Now Less Funny!

Like all "light" and/or "[poison de jour]-free" products -- e.g., Diet Coke, non-trans-fatty KFC, O'Doul's, low-calorie crack-cocaine -- my cubemate, Robert George, reports the new, "nigga-free" Paul Mooney just ain't as good as the real thing. Because Mooney opted to go "nigga-free" post-Michael Richards' Laugh Factory gig, Robert says Richards killed two careers with just one meltdown:

Anyway, I was curious to see what a "nigger-free" Mooney show would seem like. This was his first weekend of performances

Anyone who's seen him before can tell the difference between this Mooney and the man of yore.

As he said, he now just uses "black man" or "African-American." His famed "Nigger Wake-Up Call" routine (the moment when a 'celebrity' or 'buppie" black person suddenly realizes his true status in American society) has been replaced with a sanitized "wake-up call." Take my word for it; it doesn't have the same impact. There are parts that are still quite funny, but it sounds like one's favorite band playing a show where the guitars are slightly out of tune.

But what struck me as most tragic was that Mooney had allowed Michael Richards' "breakdown" (as Mooney refers to it) to emasculate Paul Mooney the wrathful social observer.

The commenter on all these fascinating celebrity shenanigans and their racial subtext was struck dumb when it came to the most blatant use of it publicly in decades. A has-been named Michael Richards killed the beastly Paul Mooney - and it is a tragic loss.