Prior To Pryor

An interesting discussion at the A.V. Club about the profoundest piece of comedy. Various writers give their opinions. This is from Phil Nugent:

I don’t know where most people nowadays pick up their first bits of precious information about the birds and the bees, whether it’s from their parents or on the streets or the Internet, but when I was growing up in Mississippi, we didn’t have cable or the Internet or even any streets, and my parents were more clueless than I was. Galloping to the rescue came Richard Pryor, an infinite source of clear-eyed wisdom and sound counsel about the sex wars, for all the meager good it did him in his own life. Everything he said on this subject, whether he was demonstrating a man’s absolute inability to hang onto his dignity when his lover is calmly preparing to leave him, or offering a blow-by-blow illustrative lesson on ministering to an unresponsive clitoris (or in Pryor-speak, a “dead pussy”), will at some point be of use to the eager young pupil. But none of it has broader wide-world implications than his suggestion for what to say when caught in flagrante delicto: “Who are you gonna believe, me or your lyin’ eyes?” The underlying idea, that if you just stick to your guns and are consistent in denying all the available scientific evidence, you might be able to brazen through anything, is the same as Hitler’s theory of the big lie, but it has the advantage of being funny, which makes it less depressing whenever I see it playing out, which happens a lot. The next time you see someone on a TV movie-review show playing a clip from Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close and talking about its sublime artistry, or a commercial for a new comedy showing Rob Schneider making worn-to-the-stump racial slurs to the accompaniment of a screaming laugh track, or Newt Gingrich on a debate stage talking about his record as a Washington outsider occupying the moral high ground—to raucous applause—don’t hang yourself; just shrug and say, “Hey, who are they supposed to believe, him or their lying eyes?” And then guffaw.

This is actually a pretty old line used by a lot of people.  The most famous version, and the first I'm aware of, comes from a scene in Duck Soup (1933) where Harpo, dressed as Groucho, has just left Margaret Dumont's room, while Chico, dressed as Groucho, is still there:

Mrs. Teasdale: Your Excellency, I thought you'd left!
Chicolini: Oh no, I no leave.
Mrs. Teasdale: But I saw you with my own eyes!
Chicolini: Well, who you gonna believe, me or your own eyes?

Apparently growing up in Mississippi makes you miss an awful lot.