The brainchild of comedians Paul Provenza and Penn Jillette (of Penn and Teller), “The Aristocrats” isn’t so much about telling the same joke over and over as it is about the fluidly improvisational nature of good comedy. It’s also about committing as many obscenities as possible to film, and viewers should be delighted that it’s a triumphant success in both regards.

Since The Wire is a family paper, we can’t print some of the more salient details about “The Aristocrats.” All you really need to know is the joke’s basic premise: a guy walks into a talent agent’s office and says, “Boy, have I got an act for you!” He then describes the show his family puts on, a performance that encompasses everything from music and dancing to, uh, incest and bestiality. The agent replies, “Wow! What an act. But, what do you call it?” to which the man says, “The Aristocrats!” Don’t worry, I haven’t spoiled the joke. The magic of the joke is all in the build-up—the punch line is an afterthought, really—and the build-up is only as good as the comedian telling it.

You’ll be tempted to dismiss “The Aristocrats” at first. And you should, because the thought of listening to a hundred different comedians all tell the same vaudeville-era joke sounds pretty boring. Thankfully, it’s not, and that’s because all of the comics (even ones like the oft-reviled Carrot Top) put a unique spin on it. Bob Saget, a notoriously vulgar man who somehow tricked the entire nation into believing his squeaky-clean persona on “Full House” and “America’s Funniest Home Videos,” presents one of the vilest versions of the joke, complete with projectile feces and the unconventional use of feminine hygene products. Drew Carey caps off his telling with a ridiculous little hand gesture that’s inexplicably hilarious. Whoopie Goldberg talks a lot about bizarre tricks involving foreskin. Sarah Silverman twists the joke around and makes it a hilarious first-person confession.

Jillette compares the act of telling the joke to improvisational jazz, and it’s an apt description. If a hundred of the world’s best jazz musicians all got together to perform their separate takes on a song like “My Favorite Things,” some would be good, some bad and others mind blowing. At the very least, you’d get a unique listening experience and important insight into the way musicians work. That’s what “The Aristocrats” is—except, with a lot more talk about fisting.

Speaking of mind blowing, two bright spots in “The Aristocrats” stand out. The first is Kevin Pollak’s telling of the joke using an eerily spot-on impersonation of Christopher Walken, which gives the movie a weird sort of meta-commentary, an interpretation of someone else’s interpretation of the joke. The second is Gilbert Gottfried. If a film with 100 different cast members could have a single star, Gottfried would be “The Aristocrat’s” main man. He tackles the joke with manic, obnoxious energy, like a dog that just won’t let go of a chew toy, and it’s easy to see why his rendition of the joke at the Friar’s Club roast of Hugh Hefner brought the house down. At the roast, held only a few days after the World Trade Center fell, Gottfried made a disastrous attempt to joke about the tragedy. “Too soon!” the audience yelled, and Gottfried, searching for a way out, told a stupendously long, outrageously foul iteration of the joke. The audience roared and Gottfried did what most comics dream of—he took the audience into a unexpected, unsafe place and forced them to laugh their way out.

During the film’s 90 minutes, plenty of the comics discuss the whys and wherefores of the joke’s durability and the philosophical nature of comedy. All of that’s important, but, in the end, it’s so ridiculous, offensive and outrageous that you’ll be laughing through the credits. And, along the way, you’ll probably learn some new sexual terms to horrify your friends with. You can’t ask for much more than that.

directed by: Paul Provenza
starring: Penn Jillette, Bob Saget, Sarah Silverman, Paul Reiser, Phyllis Diller, George Carlin and a host of other comedians
rated: Though unrated and lacking sex, nudity and violence, the film does contain “unspeakable obscenity” and those with tender ears are advised to watch a “Full House” rerun.