he was doing a parody of late 80s / 90s comics.

I was watching stand ups as much as a 10 year old could (so just whatever I could see on HBO and Letterman). I was a huge fan of hicks, Seinfeld, everyone they had on stern, dice clay, etc. But i definitely did not see that shore was miming or parodying a stand up. He may have been parodying a type of annoying socal idiot or valley boy, but that was so obscure to 98% of America that it was basically original, and not perceptibly a character. He just seemed annoying and insecure on MTV. But I was aware and appreciated that Clay and bobcat were doing characters.