Joke Man

Wow, what an awesome movie!

Very nicely put together and well paced. A must watch for fans of the early Howard Stern show. Some very cool blast-from-the-past-moments. Actually made me miss how freaking funny the Stern show used to be with Jackie.

Really hammers home the fact that Jackie was responsible for so much of the humor when he was a part of it and how the quality of the show greatly declined once he left.

I personally think Jackie made the right choice to leave, especially considering what a absolute "joke" Howard Stern has become.

Hearing the once champion of free speech and FCC crusader come out against Joe Rogan for "daring" to have certain guests on his podcast was absolutely absurd and destroyed any credibility Stern may have still had. F_ _ K Howard.

Self-serving documentary about and with Jackie Martlin whose oly claim to fame is being on the Howard Stern radio show for 15 years.

I guess he made enough money from the show to not have to worry about money these days.

Everyone whose path Jackie has past comes on to tell us how great Jackie is -- except Howard and his rigial cronies - Fred, Robin, and Ba ba booey.

And there's good reason. Jackie is not nice to Howard and he uses all these other people to passive-aggressively tell us what a devil Howard Stern is.

And how unfair ir was there. It goes on forever. And Stern will never speak to him again and Jackie is sure to tell you he contacted all of them to be in his puff piece, claiming he's still friends with everyone else he's ever met but not them for some reason.

Twist the knife Jackie, twist the knfe.

This is exactly the self-serving piece of crap the angry, bitter, then never funny Jackie The joke Man would produce. He was always Howard's pity case from day one, I never understood what Howard saw in him as far as him being anything even remotely funny. Jackie would not even been funny in the vaudeville days, which is where 99% of his jokes come from. He never understood his role on the show, he was always in the minor leagues and Howard was in the major leagues, although Jackie thought he was in The Beatles of comedy, but he wasn't even Pete Best. Kudos to the sweet Willie Nelson for lowering himself to be in this piece of crap. Mildly entertaining if you're a Stern fan, but expect self-serving crap until the end.

"Joke Man" does a nice job telling Jackie Martling's story. I'm not the biggest fan of Martling. I also live on Long Island and have had many opportunities to see his act over the years but never bothered. I know a lot of people who enjoy his act but it was never my thing. That said, "Joke Man" is definitely worth the watch. Martling tells some funny stories and doesn't use the movie to go on the attack. Martling takes the high road and that helps the movie out quite a bit. I listened to Martling on the Howard Stern show for many years but it wasn't until I watched this movie that I actually fell like I know who he is. Anyone who used to enjoy Martling on the radio should try to watch this movie.

Although I was very interested in watching this, I had very low expectations going into it. I expected it to be cheesy, trashy, and low-grade. Actually, it wasn't any of these things. We are so used to the narrative of what we think Jackie Martling is like based on the Stern Show. It kind of makes sense that it's not necessarily the case. There were lots of interesting things I learned about his career from watching this, and if anyone is expecting to see the "bitter" Jackie, that wasn't even remotely the case. I also liked seeing credible comics like Penn Jillette (of Penn and Teller fame) having respectful and nice things to say about Jackie. While they were able to get ex-Stern show staff like Artie Lange (with a horrible nose), Billy West and Stuttering John to appear in this documentary, it is noticeable and sad that no current Stern Show people are in this. I'm sure Stern forbade it, as I can't imagine Fred Norris or Gary not doing something like this for Martling.

Finally, I've noticed that blindly-loyal Stern fans have already commented on this movie and trashing it. Don't believe it for one minute. If you listened to the show during the Jackie years, this is worth watching, and gives you a different side of Jackie Martling.