Andrew Dice Clay

I thought this would be the best place to ask, so welcome aboard. I never “got” Andrew Dice Clay. Even growing up in Boston, he always personified an over-masculine, obnoxious douche, the kind you’d find at any bar on the East Coast. I mean, was the over-the-top part of his personna part of the joke, like a parody, or was this the authentic “Dice Man” telling jokes? The jokes, incidentally, were not that much better than what I could hear from friends on the street.

But that’s me. If you liked Andrew Dice Clay, what was the appeal?

From a new interview w Dice

As for whatever happened to his longtime friendship with Howard Stern, Dice admits the two buried the hatchet when he started at SiriusXM, but claims he’s never heard the “fake Dice” that has become a feature on the show’s sound bites.

“Actually, I’m more into podcasts these days,” he says. “Nothing against Howard, but I’m more into Joe Rogan and Marc Maron.”

One can only assume that Dice will be doing an episode or has already done it and just needs to drop. Thoughts?

First, I should note that I'm not a huge fan of the Diceman. I realize he was just doing an extended character bit, but the jokes never worked for me.

Nevertheless, I'm working on a set which references Andrew Dice Clay and I realized that the cultural reference sails over the heads of anyone over the age of 45. (sigh. i'm old.)

Who would be some more contemporary examples of well-known comedians who are mining the same sort of homophobic and misogynistic humor of the Diceman?

This post comes across as vindictive in writing when I don't mean it to be. I'm just trying to get a better understanding of Andrew Dice Clay's success as a comic.

I don't understand Andrew Dice Clay or why he was funny. I'm not trying to put him down, I'm trying to understand him. I obviously understand he is a huge comic. I sincerely just don't understand why. I'm sure there is a reason, but he is one of the only comedians I just don't get.

As far as I can see, his most famous "schtick" was a brash recitation of the Little Miss Muffet nursery rhyme that doesn't have any large humor points in it. I mean, the spider calls Little Miss Muffet a bitch...not exactly going to die laughing at that one.

His other major thing would be to smoke his cigarette like he was John Travolta in Grease or something. The audience already knew what he was going to say and do before he said it...yet they still laughed feverishly over him.

So he had a routine or schtick where he said what the audience expected and that was that. Kind of like Carrot Top.

That about sums him up...yet he sold out Madison Square Garden twice. Why did he get so huge from what I would consider so little in the way of comedy?

Did I not grow up in the right time period to appreciate Andrew Dice Clay? When the audience is laughing, I literally don't know what they're laughing at for a lot of his stuff. It seems to me they laugh if he says "fuck you" or "whore" or other "bold words" with nothing else really adding to the "punchline".

Yet, many comics seem to be big fans of Dice, so I don't know. I'm just trying to get maybe some historical context into why he's actually funny. Even with comics that don't share my particular sense of humor, if the audience is laughing, I usually understand why they're laughing. It's usually because they're telling a joke. But unless you consider slightly dirty nursery rhymes jokes...or the word "bitch" to be hilarious, I literally don't know why they're laughing and find that to be more hilarious than anything Andrew Dice Clay is saying.

Here's an example of his routine:

But this is what it looks like to me (Gilbert Gottfried's impression of him):

Another example joke, in it's entirety: "Three blind mice see how they run. [Pause to smoke.] Ha! Ha! Ha! [Pause to smoke.] Where the fuck are they going?"

Starts around 13 minutes in here:

I’ve never seen him and it’s $100 per ticket.