If you have never heard of The Aristocrats joke…you really haven’t missed anything. It’s a single joke that’s been told for goodness knows how long (some say from back in Vaudeville times) and it goes on for AGES, has no formal structure and then ends in a weak punchline.

Basically, you say that a family go into a talent agency and proceed to demonstrate their act – which is made up of EVERY disgusting taboo that the person telling it can think of. This goes on for as long as the teller’s imagination can keep you engaged and then…the punchline of the joke is that the name of the act is “The Aristocrats”.

Def NOT to be confused with The Aristocats, 1970 children’s film.

I heard the Bob Saget clip (from this film) years ago and wished I hadn’t (you need a strong stomach). It’s apparently a joke that comics used to tell each other, competing to come up with the most depravity. Saget said that it was supposed to make a point about how desperate for fame the family were…I’m sure there would be a better way than this.

The point of this post is not to encourage anyone to seek out the joke – it’s to lay down a reference to The Aristocrats – A Film by Paul Provenza. This interview with Provenza might give you some idea of what he was trying to achieve.

The Directors of the film were Penn Jillette (he of Penn and Teller) and Paul Provenza and the cast is a massive list of comedians (see IMDB). Luminaries such as George Carlin, Bill Connolly, Carrie Fisher, Eric Idle, Emo Philips, Chris Rock, Jeff Ross, Bob Saget and Robin Williams either told the joke or talked about it.

I was reminded of it while researching Jimmy’s appearances at Edinburgh 2004 as, in the 2004 Edinburgh Fringe programme, it was announced that the film would be shown at the Metro Gilded Balloon Teviot for most of August 8^th to 29^th.

I can only assume that it never happened, in 2004, as I can find nothing about the premiere until Edinburgh August 2005. Apparently, it made $6m gross (no pun intended).

Launching at the Fringe means lots of comedians are around and so the names that were spotted viewing the film (in 2005) included Jimmy Carr, Dara O’Briain, Stephen Merchant, Stewart Lee, Barry Cryer, Andy Zaltzman, Lucy Porter, Alan Davies and Andy Parsons. Chortle reported that Alan only lasted 20 minutes.

More interesting to me was the post-film interview, by The Guardian, that got reactions from Jimmy, Stephen Merchant, Barry Cryer, Lucy Porter, Dara etc.

All of which was just to try and satisfy my own curiosity as to why it never happened at Edinburgh 2004…still none the wiser.