Why I love Andy Milonakis: Slapstick and stupid comedy make a comeback among youth of America

By Kylie Wakefield
Collegian Staff
October 4, 2006

It’s that time again — Friday night. I snuggle into bed and turn on MTV2. I crank the volume so loud I can sing along and not be heard. My favorite 30-year-old man-boy appears on screen and starts rapping: “I rock peas on my head/but don’t call me a pea head/bees on my head/but don’t call me a bee head/Bruce Lee’s on my head/but don‘t call me a Lee head/Now please excuse me/I gots to get my tree fed.”

These random, totally out of context and forced rhyming lyrics are why I love Andy Milonakis. Hosting his own MTV2 show, all he really does is sit in his cozy Brooklyn home and hang out with his dog Wubbie. Occasionally, he’ll order a pizza to freak out the delivery guy or go on a candid camera mission, free styling to old people in Manhattan for some laughs. Nothing eventful really happens, but at the same time, this why I love it.

Andy is part of a new wave of random humor. It seems viewers are no longer interested in physical comedians like Jim Carrey or Charlie Chaplin. Additionally, most of our generation is not yet captivated by clever humor like The Daily Show. This reinvented slapstick with random acts of comedy routine, led by Milonakis, has hit the mainstream, and it’s not dying anytime soon.

It all started with a little show called Seinfeld. Larry David and Jerry Seinfeld’s hilarious creation captivated viewers with its, well, nothingness. It highlighted even the most boring moments of life and made them funny. Seinfeld managed to create a culture of recognizable catch phrases (“man hands,” anybody?) while remaining a self-proclaimed “show about nothing.” This concept of entertainment about the ordinary evolved into what we watch today. Just like Kramer bursting into Jerry’s apartment, Milonakis simply talks to his fluffy mutt, and we are automatically drawn in.

Other shows have taken this theory and put their own twist on it. Seth Green’s Robot Chicken, featured on the ever-so-random Adult Swim, is a perfect example. The entire 11-minute show is a series of short clips designed to poke fun at pop culture. Often, Green and his staff don’t feel the need to relate the clips to anything. They can be totally off the wall and only last four seconds, but somehow the humor is still interesting. It proves viewers don’t need long, elaborate jokes to be entertained these days. Thinking about the jokes even seems to be worthless, considering there is no actual meaning behind them.

This new brand of off-the-wall humor has also extended to commercials. One Sony PSP ad features two squirrels: one is in a tree scavenging for nuts while the other is shouting to him. “Come outside and play!” the one on the ground yells. The other questions, “But why?” The first one, now holding a nut replies, “because it’s portable! It‘s a nut you can play with outside!” It then cuts to a Sony PSP and the voiceover states, “Sony PSP. It’s like a nut. You can play with. Outside.” There is no apparent link between nuts and Sony PSPs, but it manages to be quite funny while getting the point across.

I tried to figure out commercials like this, but couldn’t. Either way, because they are so random, they stick with me. This is why advertisers are using off-beat humor: the commercials become memorable. It’s a smart move on their behalf, using unrelated circumstances to sell their products.

But then again, I sort of like it. It’s perpetuating this new wave of random humor, and I’m glad. Comedy about nothing is absolutely funny. Now please excuse me, I gots to get my tree fed.

wakefieldk1@lasalle.edu