YMMV / Bill Burr

• Crosses the Line Twice: The infamous Philadelphia incident. For twelve minutes he roasted the ENTIRE CITY OF PHILADELPHIA in various obscene and violent threatening ways, after they booed the previous comics. By the end, he got a standing ovation. It's worth noting that he was genuinely pissed off at the crowd and not the least bit interested in entertaining them. Some time later, one fan recounted in a forum that he met Bill Burr at a book signing and complimented him on his Philly rant. Bill politely but tersely replied "Fuck that city."
• Harsher in Hindsight:
  • Barr's 2010 special "Let it Go", includes Barr hoping for a "swine flu" plague to "kill the weak", "let Mother Nature do her thing", and "thin the herd", then goes off on vaccinations ("Duh, go down and get your vaccinations!" "...Why?"). Ten years later, in 2020, cue the COVID-19 Pandemic, which kills mostly weak, unhealthy, and elderly people.
  • During one of his standup shows in 2017, Bill briefly poked fun of Kanye West, to the point of claiming that were all of his ego put into a white dude, you'd end up with a Nazi. This became far less funny after West began making many antisemitic remarks a few years later, to the point where he infamously went onto InfoWars and praised Adolf Hitler on-air in late 2022.
• Hilarious in Hindsight: His set mocking MTV's Cribs involves him watching celebrities show off their Conspicuous Consumption and lamenting to himself "I'll never have a helicopter!" A decade and a half later, Burr does indeed have his own helicopter now.
• He Really Can Act: His stage performance tends to be more storytelling based and doesn't do extended personas of other characters. Thus it becomes quite a surprise when he shows up in movies and TV shows and demonstrates himself to be quite a good actor. His second season appearance in The Mandalorian was lauded as one of the best episodes with incredible rapport with Pedro Pascal.
• Hilarious in Hindsight:
  • Bill's wish that the Philadelphia Eagles will never win a Super Bowl was broken after the 2017 season. Against his beloved New England Patriots, no less!
  • His old bit on how much he hated Star Wars becomes hilarious after he was cast in The Mandalorian. Even better was the fact that the director wanted him for the part specifically BECAUSE Burr had made fun of Star Wars. And then he went and blew everyone away in the time he was given.
• Retroactive Recognition:
  • Rewatch Chappelle's Show and you'll spot Bill in a few scenes.
  • Same with Breaking Bad as one of Saul's hired hands.
• Values Dissonance: Creator example: Bill explains after his "Downtown Six" joke that it doesn't go over nearly as well in cities that don't have a subway system, since audiences there don't really get that interfering with violent situations on a subway car is an extremely bad idea.

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