This past weekend, my wife and I went to Cincy Brew Ha-Ha, which bills itself as “America’s Largest Beer & Comedy Festival.”

It’s a great concept – more than 100 types of beers (most of them of the craft beer variety) and more than 50 comedians on 4 outdoor stages. Proceeds go to charity too.

I’m far from a prude, and nowhere near being a stand-up comedy expert, but most of the comedians we  saw took a beeline straight toward the gutter. “Working blue” as they say in the biz. Nothing but jokes that focused below the belt. I’m sorry, but if you start your set with that sort of “comedy” you’ve lost me. My dad always used to say profanity shows a lack of vocabulary, and I think toilet humor shows a lack of originality. 

That’s why clean humor folks like Jim Gaffigan and Brian Regan are such standouts. They can be funny without resorting to the cheap stuff. And judging from the comedians we saw, there’s certainly less competition in the clean section.