In an email interview with Judd Apatow for Vanity Fair's first-ever comedy issue, comedian Chris Rock revealed his disappointment with the state of comedy today. The truth is, he misses the old days.
"Do I think comedians are better now? Hell fuckin’ no. Show me one guy or woman as funny as Rodney Dangerfield or as good as George Carlin, Richard Pryor, Bill Cosby, or Joan Rivers," Rock wrote, adding that although he thinks there are "a lot of good comics out there," he feels that most new comedians are situational comics who pander to one specific audience:
"What we have now is black comics that work only black crowds, gay comics that do only gay crowds, and southern comics that only work down South, and so on with Asian, Latino, Indian, midgets, etc. The previous generation’s comics were better because they had to make everybody laugh. Richard Pryor could do The Ed Sullivan Show and play the Apollo. Seinfeld can work any crowd. Ellen can work any crowd. Lopez can work any crowd. And a few more, but the rest of them are just situational comics."
You can read the rest of the interview here, wherein Rock reveals his professional high and low points, how a wife and kids has changed his act and his take on the legalization of marijuana (spoiler alert: he's for it). Vanity Fair's January 2013 comedy issue hits newsstands in New York and Los Angeles Dec. 6 and nationwide on Dec. 11.
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