Man, Is That Funny?

Remember the old stand-by two-liner, "Who was that lady I saw you with last night?" Well, today it is more likely to turn up translated into something like Comedian George Carlin's street-dude one-upper: "Hey, man, what'd ya do last night?" Answer: "I was out wit ya muther, man!" And the audience guffawing at it is most likely gathered not down at the old vaudeville house, but at home round the old stereo.

The comedy record, which has been gathering dust at the back of record racks since its heyday in the early '60s, has made a major comeback. More than 15 comedy albums have been released in the past six months.

A few of the new albums are shots in the old vein--Veterans Carl Reiner and Mel Brooks with their 2000 and Thirteen-year-old man or the literate stand-up style of David Steinberg's Booga Booga. But the hottest newcomers are the "rock" comics, whose pot-and pop-flavored material is aimed directly at the under-30 funny bone.

By far the most successful of the rock comics are Richard ("Cheech") Marin, 27, and Tommy Chong, 33, an energetic Chicano-Chinese duo whose freakish cast of characterizations includes Sister Mary Elephant, Ashley Roachclip, and Buster the Body Crab. Their first two albums have sold 4 million copies so far, and their newest, Los Cochinos, jumped onto the pop charts at 22, a feat usually accomplished only by top rockers. But several others are stalking comedy's new-found rock audience in their wake.

Last year's Grammy for Best Comedy Record went to George Carlin, 36, who began as a straight-suited standup. Now sporting chest-length locks and painted undershirts, Carlin tells low-key tales of his kidhood on the fringes of Harlem: "You put five white guys and five black guys together and after a month . . . what you'll see is redheaded guys named Duffy sayin' 'What's happenin', baby?' " Carlin also deals heavily in various bodily functions. In one routine called "Filthy Words," he blithely reels off the rapidly dwindling list of banned mots--the kind of vocabulary that got Lenny Bruce arrested.

Albert Brooks, a cherubic 26-year-old with a curly halo, has a softer approach in recounting his adventures as the opening act at Neil Diamond and Richie Havens concerts. His album, Comedy Minus One, could even be taken home to Mother--provided Mother was reasonably aware of what gets smoked at rock concerts. Singer-Songwriter Martin Mull is the only newcomer who is literally a rock comic, laying his words on music. His hit record is in fact an instrumental called Dueling Tubas. His other folk-rock ditties include Ventriloquist Love ("Whenever I kiss you, your lips never move") and the ultimate Hare Krishna lover's gambit: "I made love to you in a former life, why can't we do it now?"

Dope and Dirty Words. Perhaps because politics today provides its own, few of the new comics play with political satire. Most of rock humor seems securely tied up in the double-whammy bags of dope and dirty words. Dope naturally supplies the subject matter. The dirty words, no longer reserved as final zingers, are strung right along through almost every sentence--alternating, of course, with the word man, the sine quanon of the species.

When these elements are used as tools of comic construction, the results can be splendid parody, as in Cheech & Chong's TV quiz-show takeoff Let's Make a Dope Deal, "where young pushers try to parlay their stash into the reely big connection and move up into dealerhood." Unfortunately, the dope and dirty words too often seem intended to be funny in themselves, giggling passwords to separate "us" from "them."

Nevertheless, the appearance of young comics making fun of their own culture is a good sign. Says Comedian and Disc Jockey Don Imus: "It used to be Bob Hope making fun of hippies; now it's hippies making fun of hippies."

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