Ribaldry

Works like Lysistrata by Aristophanes, Menaechmi by Plautus, Cena Trimalchionis by Petronius, and The Golden Ass of Apuleius are ribald classics from ancient Greece and Rome.

The Frenchman François Rabelais showed himself to be a master of ribaldry (technically called grotesque body) in his Gargantua and other works.

The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman by Laurence Sterne and The Lady's Dressing Room by Jonathan Swift are also in this genre; as is Mark Twain's long-suppressed 1601.

Historically these songs tend to be confined to groups of young males, either as students or in an environment where alcohol is flowing freely.

An early collection was Wit and Mirth, or Pills to Purge Melancholy, edited by Thomas D'Urfey and published between 1698 and 1720.

Private events at show business clubs such as the Masquers often showed this blue side of otherwise clean-cut comedians; a recording survives of one Masquers roast from the 1950s with Jack Benny, George Jessel, George Burns, and Art Linkletter all using highly risqué material and obscenities.

Many comedians who are normally family-friendly might choose to work blue when off-camera or in an adult-oriented environment; Bob Saget exemplified this dichotomy.

Among the best known of these are Redd Foxx, Lawanda Page, and the team of Leroy and Skillet, all of whom later performed on the family-friendly television show Sanford and Son.

Page, Leroy, and Skillet specialised in a particular African American form of blue spoken word recitation called signifying or toasting.

[5]: 170  While no extensive cross-cultural study has been made in an attempt to prove the universality of blue literature, oral tradition around the world suggests that this may be the case.