My favorite example of dark humor is my all-time favorite movie, the 1942 version of To Be or Not to Be. It got panned when it came out, because a comedy about the Nazis fell flat in 1942, but it’s considered one of the greatest films ever now.
It has 0 poo and fart jokes in it.
You can certainly mix the two: MASH* is dark humor with some potty humor mixed in. Monty Python was masterful at mixing the two.
But humor isn’t dark just because it’s offensive. Sometimes it’s merely juvenile. Animal House is juvenile. I don’t think it has any pretensions not to be though. I also think you have to use the full title: National Lampoon’s Animal House.
Agree with the others that Animal House is sophomoric (unusually deliciously so, IMHO).
Dark humor is Louis CK asking the audience how long they waited after 9/11 to resume masturbating, and then confessing that he resumed even before the second tower collapsed — and to do otherwise would be letting the terrorists win!
As another poster mentioned, the bar is set higher for dark humor — it has to be wonderfully insightful or revealing to be funny. I think this qualifies. So, for the poll, the best answer for me was “yes, unreservedly,” though I’ve encountered plenty of attempts at dark humor that DIDN’T do it for me (unfunny, un-insightful, or both).
ETA: As for the feature-length, semi-artsy, unlikely-to-laugh-out-loud sort of dark humor, this only works for me about half the time. For example (to cite one genre, film), the Coen Brothers’ Fargo warmed my cockles, while Terry Gilliam’s Brazil left me cold (funny, that).
Nazi extermination camp inmates told jokes about their situation. One example (from The Twelve-Year Reich): One inmate says to another: “Don’t worry. Soon we’ll be in a better life – as a bar of soap in a shop window.”
If they can joke about that, anything is fair game.
I love one-liners and quick, meaningless jabs. But I’m not going to entertain a gross or debaucherous story and/or set-up. As others have mentioned, it has to be smart, or so completely unexpected that it catches me off-guard. If not, it’s just gratuitous.
If the stage is already set and the joke can be delivered quickly and cleanly, bring it on. As **kayaker **said, “Too soon my ass”.
Yes, but it depends on many things. My mood at the time, the context of the humor, how good the joke teller is at telling jokes etc.
There wasn’t an option in the poll that fit me so I didn’t actually vote.
This. I have a very dark sense of humor, I would consider no topic off limits, but that doesn’t mean some jokes aren’t just badly executed, in poor taste or not funny due to making a mockery of victims. I am turned off by jokes that ‘‘punch down.’’ Generally, the more a comedian is lauded for being ‘‘shocking’’ the less I like them.
Humor value comes to me not from shock per se but from the unexpected. Some shocking jokes are funny but shocking in itself doesn’t make you funny. I love Rick and Morty, and one of the best, most hilariously dark episodes is when
Morty has to bury his parallel universe body in the backyard and take its place.
But there has to be a kind of intelligence behind the humor, an awareness about what it’s doing, in order for it to click for me. Sometimes I think our only chance for survival is through humor.
As Holocaust survivor Viktor Frankl said,
“Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms—to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.”
I can’t say I ever looked at the long, white line and had that thought.
I don’t know if this film holds up quite so well, but Very Bad Things is one of my favorite dark humor movies. Well, maybe not my favorite, but ti was up there. Eating Raul wasn’t bad, either. Same with The Adjuster.
Yeah, Very Bad Things is a pretty good example of dark humor. Last night I watched Seeking a Friend for the End of the World, which reminded me of this thread with a lot of good dark humor in it.
However, if you really want to see dark humor in action, go buy a few ER nurses a drink after their shift. I dated one for a while, and that was eye opening.
