Recently, while perusing my many cable channels, I bumped into what I believe was an HBO ‘Young Comedians’ special, featuring standup by a very young Rob Schneider. Seeing him onstage, actually BEING FUNNY, reminded me of just how far his skills have fallen in my estimation, especially since he was still remarkably entertaining well into his SNL stint. (There’s a bit about the colloquial uses of the word “dude” that still makes me laugh every time.) Of course, having the cache to do whatever he wanted really put the kibosh on my appreciation of his humor, leaving me wondering about the nature of the has-beens and never-weres of the world, and leading to today’s Elvis-impersonating query…
The MS-QOTD (pronounced, as always, “misquoted”) also lost much of my appreciation of the work of Dennis Miller, but that’s for an entirely different reason, asking: What creator or performer whom you don’t care for now used to be the most entertaining?
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There really aren’t that many performers, artists or other entertainers that I’ve stopped liking completely. For example, I don’t hate Chris Farley’s movies, but they I can’t just sit and watch them whenever they are on like I used to. I have to be in a certain mood or in need of nostalgia in order to watch them anymore. The same can be said for a good number of former SNL cast members ranging from Will Ferrell, Dana Carvey, Mike Meyers and so on. I still like a lot of their stuff, I’m just not as crazy about all of it as I once was.
But I have really grown to dislike Eddie Murphy’s films. I don’t know why, I don’t know when the shift happened, but somewhere along the lines he went from being someone I enjoyed watching to cringing whenever I see ads for his movies or seeing a one of them on cable. I do like some of the stuff he’s been in over the past few years, such as the Shrek franchise, and I still love “Coming to America”, but for the most part I’ve skipped the bulk of his movies since around the time of the Nutty Professor movies. I don’t hate the man, I just haven’t enjoyed most of his work in years.
Actually, Rob Schneider can still be funny. We saw him about four years ago at a comedy club in Richmond and his stand up is so much better than the garbage he puts out in movies.
Back on topic, I avoid EVERYTHING with Will Ferrell now. Outside of Elf I pretty much have hated every thing he’s done and just don’t even look at his movies now.
Adam Sandler puts me to sleep now as well.
Used to love Ben Stiller but he has more misses lately in my opinion.