An Audience Member Called the Cops on an Irish Comic Over a Joke About Donkey Dicks
Source - Comedian Joe Lycett has revealed that a fan who attended one of his recent gigs called the police - because found one of his jokes 'too offensive'.
The Birmingham funnyman, 33, revealed he'd been questioned by police after they received the complaint about a joke that involved the phrase 'giant donkey d***'.
On social media, Lycett shared the notice from police showing that the case was now closed and revealed his dismay at being reported in the first place.
He wrote: 'So someone came to my tour show a few weeks back and was offended by one of the jokes. And their perfectly understandable response to this was… to call the f***ing police.
He added that 'the fuzz' were 'very nice about it all' but had a duty to investigate the complaint further. ... 'I particularly enjoyed putting the words ‘giant donkey d***’ into a message to a police detective.'
Lycett said he had no intention of taking the joke out of his current set as he tours the UK with his More, More, More! show.
He explained: 'You’ll be pleased to know that the joke - which I consider to be one of the best I’ve ever written - remains firmly and proudly in the show.'
I'm going to spare you the obvious sermon. I'm going to avoid the low-hanging fruit of this all too obvious story. It's too easy to rant about the times we are cursed to live in and trot out every hoary, overused cliche about snowflakes and canceling and safe spaces. We all know the history of Lenny Bruce getting arrested in comedy clubs for using the word "cocksucker" at 2 a.m. By now you've no doubt heard the great line from George Carlin when he said there's a line between good taste and bad taste, and it's the comedian's job to find it so they can step over it.
Instead I'll just say this about Joe Lycett, whose comedy I am completely unfamiliar with. He has got to be the luckiest fucking working comic on the planet. I said I won't preach, but check out a sampling of people on TV in the UK who are outraged that this happened. You can't buy publicity like this:
Upper crust twits who probably have degrees from Oxford and haven't laughed out loud since Dudley Moore and Peter Cook did the "One-Legged Tarzan' sketch are not only not offended you're talking about a beast of burden's dong, they're offended at whoever dropped a dime on you, on your behalf? That is marketing gold.
Now it doesn't matter if he's the Northern Ireland Bill Burr selling out arenas and ballparks, or just a hack working local clubs like me. It doesn't even matter if he's funny. He's just got to offer the public the promise he'll do the Big Donkey Dick bit that is so dangerous the police had to be called in, and he's the hottest ticket in the world. He's the stand up equivalent of a movie the church is trying to get banned that makes people just want to see it more. Or to cite an even better analogy because it's about British comedy, when I was a kid, a local TV station started showing Benny Hill, and the news was going features on the parents who were up in arms about all the raunchy humor and jiggling boobs. Then we had to watch it, just to see what all the fuss was about. Also the jiggling boobs.
And somewhere out there in the next town this Joe Lycett is going to play are hundreds of people who never heard of him and now have to see him to find out what's so lethal about his comedy that the police had to stop hunting murderers and searching for missing children to investigate it.
Frankly, I'm jealous. A while back I had a woman faint in the middle of my set. I'm not kidding. Right at the front table. She just slid out of her seat and hit the deck. We stopped the show. EMTs were called. They revived her and took her away in an ambulance and apparently is fine. I remember thinking - in fact I said it when we resumed - that I'm glad she's OK, but if she had died on the spot, it would've been great for my career. I could've billed myself as The World's Most Dangerous Comic and people would've flocked to buy tickets, risking their lives to hear me do bits about being married and sports team nicknames, the way they come out to see motorsports: For the violence. To see the guy who literally has them rolling in the aisles. Who isn't exaggerating when he said he kills. Instead, Lycett is all over the news and I'm working a fundraiser at a Sons of Italy somewhere.
There's a 99.5% certainty this was all a stunt by Lycett or his manager. If so, I salute them. It's ingenious. And in tribute, I'll end this with one of my favorite, truly offensive, dark and genuinely hilarious stand up routines of all time. Sam Kinison's "World Hunger" bit. Which makes anything about big donkey dicks sound like a kid-appropriate dad joke. Enjoy.