to treat his child’s injury with Neosporin, not dirt, the older Dad snaps.
“Why don’t you go on Twitter and share this story where you’re the hero,” Burr says. He’s wrong … and he still has a point about virtue signaling.
Burr made a seamless transition from stand-up comic to actor. He excelled in “The King of Staten Island” and gave “The Mandalorian” a bump with his presence.
We’ll see if his shift to writer/director is just as smooth.
Just don’t expect “Old Dads” to skewer the woke characters alone, or for Jack to cling to all of his old ways. Burr is too smart a storyteller to turn his film into a sermon preaching to the anti-woke choir.
The fact that he’s mocking the cultural movement in the first place is consequential and overdue.
