About The Aristocrats Film

The Aristocrats is a 2005 documentary film about the famous dirty joke of the same name. It was conceived and produced by comediansPenn Jillette and Paul Provenza, edited by Emery Emery, and released to theaters by TH!NKFilm. The film is dedicated to Johnny Carson, as “The Aristocrats” was said to be his favorite joke.

The Joke

“The Aristocrats” is a longstanding transgressive joke amongst comedians, in which the setup and punchline are almost always the same (or similar). It is the joke’s midsection – which may be as long as the one telling it prefers and is often completely improvised – that makes or breaks a particular rendition.

The joke involves a person pitching an act to a talent agent. Typically the first line is, “A man walks into a talent agent’s office.” The man then describes the act. From this point, up to (but not including) the punchline, the teller of the joke is expected to ad-lib the most shockingact they can possibly imagine. This often involves elements of incest, group sex, graphic violence, defecation, coprophilia, necrophilia,bestiality, child sexual abuse and various other taboo behaviors.

The joke ends with the agent, shocked and often impressed, asking “And what do you call the act?” The punchline of the joke is then given: “The Aristocrats”.

The joke, as first delivered in the film, contains the set-up line “What the heck do you call an act like that?” followed by the punchline “I call it ‘The Aristocrats’.” The added set-up value of this version of the joke, wherein the pitchman misunderstands the meaning of the phrase “What the heck do you call [that]?” as a request for information, when it is in fact meant to be an expression of incredulity or bewilderment, is lost in subsequent tellings of the joke, with the simpler and less sensible question asked by the agent, “What do you call your act?”

The film itself consists of interviews with various comedians and actors, usually in candid settings. The interviewees engage both in telling their own versions of the joke, and in reminiscing about their experiences with it, the joke’s place in comedy history, and even dissecting the logic behind the joke’s appeal.

While most of the filmed versions of the joke follow the standard format of a raunchy description followed by the punchline of “the Aristocrats”, some versions do vary the joke. Two tellings of it, including that of comedienne Wendy Liebman invert the joke by describing an elegant and beautiful performance act which has been given a lewd and transgressive name. Actor Taylor Negron tells his joke as a mixture of salacious sex acts and calmly delivered observations on life.