MOVIES: The Aristocrats (Paul Provenza, 2005)

It's generally accepted in comedy that repetition kills a joke, but in The Aristocrats, 100 comedians spend 90 minutes telling and analyzing a single joke, and it only gets funnier with every telling.

The setup for the joke, known as "The Aristocrats," is consistent: A guy walks into a talent agent's office and says, "My family and I have a terrific act. Let me tell you about it." The middle section of the joke is the description of the act, which usually starts with a full-family orgy -- including the kids, grandma, and maybe even a recently deceased uncle -- before moving on to bestiality and more scatological references than you can imagine. Finally, the depravity concludes, and the agent says, "That's some act. What do you call it?" And the guy says proudly, "The Aristocrats!"

It's not really all that funny a joke, as many of these comics acknowledge. It's barely a joke at all, but it's a perfect framework for improvisation. As Penn Jillette (one of the movie's producers) says, "It's the singer, not the song," and it's thrilling to watch the endless variations that can be put on the story. The most straightforward telling comes from George Carlin; Wendy Liebman turns the joke on its head; Sarah Silverman's creepy variation refuses to acknowledge that it is a joke.

There's a hilarious silent rendition from Billy the Mime (performed on the sidewalk, where the reactions of the people walking by are priceless), showbiz takes from Carrie Fisher and Lewis Black, and painstaking analysis of the joke itself from Drew Carey and Paul Reiser ("...you have to do the sex before the shit, 'cause if you start with the shit, then where you gonna go?"). Bob Saget completely destroys his wholesome Full House reputation with one of the most inventively filthy versions in the movie. And in the hands of Gilbert Gottfried, "The Aristocrats" becomes a kind of catharsis.

There's nothing visually interesting about The Aristocrats -- it's a talking-head documentary -- and you might therefore be tempted to wait for the DVD, but if you can see it in a theater with a crowd, you should; it'll only be funnier when you're laughing with a room full of people.

If I haven't already made it clear, this movie is vulgar and crude in the extreme. It doesn't matter who you are; you will be offended by something in The Aristocrats. But I can't remember the last time I laughed so hard at a movie.