As decades do, this one took its time getting started. In the same way that the '60s can be argued to have kicked-in with JFK's death, the '00s effectively began on Sept. 11, 2001.
Comedy-wise, it was an inauspicious beginning for a decade that would eventually ring with laughter. Comedians would, indeed, become so influential they would help decide elections.
But it was not so in the days after 9/11. Cries of "too soon!" initially greeted standup comics who tried to 'go there' (there's a great scene of the dynamic at work with Gilbert Gottfried in the film The Aristocrats).
But the Marc Antony of the "no jokes" movement was Graydon Carter, the Canadian-born editor of Vanity Fair, who has become the kind of self-important pratt he used to lampoon as editor of the late, great Spy magazine. Carter came to bury comedy in his first issue post-9/11, declaring "the end of the age of irony." We would all be very serious, now and forevermore.
It was quite the declaration, considering the context. Religious zealots carried out an insane attack on a nation and culture they perceived as Godless, corrupt and materialist. The President's response was to tell Americans to go shopping, lest the terrorists win.
Now that's ironic, Alanis.
And though there were attempts to render popular culture as humourless as the Taliban - such as the firing of Bill Maher from ABC's Politically Incorrect - the '00s actually resurrected political humour from near-death. The Daily Show troika of Jon Stewart, Lewis Black and Stephen Colbert flourished in a new, urgent era of political awareness. If mainstream journalistic pundits wouldn't give you the unvarnished truth, an entire generation seemed to decide, they'd get it from comedians.
Comedy on the right was more problematic - seeing as how it tended to exclude the rich and powerful as targets of ridicule. Still, Dennis Miller came out of the closet as a Republican, and it turned into a smart career move.
No one was more instrumental in turning Sarah Palin into a cartoon than Tina Fey. (As if in atonement, SNL has turned on Obama in recent months, with funny-because-they're-true Fred Armisen sketches that focus on the watering down of Obama's platform).
And the raging id that is David Letterman was firing scattershots all over the decade - no less so than when he declared war on John McCain in mid-campaign.
Businesswise, comedy clubs often struggled, but comedians turned to producing their own shows in theatres, and even arenas (in a short period in Toronto, the Air Canada Centre filled up with fans of Dane Cook, Larry The Cable Guy and Russell Peters).
Cook and Larry were standardbearers for comedy's traditional white male audience - frat boy and blue collar, respectively.
Peters, on the other hand, was the poster-boy for a new, blazingly successful ethnic comedy - aimed not at immigrants but at the sophisticated, sometimes-conflicted, culturally savvy children of immigrants. The New Face of our society turned up to "Ethnic Comedy" shows in droves, a dynamic analogous in some respects to the one that drove the 2008 U.S. election.
Check out Jim Slotek's picks for the best comedic lines and stories of the decade here.
TOP 5 COMEDY: COMIC SLOGAN/TAGLINES
1. "Somebody gonna get a hurt real bad." - Russell Peters
2. "Super finger!" - Dane Cook
3. "Git 'er done!" - Larry The Cable Guy
4. "I'm Rick James, bitch!" - Dave Chappelle as Rick James
5. "I kill you all!" - Jeff Dunham's 'Achmed The Dead Terrorist' puppet
TOP 10 COMEDY: NEW COMICS
1. Demetri Martin
2. Mitch Hedberg (R.I.P.)
3. Russell Brand
4. Lewis Black
5. Zach Galifianakis
6. Ricky Gervais
7. Sarah Silverman
8. David Cross
9. Louis C.K.
10. Dave Chappelle
TOP 10 COMEDY: DEATHS
1. George Carlin
2. Richard Jeni
3. Bernie Mac
4. Mitch Hedberg
5. Richard Pryor
6. Rodney Dangerfield
7. Don Knotts
8. Soupy Sales
9. Milton Berle
10. Harvey Korman
