Louis CK



""That's just me saying something terrible just because it makes me laugh that it upsets you, that's all that is. I'm not gonna fuck a kid. I wouldn't do that...[Beat]...maybe a dead kid. Who are you hurting? He's dead! Who are you hurting? I'm not saying I would kill a kid and fuck him, I'm saying that if I found a dead kid in a field, and it wasn't raining, I might take a shot, I don't know.""

- from Hilarious

""I would happily blow twenty guys in an alley with bleedy dicks so I could get AIDS and fuck a deer and kill it with my AIDS.""

- from Chewed Up

Louis C.K. began performing stand-up comedy in the late 1980s. His act has always taken Refuge in Vulgarity. His inspirations are George Carlin and Richard Pryor, and it shows.

In the 2000s, he began incorporating brutally honest observations about his marriage and children that take Refuge in Audacity, to say the least. The Unfortunate Implications of his complaints about his wife were easy to Hand Wave under the Rule of Funny...until he got divorced, perhaps causing his audience to rethink things slightly.

He created and starred in Lucky Louie, HBO's first traditional three-camera Sit Com, and has done the same for Louie, a stand-up/auto-bio show on FX. He has also begun to emulate George Carlin's practice of creating a new hour-long stand-up special each year.

In 2011, he broke ground in comedy by releasing a new comedy special online, out of his own pocket. It could be easily bought through Paypal for only $5. Despite warnings about torrents and illegal downloads, in a few months, this special had made over a million dollars, and that's after Paypal fees. This idea was so incredibly successful that fellow comedian Aziz Ansari did a similar sale for his next comedy special; soon after, Jim Gaffigan also released his new comedy special in the same way.

Tropes explored in his stand-up and shows
""'Why don't women want to fuck all the time? I do!' Of course you do! Because when you fuck, you get to fuck a woman! When she fucks, she has to fuck a guy!""
 * All Men Are Perverts and All Women Are Prudes: In Live at the Beacon Theater he says that the reason why these two tropes are Truth in Television is because women are great at sex while men are terrible at it.

""Women, you get to have sexual thoughts, I have to have them!"
 * He has also implied in several of his bits that women aren't really that prudish, they just seem that way in comparison because men are just so much more perverted.

"Women have the ability to decide whether or not to have sex with their minds. Men can't do that. All we can think about in that situation is 'She's letting me!'""

"Come on, Jesus didn't die on a cross so you could touch dicks in front of my cereal spoon! I'm sure that wasn't why! I mean, I wasn't there, but I assume that's not why."
 * Black Comedy
 * Black Comedy Rape: He'll go there.
 * For instance, his workaround for Hitler's Time Travel Exemption Act? Go back in time and rape Hitler, the idea being that no one who's just been raped is going to feel like conquering Europe or murdering millions of innocent people.
 * Another time, he mentions he was dating this chick and she was hoping he would "just go for it". He thought to himself "What are you, out of your fucking mind?! You think I'm just going to 'rape' you on the off-chance that hopefully you're into that shit?"
 * Black People Cannot Time Travel: Mentioned specifically in one bit.
 * Comedic Sociopathy
 * Fiery Redhead: More like sarcastic, cussing, and sometimes enraged, redhead.
 * Foreign Language Tirade: He once recounted a time when a French tourist asked him for directions in French, to which Louis had no answer. This only angered the Frenchman and his friend, who shouted at him angrily, also in French.
 * Gayngst: He goes on about an elaborate scheme to get back at the kid who shoved his daughter. He would turn his father gay, and just when he comes out of the closet, he would dump him and leave him as a mess of sexually confused feelings.
 * Hey, It's That Voice!: Think he sounds a lot like Brendon's dad on Home Movies? It's not just you.
 * N-Word Privileges: He hates the phrase "The N Word", because everyone knows what you mean by it anyway, and you're putting the actual word into their heads when you say it. He loves "The C Word" however.
 * Playing Against Type: His role as Dave Sanderson, a cop and really nice guy, in Parks and Recreation. He becomes Leslie Knope's boyfriend for a time in Season 2, and, being totally over the moon over her, he has nothing really bad to say about her at all.
 * His role in Home Movies - as wealthy, handsome lawyer - may also count.
 * Real Life Writes the Plot: His new show Louie is loosely based off his life as a comedian on stage and a recently divorced father with two children off stage.
 * Refuge in Audacity: A lot of his act is based on this; saying things that are so shocking that their sheer inappropriateness becomes the joke.
 * Especially in this routine)
 * Refuge in Vulgarity: Part and parcel with the above. He never passes up an oppurtunity to curse when a softer word would've made more sense.
 * Self-Deprecation: A big part of his stand-up comedy.
 * Single-Target Sexuality: His bit on Ewan McGregor. He states emphatically that he's not gay...but that he would happily blow Ewan if he had the chance.
 * Strawman Political: Louis can't stand people with anti-gay views, they inevitably come up at least once per show (however, in keeping with his stance on Acceptable Targets, he's got no problem with mocking gays himself, either).


 * Stupid Sexy Flanders: Used hilariously in his special Shameless with Ewan McGregor (see Single-Target Sexuality above).
 * Troll: His bits tend to be a cross between this and Refuge in Audacity.