Remember When Perverted Uncles Were Funny?

Boy I do. I’m talking about the Buck Henry character Uncle Roy from the late 70s Saturday Night Live. If you’ll remember, Uncle Roy would babysit (I’m assuming) his nieces played by Gilda Radner and Laraine Newman. He would take pictures of them in provocative poses and they and their parents were too naïve to realize what he was really up to. Good ole fashioned ‘passive molestation’ is guess is what you could call it. The girls enjoyed the horsey rides, digging for presents from Roy’s pockets and sliding down backwards polishing the banister and Roy, well he enjoyed himself too. Usually the parents showed up earlier than expected ending Uncle Roy’s photo sessions. I remember a skit where he was pretending to be a dog and the girls promised to give him a flea bath next time he watched them. Funny sick stuff.

This skit would go nowhere nowadays. Strangely enough, given the sexual mores of the 70s, I think people were somehow freer to do some things then than now. Growing up I remember X-rated theatres everywhere back then. Sexuality was more open and even sexual perversion could be funny. This changed by the late 80s with Reagan, aids and Falwell. Now entertainment in general has changed even more into the yin of politically correct hypersensitivity and the yang of the constant deluge of South Park style, anything goes, edgy, sensory overloaded, shock comedy. If they tried to resurrect an Uncle Roy type character, it would either be criticized to the point of removal or it would have to be made ‘edgy.’ By ‘edgy’ I mean rendered in Claymation, Roy doing unspeakable full uncle on niece penetration with Roy’s impaling clay penis exploding through Laraine’s eye socket and he’d probably make a ‘woman suit’ out of Gilda. Perhaps this would be funny but in a shock valued way only.

I know I know I know! - of course I’m not condoning molestation even ‘passive molestation.’ And if your uncle did something to you that he shouldn't have, well, I'm sorry. I’m just pointing out the fact that in another, more innocent time, Buck Henry made it funny, really funny.

And who was ole Roy really hurting anyways? Then again, who knows what that flea bath would’ve lead to?