There are certain skits from early episodes of SNL that I defy you to find anything funny about. Pedophilia jokes… mastectomy jokes... offensive… but not funny. Offensive can be funny… just not always. So much of comedy is dated. So much of it is has to be understood in the social context of the time. The laughs come from discomfort, the pleasure in breaking social taboos. What’s nice about this piece is that they provide a context for Bruce’s comedy, very succinctly. It takes comedy seriously, taking a scholarly approach that still manages to remain conversational. They explain the social context in the late fifties and I think even beyond it, Lenny Bruce still stands up. He is funny and when he isn’t ha-ha funny, he’s still interesting. And what’s different about his version of stand up is you can hear the wheels in his mind spinning… making it up, like impromptu conversation, as he performs. It’s so different than a lot of the slick, honed stuff you hear today. The piece provides an arc, too, that ends melancholically with many of Bruce’s sad obsessions, drug problems, and legal nightmares. Nicely done. Break out those old Alan Sherman records and devote some programming to comedy.