Cracked Newsletter
Posts
The Bill Burr Rant That Trashed Alt Comedy

The Bill Burr Rant That Trashed Alt Comedy

Alyson Lewis
February 28, 2024

Welcome to the Cracked newsletter!

This issue is about CDs worth bank, unsolved mysteries, U.S. landmarks, wild lies, and much more.

Was this email forwarded to you? Subscribe here.

The Best Jokes and Burns About the Alabama Frozen Embryo Ruling

Last week, the Alabama Supreme Court ruled that frozen embryos, lumpy clumps of cells mere millimeters long, are, legally, indistinguishable from actual human children. This shocking story prompted outrage across the country, as well as questions like, “How ugly are the kids in Alabama?”

Following the controversial decision, fertility clinics across the Heart of Dixie have been scrambling to arrange daycare for the thousands of frozen embryos while they shop for school clothes in a size microscopic — actually, they’ve been shutting their doors as the state prepares for what will presumably be a mass exodus of reproductive health professionals who don’t want to face child endangerment or infanticide charges should they ever accidentally drop a test tube.

The Bill Burr Rant That Trashed Alt Comedy

It’s the 2012 comedian feud you may never have heard of — the alt comics vs. the club stand-ups. In one corner, the hipsters in skinny jeans and Buddy Holly glasses were playing to a room of people who looked just like them. In the other corner, the hard-working club comics slung punchlines in front of a brick wall, working the room and taking on the hecklers. Bill Burr was firmly in the latter group, and in 2012, he’d had enough of the “nerds” who condescended to the regular joes who told good, old-fashioned jokes for a living.

“I really can’t wait for the backlash on nerds,” Burr ranted on his Monday Morning Podcast. (He preached similar versions of this sermon in other interviews of the time.) “I’ve had it with them embracing the fact that they’re awkward to the point of pretending to be awkward even when you’re not.” He described this kind of comic as a guy “f***ing 35 years old, walking around acting like some 14-year-old on his first date.”