If this were a better joke, I'd be on Ricky's side, but it's not even really funny. He says something controversial, and then immediately sets it up as a strawman so he can play the victim of the outrage the joke is supposed to generate. The article is basically a continuation of the joke. I'm on the fence on if the woman who started the petition is actually real. This all feels like an ad to generate controversy and get people to watch the special, which, based on this clip, isn't very good.
So you can remove the timing and delivery inherent to joke telling and say "yep that sucks" to a transcript? Would you also read the script to a movie so you can say the acting sucked? Not picking on you personally, just saying.
Its a mediocre joke in the scheme of jokes, its pretty good if you know Rickys brand of comedy. Watch it or dont but form your own opinion.
I'd agree that it's almost certainly fake controversy to act as an ad. What kind of petition has ever been made to remove individual jokes from a show? Angry people would demand the whole special be taken down, which frankly I'm all in favor of just taking down all of his shows and material. It would raise the overall average humor level of the whole service.
It’s a bad joke in bad taste. He’s right it ultimately doesn’t matter, but it doesn’t take much to not write those jokes. And any parent that lost a child to terminal illness doesn’t want to hear that when they’re looking for a night of comedy
A Ricky Gervais joke in Ricky Gervais taste. Nothing you said here is wrong, but the dude is literally doing the same thing he always does. Maybe if you don't wanna hear Ricky Gervais jokes don't go watch him?
it's sad to see a comedian who was once at the top of his game reduced to farming outrage on the internet
he says in the interview that people shouldn't view his jokes as conveying any deeper meaning, which is just a depressing stance for a comedian to take