REPOSE OF THE DAMNED

A hand-me-down from that whole Marie Antionette fracas, a notorious joke called The Aristocrats entered comedy culture like a virus, and mutated into an obscene way to unwind after shows in the wee hours, when pissing on the audience tasted like sweet revenge. The tired blue-collar gag itself works only because it's NOT funny; it's the ur-shaggy dog tale. Anyone telling the story does battle with its banality; it forces the teller to make funny with obvious transgression and hollow finish. That's how it became a secret handshake among comics: to get another comic to laugh is the cocaine high of the comedy set. This vivid documentary celebrates this shadow comic culture while flipping a ginormous crooked finger to the Bush administration.

MIA: Garry Shandling, Jay Leno, Adam Sandler, Chevy Chase, Christopher Guest, Jim Carey, Dan Ackroyd, David Letterman, Craig Ferguson, Tony Hendra, Eddie Murphy, Billy Crystal, Martin Short (as Katherine Hepburn, please), Andrea Martin, Eugene Levy, Steve Martin, Larry David

TOO MUCH (ratio of screen time to substance): George Carlin, Paul Reiser, Andy Dick

REASONS TO WATCH: Bob Saget, Mario Cantone (as Liza), Lisa Lampanelli (a sharpie who trades sex for race), Wendy Liebman (who turns it inside out) all win out over the bigger names who yap around the joke rather than participate in the contest. Some get away with it: Phyllis Diller, Michael McKean, Harry Shearer, Chris Rock, Larry Miller, Fred Willard, Eddie Izzard and Jon Stewart take honorable passes, although you admire Martin Mull more for doing the joke's goth stepchild, a variation on "Ooga-Booga."

STOCK GOES UP: Gilbert Gottfried, Whoopi Goldberg, Penn & Teller, that card shark, Kevin Pollock (as Christopher Walken), Billy the Mime (Steven Banks)

BEST CHEATS: Martin Mull, Sarah Silverman, Carrie Fisher

MOST ORIGINAL TWISTS: Stephen Wright, Kevin Pollock

FOR THE DVD:

Who was invited and refused? Or filmed a session and didn't make the final cut? Did Pollock do another take as Shatner? There's a shadow movie in my mind of all the dead comics who must have told this joke on film: Rodney Dangerfield, Bill Hicks, Chevy Chase, John Belushi

UNANSWERED QUESTION: What makes this joke uniquely American as Eric Idle suggests?

HONORARY UNMENTIONED GHOST: Lenny Bruce