Stop me if you’ve heard this one before

Not long after September 11, 2001, a group of entertainers gathered for a celebrity roast of Hugh Hefner held at New York’s Friars Club. Emcee Gilbert Gottfried tried to warm up the crowd by trying out some risky 9/11 material; not a good idea, especially since the attack was only weeks old and still fresh in people’s minds.

As the guests began to boo Gottfried and yell out "Too soon!" the comedian dug in his heels and switched to his "A" material. He began reeling off a version of one of the filthiest jokes ever told, a rambling tale known in the comic world as "The Aristocrats."

And Gottfried made sure it was the raunchiest, most debauched and detestable version ever told in public. With his trademark nasal whine and screwed-shut eyes, he did not stop until every single member of the audience – largely consisting of entertainers and standup comics like himself – was rolling around on the floor, helpless with laughter.

This was Gottfried’s anti-terror weapon: a dirty joke. The idea being, that which doesn’t kill you only makes you stronger. After all, how could you be afraid of anything when you’re laughing yourself silly?

This incident was the basis for last year’s documentary called The Aristocrats (available on DVD – it surely won’t play in Manila cinemas) in which 100 standup comedians were called upon to tell and retell the joke on camera during the course of 90 minutes. The comedians include old veterans like George Carlin, Whoopi Goldberg and Gottfried along with many newer faces such as Drew Carey and Jon Stewart. (Notably absent are "clean" comic Jerry Seinfeld and black male comedians other than a few brief moments with a perplexed Chris Rock.)

They all do more than tell the joke: they layer it, they massage it, they pad it, they fill it with bizarre personal details, and they make sure it offends just about every single human being on earth.

What’s the joke about? First of all, it’s not very funny. The anti-climactic punchline is not really the point, though: it’s the buildup, and all the graphic tidbits that go into telling a joke – setting a scene, scribbling in the margins until the thing is bursting at the seams.

It is filthy, though. Intentionally so. "The Aristocrats" is touted as an ageless joke (perhaps versions of it exist in many cultures), and it seems to have been kicking around for at least a couple hundred years. It’s kind of like the "Ten Commandments" of comedy, written out on nightclub drink coasters.

Briefly, the joke involves a family that goes to a talent agency and says they’ve got a killer act. "What do you do?" asks the talent agent. The family members then proceed to strip, commit various acts of incest and bestiality onstage, and wallow around in filth and scatological debris for what seems like hours. After it’s over, the agent says: "Not bad. What do you call yourselves?" And the dad of the family proudly announces: "The Aristocrats!"

Huh???

But never mind. It’s no wonder that the joke is not a crowd pleaser. In fact, watching an endless parade of comedians tell the same joke gets a tad tiresome. But the more interesting question, perhaps, is why standup comedians find it funny. And this may have to do with the strange ingredients that go into making comedy.

Invention is a big part of it – a crude sort of invention to be sure, as former America’s Funniest Videos guy Bob Saget proves by singlehandedly destroying his "family" TV image and layering his telling of "The Aristocrats" with more flying bodily fluids than any of the others. It’s disgusting, but you do find yourself laughing, possibly because you can’t believe people can utter such things while still smiling.

Then there’s political satirist Bill Maher, who gives his punchline a reality-TV twist: "We’re the Osbornes!"

With repetition, the joke becomes a kind of Rashomon, a prism through which each comic reveals his or her own personal style and take on life. Comedienne Sarah Silverman tells hers in deadpan first-person, making light of incest, down’s syndrome and rape until you just want to tell her to see a therapist already. But perhaps this filthy tirade is actually the outcome of decades of therapy. Comedian Steven Wright gives his usual spaced-out delivery of the joke before realizing that he doesn’t get it. In an animated bit, South Park’s Cartman also relates the joke gleefully to his pals before revealing he doesn’t get it either. And this is kind of the allure of dirty jokes for kids: they like saying the forbidden words, even if they don’t know what they mean.

The joke may have some basis in our love of sending up all things sophisticated, high-and-mighty, pompous and royal (the punchline is meant to play up this ironic contrast). I also couldn’t help thinking that all the incest explored in the joke was meant to lampoon the curse of the in-bred royal classes down through history. A distant relative of the joke can even be found in the TV show Little Britain ("Bitty!").

It has been said that laughter is the best medicine, but it is also a pretty strong weapon, especially when used defensively. Comedians tend to come from childhood backgrounds of seeking attention, or trying to avoid unwanted attention – such as getting beaten up – and comedy can be a very effective deterrent to such violence. If you’re funny, the local bully may not hit you for very long.

Added to that is a certain comedic one-upmanship, by which each comic feels the need to "top" the rest. Hence you have the constant reinvention of a joke that relies on the most outrageous shopping list of sordid, scatological situations possible to leave people in stitches.

If comedy is a sort of sublimated violence, as Freud has suggested, then maybe this sort of sublimation needs to be spread around even more. After watching the movie, I found myself asking: Would radical Muslims laugh at The Aristocrats? There’s nothing in the film blatantly offensive to Muslims or degrading to the image of Mohammed. No, the joke is clearly an equal opportunity offender.

And this, maybe, is the secret purpose behind "The Aristocrats" and behind dirty jokes in general. Maybe the secret purpose behind dirty jokes is to remove our inhibitions and equalize us in laughter. And this also says a lot about the strange, disarming impulses that drive comedians. More than an anatomy of a dirty joke, The Aristocrats is its autopsy and, possibly, its resurrection.