Did you hear the one about the talent agent who was offered a chance to represent this incredible new act?  No?  Well if you want to hear the joke - which by the way is perhaps the most offensive one since vaudeville began - all you have to do is go see this comic documentary and check your PC alert at the door (but bring an open-minded sense of humor to truly ingest and enjoy the unsavory joke).

Depicted as an unofficial secret handshake between comedians for ages, the titular punch line to comedian Paul Provenza's scathingly uproarious autopsy of one of the sickest, most twisted and funniest jokes ever to be delivered is fall-down funny and depraved to the point of craven salaciousness.  It's fucking funny folks!

Basically it involves a family of acrobatic entertainers whose act involves scatological and sexual practices involving incest, bestiality, excrement and other assorted vulgarities the likes no one (in their right mind) would ever dare to want to see on a stage (let alone repeat the descriptions of their feats!)  The debonair punch line is meant to be a skewered ironic take of what is a given as a sickly disgusting betrayal to the human condition for a sophisticated display of artistry.

Involved with the seemingly-never-ending docu (of which nearly 100 comedians, producers and personalities are onscreen riffing like jazz musicians doing their own tailored improvisations to the joke telling, the filthier the better, trying to top one another in the stand-up world is a badge of honor) - some 90 minutes of digital talking heads that reads like the Yellow Pages of Comedy, a Who's Who in Vile Storytelling - featuring some very interesting takes (one is done by a mime, another by a magician and a few with different approaches and punch lines) but all ultimately attempting to out do one another in what is grosser than gross grotesqueries.

The appeal - if that is what the word should be to describe this unapologetic and unexpurgated look at language, joke telling and universal humor - is how each artist treats the words as if an artist were to work in oils, clay or incorporating different hybrid styles and the most successful are the masterful George Carlin (clearly a nearly professorial break-down on how a joke works best), the truly awful Bob Saget (who I can barely stomach but is notorious for working blue despite his "Full House" bullshit persona) going for the gold in revolting imagery and finally the piece de resistance, Gilbert Gottfried at a recent post-9/11 Friars Roast of Hugh Hefner that brings his comic comrades to their knees weeping in peals of stop-please-stop-you're-killing me sobs of laughter.

Provenza, himself a comedian, and Penn Jillette (the larger and louder half of magical comedian duo Penn & Teller), joined forces in their desire to get this to the mainstream and dedicate this extravaganza to the memory of the late, great Johnny Carson who surprisingly passed on doing an on-camera recital despite the fact if was the icon's favorite dirty joke (which he often used in his '60s nightclub act).

It may be beating a horse to death with its non-stop barrage of quick cuts from one comic to another (and some quite frankly who are unrecognizable or simply not funny; a true cardinal sin in the comedian forte) but I dare you not to crack a smile, even for those with the most faint of heart; come on!  It's just a joke!!

Film Rating: 3 out of 4