Some of the biggest laughs come from routines that emerge from stream-of-consciousness, and do not necessarily make any sense. His delivery is soft and flat, steered by his exaggerated accent of a bygone blue-collar Brooklyn. He renounces his prepared material, relying almost entirely on improvisation. Rather than preening before his partisans, Dice confronts a skeptical and seemingly disgusted audience. The misogyny, xenophobia, homophobia, and all-around vileness inherent to the act are unabated. On The Day the Laughter Died, the tough-talking Dice persona, honed over a decade of performance, seems every bit as repugnant as in the Garden special. But the standup had chosen this unwelcome and at times hostile setting to record a live album: The Day the Laughter Died, uncompromisingly presented over 102 exhausting minutes and two CDs, with no conspicuous edits. That he was unbilled was not uncommon for Manhattan comedy clubs, with their tradition of starry drop-in performances.

It was Christmastime, and the 200-or-so patrons had found themselves at a Dice show unwittingly. Clay had descended upon Dangerfield’s comedy club at the behest of his producer, Rick Rubin. The Upper East Side appearance was different. Owww! That fucking whore!” To watch the Garden show, immortalized in the concert film Dice Rules, is to crave a shower and a signed first edition of The Feminine Mystique. “Jack and Jill went up the hill, both with a buck and a quarter,” he pronounced, the arena’s swarm giddily shouting along. The 1990 Garden performances-which the New York Times compared, unfavorably, to Nazi rallies -would feature Tri-State mobs cheering Dice as he recited the randy nursery rhymes that had brought him fame. He was, per self-description, “The most vulgar, vicious comic ever to walk the face of the earth.” No joke.Īt 32, Andrew Dice Clay-our beloved goon-was a newly-minted cultural phenomenon, on his way to selling out Madison Square Garden two nights running, a first for a comedian. His words were sordid, as if lifted from graffiti found on a prison toilet stall, then coarsened for a less squeamish crowd. He brandished a cigarette in the ostentatious manner of an old-time hoodlum, between thumb and index finger. A cartoon of a man, he wore broad Fonzarelli sideburns and an imposing pompadour, jet-black and groomed to the standards of the French noblesse.

In the waning days of the 1980s, a boorish goon in sleazy leather took the stage of an Upper East Side club to record an avant-garde comedy album.

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