Actually, Dennis Miller really was funny in 1992
I don't really get this New York Observer article. Writer Tom Scocca talks about YouTube's influence on pop culture. How some things that we thought were good (or bad) years ago can be seen in a new light now. How incidents like the famous World Cup head butt can be uploaded a minute after it happens and viewed over and over and over again, something that would have been unheard of 10 or 20 years ago. All that's well and good, but he claims that YouTube also shows that Dennis Miller wasn't funny in 1992.
Um, yeah, actually, he was.
Now, I'm not going to defend Miller's recent work. I thought his declaration that he wasn't going to joke about Bush on his talk show disturbing, plus there was that whole Monday Night Football fiasco (though I liked him on that, but I'm not a football fan, I'm the audience they were trying to woo with that move). But the NYO uses as "evidence" this clip of Miller interviewing the Pixies after a performance on his show. You're going to judge whether a comedian is funny by what he says in the 30 seconds after a band plays? Then Carson, Letterman, and Conan aren't funny either.
I submit as evidence that Miller was funny his standup work, his Weekend Update spots on SNL, and his guest appearances on other talk shows. He's had many lines over the years that I still quote to friends.

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