The Art of the Insult Comedian

Accolades have been pouring in throughout the week for Mr. Warmth himself, Don Rickles (pictured here), as he basks in the spotlight from the new documentary film, Mr. Warmth: The Don Rickles Project, directed by John Landis (Animal House, The Blues Brothers). For more on the king of insult comedians, check out these recent profiles in the New York Times and Washington Post… Last week, the insult comedian for the Saturday morning set entered the No-Spin Zone. Surely the rival cable networks were salivating over such a blockbuster interview, but it was Fox News who scooped them all, as Bill O’Reilly probed the inner depths of ALF. (And here’s the video clip to prove it.) On the loftier end of the spectrum, writer/provocateur Christopher Hitchens charts new depths of self-deprecation in Part II of his Vanity Fair series, “On the Limits of Self-Improvement.” Readers may recoil from intimate descriptions of Hitchens’ “wide-stance” body waxing, but it’s pure belly laughs.