Comedians as Philosophers! - Ep #9

"Laughter without a tinge of philosophy is but a sneeze of humor. Genuine humor is replete with wisdom." - quoted in Mark Twain and I, Opie Read

"The humorous writer professes to awaken and direct your love, your pity, your kindness--your scorn for untruth, pretension, imposture....He takes upon himself to be the week-day preacher." - quoted in Mark Twain's "Notes on Thackeray's Essay on Swift"

From our perspective, it's hard to imagine any other entity connecting with a wider audience than a thoughtful, top-of-the-line standup comic. Laughter seems to cut through bull shit quicker than any other medium. We get it immediately. We laugh because there's truth in it, whether you're talking about something silly or something as serious as the structure of our society.

This multi-episode series looks at comedians and their potential role outside of comedy. Are they also sociological observers? Philosophers? The town criers of "life"? Does it even matter? In this first episode we look at the perspective of a few comedians on our workaday lives. Do we have a good balance right now between work and life, or work and art? How do comedians and/ or laughter affect that balance or CAN they?