Completely serious, I think Calvin & Hobbes had the best concise explanation.
(https://mymorningmeditations.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/...)
Comedy Theory (2022)
21–30 of 182 posts
Re: Comedy Theory (2022)
#22Completely serious, I think Calvin & Hobbes had the best concise explanation. ( https://mymorningmeditations.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/... )
Great explanation, indeed, and a gem of a comic.
Re: Comedy Theory (2022)
#23I've yet to see a theory of comedy which actually addresses that there are multiple kinds of comedy: - Bullying, where the joke is not particularly funny, but instead relies on attacking someone's status in front of a crowd. The crowd laughs in recognition of the successful attack, not because the joke is clever. - Epiphany humor -- the joke relies on some new thought, connection, or idea, and the "joke" is the leap…
I think "incongruity theory", that the article is alluding to, does actually apply to most of these. You're focusing on the context rather than the actual underlying mechanism driving the joke. e.g. the first one "bullying, where the joke is not particularly funny..." Consider that the incongruity of a comedian laying into someone verbally, compared to the way we're primed for them to talk in polite-society interacti…
One gift of my flavor of ADHD - the instant branching to a multitude of interpretations of some series of inputs and multiple degrees of related ideas - is always being primed to make stupid jokes where I intentionally misinterpret or make you misinterpret something obvious.
Like the other day my friend read "shrimp cargot" off a menu. I said "They taught a shrimp how to drive??" The other friend present thought it was the funniest thing ever while the first friend was in pain from it, which just made it funnier. We had the same 50% split relaying it to two more people later.
(It also relies a bit on knowing the "a shrimp fried this rice?" joke to be funniest but it's not required)
Re: Comedy Theory (2022)
#24Is there a theory of humor which explains why theories of humor are invariably hilariously inadaquate?
Some activities are highly theoretical: you learn the principles of operation, and maybe how they break down into elements, practice briefly, and then execute at a high level. Other activities are highly practical: you can learn the theory via a brief rundown, but executing at a high level takes years to decades of practice. My theory of theory of humour is that humour is in the latter category.
Most likely humor is just not one thing but many and seeking a unifying theory about something that isn't a unity won't yield anything.
Re: Comedy Theory (2022)
#25This is exclusively the most primitive joke category base on double meanings. The jokes listed are boring and maybe suited for fillers in a standup routine. Due to the title I presume that this is another pro-"AI" article that devalues human ingenuity. Well, enjoy the non-funny jokes. I'll stick to pre-2022 material.
The jokes in the article are just there to demonstrate the pattern. There are lots of more sophisticated jokes which clearly follow the same pattern. For example Milton Jones' classic (which won "best joke" at the edinburgh comedy festival I believe) I come from a long line of police marksmen. Apart from my grandfather, who was a bank robber. But he died recently..... surrounded by his family. More Milton Jones "gran…
I came from a long line of police marksmen. They serve good coffee next to the shooting range.
Re: Comedy Theory (2022)
#26Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think "incongruity theory", that the article is alluding to, does actually apply to most of these. You're focusing on the context rather than the actual underlying mechanism driving the joke. e.g. the first one "bullying, where the joke is not particularly funny..." Consider that the incongruity of a comedian laying into someone verbally, compared to the way we're primed for them to talk in polite-society interacti…
One gift of my flavor of ADHD - the instant branching to a multitude of interpretations of some series of inputs and multiple degrees of related ideas - is always being primed to make stupid jokes where I intentionally misinterpret or make you misinterpret something obvious. Like the other day my friend read "shrimp cargot" off a menu. I said "They taught a shrimp how to drive??" The other friend present thought it w…
Yeah I can relate! I've also heard Conan O'Brien say this before, he thinks that a big source of his comedy is just his brain outright not understanding things correctly.
Re: Comedy Theory (2022)
#27Completely serious, I think Calvin & Hobbes had the best concise explanation. ( https://mymorningmeditations.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/... )
I'm not sure if I'm missing something (perhaps the joke, as it were) but the Calvin & Hobbes strip seems to be entirely about having a sense of humour, rather than a theory of comedy.
Re: Comedy Theory (2022)
#28This is exclusively the most primitive joke category base on double meanings. The jokes listed are boring and maybe suited for fillers in a standup routine. Due to the title I presume that this is another pro-"AI" article that devalues human ingenuity. Well, enjoy the non-funny jokes. I'll stick to pre-2022 material.
Words with two meanings are just one type of shared aspect in their system. The "hunting cakes" joke was an example of using a shared aspect that isn't a word. (And while it didn't wow me on the page, I think it's the type of joke that a talented comic could make much funnier through their delivery.)
I agree that most of the jokes were weak, but they basically have to use one-liners in order to give many quick examples, and nearly all one-liners I meet are bad. That said, I genuinely enjoyed the "step ladder" one.
Re: Comedy Theory (2022)
#29Earlier quoted context omitted.
The jokes in the article are just there to demonstrate the pattern. There are lots of more sophisticated jokes which clearly follow the same pattern. For example Milton Jones' classic (which won "best joke" at the edinburgh comedy festival I believe) I come from a long line of police marksmen. Apart from my grandfather, who was a bank robber. But he died recently..... surrounded by his family. More Milton Jones "gran…
I came from a long line of police marksmen. They serve good coffee next to the shooting range.
I came from a long line of police marksmen. We just won the precinct charity cancan dance competition.
Re: Comedy Theory (2022)
#30This is exclusively the most primitive joke category base on double meanings. The jokes listed are boring and maybe suited for fillers in a standup routine. Due to the title I presume that this is another pro-"AI" article that devalues human ingenuity. Well, enjoy the non-funny jokes. I'll stick to pre-2022 material.
The jokes in the article are just there to demonstrate the pattern. There are lots of more sophisticated jokes which clearly follow the same pattern. For example Milton Jones' classic (which won "best joke" at the edinburgh comedy festival I believe) I come from a long line of police marksmen. Apart from my grandfather, who was a bank robber. But he died recently..... surrounded by his family. More Milton Jones "gran…
The ten best-voted one-liners from this year's Fringe are listed here:
https://www.theguardian.com/stage/article/2024/aug/19/mark-s...
A couple follow that pattern exactly, but some also bank on taking words literally for comic effect.
> I love the Olympics. My friend and I invented a new type of relay baton. Well, he came up with the idea, I ran with it. (Mark Simmons)