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comment by StJohn
StJohn  ·  4642 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: See If I Care: Audiophiles Through the Ages
Comedy has changed a huge amount. I really like that 20s-style fast-talking comedy, which you can see a lot in Marx brothers movies and which I think must have originated from vaudeville. Compare that to modern comedy, where they pause for five minutes to make sure you got the joke. It's painful. But then, some of the topics they found funny in the 1910s to the 30s weren't all that great. If you listen to old comedy cylinders and 78s, what they seemed to find funny was mostly racism and domestic abuse. Ah, good times.

Thanks so much for that link. "Talking Empty Bed Blues" is utterly beautiful - these guys are great performers.