The Roast of Charlie Sheen

I watched Charlie Sheen get roasted last night and enjoyed it. I seldom pay attention to celebrities, but I often do enjoy these roasts. Besides, this one had William Shatner on it and he is one celebrity I do occasionally pay attention to. Besides Shatner and Sheen himself, there was John Lovitz, who I believe was in the movie--The Wedding Singer. There was Mike Tyson, who I know from boxing. And there was Seth MacFarland, who I understand is the creator of Family Guy. Slash played guitar and I recognized him. I really had no idea who the rest of the people were, although I’ve seen some of them on roasts before.

As was to be expected, the roasters poked fun at Charlie Sheen’s drug use, his fights with ex-wives, and his use and abuse of hookers. They made a lot of jokes about his apparent recent meltdown, which I had only heard vaguely about. I didn’t get any of those jokes, but many of the others were funny. Many of the roasters also made fun of the other roasters, and I often find those jokes the funniest of all during these events. Mike Tyson appeared to be intoxicated and was actually quite funny.

Interestingly to me, the jokes at these events are generally extremely mean-spirited. Sheen, for example, was ‘taunted’ about having lost his daughters because of his bad behavior. (I winced a bit at that.) I generally dislike mean-spirited humor, but for some reason it seems OK on these roasts. I guess it’s because I can actually see the person being skewered on the screen, and they are laughing themselves at what’s just been said about them.

The funniest joke of the night, from my perspective, involved William Shatner. Sheen was doing his spiel at the end and said he’d wanted Shatner to be there because he needed some clean urine. He added, “I had to wring it out of the diaper but it was still good.” (Shatner is 80 years old.) I laughed pretty hard about that one.

So, do you watch these roasts? Do you even know who these people are? And does the mean-spirited nature of the jokes ever bother you?

BY THE WAY, my post about "Fantasy by Definition" is up over at Rogue Blades Entertainment at the moment. I've joined that august group and will be posting relatively regularly there as time goes on. So check it out if you get a chance.
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