The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel

I'd prefer to see the live comedy of the 1920s (and teens) more than anything

started in on season 1 of this last night. some interesting things (the setting, some of the characterizations, the music choices) and some not so interesting things (everyone is written *very* broadly, almost like caricatures), but it's possible my interest in this era and milieu will win out

It's odd that Tracer hasn't commented here. I remember him being a big Bunheads and GG fan.

personally I enjoy Midge’s standup on the show. the tone & the look is inspired by early Joan Rivers routines, which I really love:

ie: https://youtu.be/EpPCFoXXhF0

i mean i know that doesnt nec. make it funnier in the show, comedy is v subjective, and I dont think those bits have to make you personally laugh for a viewer to know she’s getting over & gettong more laughs as she progesses

But just feeling the spirit of Joan in some of Midge’s character beats makes me respond much more favorably to the standup scenes knowing how much the show loves the comedic history it’s drawing from

the tone & the look is inspired by early Joan Rivers routines

yeah this was my reaction as well, she's the clearest real-life analogue

well no wonder she's not funny then

*rimshot*

as bad as things have gotten the last few years... no Joan Rivers! woo hoo

something something jerry lewis

haha, Jerry's primo late-life quote was "Joan Rivers set the Jews back a thousand years."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8yzfd269QE0

(obviously on some level they deserved each other)

https://i.imgur.com/uccIJGz.jpg

abe otm

Morbz hating Joanie is a new to me

yerac i am "obtaining" S2 as i type! :D

i obtain much hand one

Rivers *could* be funny, but not in her dotage... Just that people are 10x more familiar with her than Elaine May is a fucking tragedy

I guess, they had very very different career paths

if ppl are more familiar w Joan Rivers its cuz she was on TV *all* the fucking time

It’s really a delight having you here to share this great show with us, Morbs.

Morbs hating whatever serves his misanthropy most effectively in every moment is hardly new.

oh i know

i just like drawing attention to it

no, i've hated Reagan-ass-kissing Joan Rivers pretty consistently for 35 years, bitches

i'll get back to you on this show, I am intrigued

you should give it a try!!

we're only a bit into season 2 but i think this is a really good show. i don't think the standup is "funny" in the sense that when watching the show i'm cracking up, but that's okay; so much standup is successful because of the manner in which the comic works the room and their rhythm with delivery, and if you're sitting there in person it's a different experience, and while watching it i can see why the people in the audience on the show think it's funny. if that makes sense.

i saw Lovitz and Attell do standup a few years back and i was dying, but looking back i can see how at home my reaction at home would be vv different.

Every time I saw Second City, it was exponentially funnier than the funniest conceivable SNL episode. But years later, watching youtube clips of some of the Second City sketches I saw, they struck me as just meh. So yeah, the live experience adds a lot.

(Though not always: the one time I saw George Carlin, he was awful. I would’ve rather sat home listening to one of his records.)

while watching it i can see why the people in the audience on the show think it's funny. if that makes sense.

The show also makes no secret of the fact that she is popular because she looks good, and just her presence on stage is a surprise to most people.

I love this show. I love the sumptuousness of it (although I do wish Rachel Brosnahan wasn't always so very tightly pinned into all her clothes. Doesn't her character ever wear anything she can comfortably sit down in?), particularly the fact that so many of the scenes are fully populated. It was someone here who said it first, but I can't remember who: even most prestige shows now, like GoT, have an establishing shot with some background actors, but most of the scenes are two people talking in a room. There are so many scenes in Mrs Maisel that are set in diners, clubs, factories, butcher shops, etc, with background actors everywhere. Amazon showing off that money.

also Mrs Maisel feels more alive as a show taking place in NYC than something like Mad Men, which was great but also its production being almost exclusively in L.A. meant it had to take steps to avoid scenes taking place on NYC streets (and the heavy number of L.A. and Palm Springs exteriors sometimes was a glaring reminder of that.)

but wd've been tough for MM to shoot in midtown, which has been largely made over since 1960.

my mum enthusiastically showed the first episode of this to me a few months ago. gotta say I wasn't feeling it

I dont think morbz will like this at all.

Also I think its depiction of NYC environs is v heavily stylized and artificial-looking, v much like a stage musical

(The latter point is not really a criticism, but this show isnt going for the versimilitude/attention to period detail that Mad Men was. This show is way more comically exaggerated than realistic).

the NYT review of season 2 said it was like a contemporary idea of how a '50s movie would show the '50s.

yeah it’s a very, very handsomely produced show but ‘stylized and artificial-looking’ is otm

It operates in the same realm of heightened/embellished reality style that something like Desperate Housewives did. Real-ish.

Or, tbh, Gilmore Girls and Bunheads.

I like the artificial lookingness of it. I literally got distracted by a green glass that Suzie pulled out of a kitchen cabinet one episode. Sooooo pretty.

I kind of think morbs will like it well enough.

the stage deli is a set, right? it looks amazing

they had a pop up Carnegie deli in NYC for the season 2 premiere http://gothamist.com/2018/12/03/photos_mrs_maisels_carnegie_deli_soho.php#photo-1

It says the Stage deli was Artie’s Delicatessen and is closed and now used as a set.

oh wow, cool

i was also very taken with the kitchen in midge and joel’s apartment

midge isn't hysterical but the person who really isn't funny, and whose bits I think are based on real bits, is Lenny Bruce. not funny. dn't get it. borders on terrible. I remember now that Patton Oswald got some stick for writing an essay about how Bruce was never funny.

yeah Patton Oswalt has heard every fucking Bruce monologue

you dont think anyone is gonna laugh at Wet Hot American Summer in 2050, do ya

maybe you could actually listen to Lenny Bruce, akm, to find out if he was funny

a radical idea i know

you dont think anyone is gonna laugh at Wet Hot American Summer in 2050, do ya

People are still laughing at Wheeler & Woolsey in 2018. Or, person is, at any rate.

no, their mediocrity is what's fascinating

kinda like KC and the Sunshine Band

anyway the mark of a great oldschool comic is the material only works when he/she does it (Groucho, Hope, Lewis, Gracie etc)

Looking forward to you watching Mrs. Maisel Morbs!!