The entire episode of “Joan of Arf” is now available at ComedyCentral.com in 8 video parts. Start with “Fair at Best” and work your way up the screen.  By the way, the song playing in “The Law” segment where Sarah visits Doug in custody is “Saint John” by The Cold War Kids. (Thanks to Amanda for the music info!)
One of the great things about Sarah Silverman that needs to be appreciated is how incredibly versatile she is–She seems to be able to do every kind of comedy there is. To watch some of the episodes of her show and to compare her stand-up and her TV interviews and see her go from channelling David Spade to Pee Wee Herman to Adam Sandler to Steve Martin to Woody Allen to Don Rickles to Lenny Bruce to George Carlin to Lisa Lampinelli…you name it, she’s the master. And yet she so synthesizes these influences that it’s all uniquely her…
And then she goes into a fine Lisa Loeb imitation to boot…! And her singing also is incredibly versatile. Just contrast the various songs in Jesus is Magic with one another!
And in my opinion this versatility is only one of the things that makes her the best comic working today.
The intelligence behind her comedy is another thing that sets her apart. She seems to have a deep understanding of human psychology, and a compassion for our common human foibles. Her comedy really _is_ ‘learnmedy’ (to use the silly word she jokes with in ‘Jesus is Magic’–but it’s not just a joke–she _is_ ‘a comic with something to say’).
To take what strikes me as an obvious example of the smarts behind her work, the fact that she has made her character both deeply flawed and lovable is not a way of condoning those flaws but a way of making it easier for us to look at them and see them in ourselves. But there are so many ways in which her comedy reorients perception and provokes thought about the unconscious aspects of our lives and all the narcissism, selfishness, arrogance and ignorance of our species, and yet she is able to do it in a ‘light’, funny way that is effective as comedy and perhaps a good therapy too, who knows? Her video ‘Give the Jew Girl Toys’ totally made me see Santa Claus in a way I had never thought of before…to consider how the whole thing might seem to little Jewish kids. It was a ‘deconstruction’ of Santa in a Derridean sense, and yet it was so light-hearted and fun, not ‘heavy’ or pretentious. I think she is Socratic in that she can make us more aware of our ignorance, but it’s also mainly funny.
So reason two why she’s the best is that she’s the smartest, without sacrificing comedy at all.
I can see where the comparisons to Steve Martin and Lenny Bruce(the jewish one) But I would suggest another one Sophie Ellis Bextor a british songstress with the same peculiar personality of the “Ganef” that our hasidic siren poseses. Wonder if she ever wanted or tried to mine jewish self-hatred and other more honest and unexplored sides of being jewish. Or at least how does it taste to have a mouthfull of kimmel.
Something to say?
Sarah Silverman is the funniest person I have seen in sooo long!!! It’s refreshing!!
Left by Audra on October 11th, 2007