# Ever watched a comedy that had no laughs? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Tags:** movies\ **Created:** [December 6, 2022, 2:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ever-watched-a-comedy-that-had-no-laughs/976094 "2022-12-06T14:56:49Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [December 7, 2022, 5:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ever-watched-a-comedy-that-had-no-laughs/976094/81 "2022-12-07T17:09:40Z")
> [@WildaBeast](#): > > n middle school our class went to a performance of _A Midsummer Night’s Dream_. Shakespeare called that play a comedy, but I didn’t laugh once. I know you’re making a point, but the play-within-a-play scene in the 1999 movie of _A Midsummer Night’s Dream_ had the entire theater in stitches, and it remains one of the funniest things I’ve ever seen. ---
**Author:** ![Dewey\_Finn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dewey_finn/32/4222_2.png) [@Dewey\_Finn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dewey_Finn)\ **Post date:** [December 7, 2022, 5:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ever-watched-a-comedy-that-had-no-laughs/976094/82 "2022-12-07T17:13:24Z")
> [@vislor](#): > > Seinfeld - I understand I’m on the wrong side as the show was popular. I have friends who love it and rewatch it yearly. As I said, I watched one season when it was before or around other shows I was watching, such as Friends. (It was on the Must See NBC Thursday.) They had one brilliant, to me, episode and I kept expecting that. Never getting it again, it was easy to drop. Do you remember which episode? Because I thought The Marine Biologist episode in particular did a nice job of tying everything together at the end. ---
**Author:** ![vislor](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/vislor/32/5933_2.png) [@vislor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/vislor)\ **Post date:** [December 7, 2022, 5:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ever-watched-a-comedy-that-had-no-laughs/976094/83 "2022-12-07T17:25:57Z")
> [@Dewey\_Finn](#): > > Do you remember which episode? Because I thought The Marine Biologist episode in particular did a nice job of tying everything together at the end. So, IIRC, it was “The Package.” And now that I think more about it, I also think I didn’t like the humor overall until the last segment brought it all together and then I laughed for several minutes. I think it has a lot of “this is the one where there is a misunderstanding” type humor, which I don’t like. The ending really surprised me with how much I liked it. ---
**Author:** ![Dewey\_Finn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dewey_finn/32/4222_2.png) [@Dewey\_Finn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dewey_Finn)\ **Post date:** [December 7, 2022, 5:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ever-watched-a-comedy-that-had-no-laughs/976094/84 "2022-12-07T17:29:41Z")
If you like the bringing everything together aspect of the story, I recommend watching Curb Your Enthusiasm, an HBO sitcom created by and starring Larry David, who was a producer and writer on Seinfeld, and who George Costanza is based on. I find that Curb Your Enthusiasm episodes often do the same thing, of bringing various storylines together at the end. ---
**Author:** ![carrps](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carrps/32/2957_2.png) [@carrps](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carrps)\ **Post date:** [December 7, 2022, 5:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ever-watched-a-comedy-that-had-no-laughs/976094/85 "2022-12-07T17:55:24Z")
> [@terentii](#): > > they failed utterly to appreciate _ **Fawlty Towers** _. I suspect it’s because they had never experienced travelling in the UK and staying at British hotels and B&Bs in particular. I hadn’t been to England when I first saw _Fawlty Towers,_ and I found it hiLARious. Laughed 'til I cried. I bought a book from a seller in Torquay, and we chatted a bit. He said Basil was based on someone that everyone in Torquay knew. A real a\*\*hole. ---
**Author:** ![terentii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/terentii/32/212_2.png) [@terentii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/terentii)\ **Post date:** [December 7, 2022, 6:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ever-watched-a-comedy-that-had-no-laughs/976094/86 "2022-12-07T18:12:08Z")
I think the term “comedy-drama” was first used by _ **TV Guide** _ to describe _ **Lou Grant** _. Everyone expected it to be funny along the lines of _ **Mary Tyler Moore** _, from which it was spun off, but it wasn’t. The series dealt mostly with serious, newsworthy topics. Any comedic overtones were of secondary importance and came from the characters played by the regular cast. In that respect it was a lot like _ **MASH** _, which was airing concurrently, but I never heard _ **MASH** _ referred to as anything other than a comedy. I remember the word “dramedy” being coined a bit later to describe _ **Lou Grant** _, simply because no one knew what else to call it. ---
**Author:** ![terentii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/terentii/32/212_2.png) [@terentii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/terentii)\ **Post date:** [December 7, 2022, 6:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ever-watched-a-comedy-that-had-no-laughs/976094/87 "2022-12-07T18:20:20Z")
I was in a production of _ **A Midsummer Night’s Dream** _ twenty years ago. The producer/director (a posh Englishwoman) kept saying “This play is _hilarious_!” but it was funny only if the characters were played to the hilt. The Mechanics did this very well, and the rest of us who were on the stage had to work hard to keep from laughing. ---
**Author:** ![terentii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/terentii/32/212_2.png) [@terentii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/terentii)\ **Post date:** [December 7, 2022, 6:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ever-watched-a-comedy-that-had-no-laughs/976094/88 "2022-12-07T18:28:49Z")
> [@vislor](#): > > I hated Sheldon at the end. I hated Sheldon and loathed Raj. 🤮 ---
**Author:** ![WildaBeast](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wildabeast/32/6_2.png) [@WildaBeast](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WildaBeast)\ **Post date:** [December 7, 2022, 7:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ever-watched-a-comedy-that-had-no-laughs/976094/89 "2022-12-07T19:17:08Z")
> [@carrps](#): > > He said Basil was based on someone that everyone in Torquay knew. A real a\*\*hole. Everyone in Torquay probably did know him, but he also managed a hotel where the Pythons stayed while filming something in the area, which was how John Cleese met him and got the idea for the character. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [December 7, 2022, 7:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ever-watched-a-comedy-that-had-no-laughs/976094/90 "2022-12-07T19:24:12Z")
> [@Peter\_Morris](#): > > I tried watching _Seinfeld_. I watched about three of the early episodes. It wasn’t funny at all. His opening very brief monologue was often grin or chuckle worthy. But not the show itself, which relied upon cringe humor, and the stupid misunderstanding cliche all the time. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [December 7, 2022, 7:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ever-watched-a-comedy-that-had-no-laughs/976094/91 "2022-12-07T19:38:39Z")
> [@MaxTheVool](#): > > And to answer the OP, while I won’t quite say it had zero laughs, the current HBO comedy _Our Flag Means Death_ is super highly rated and reviewed and showing up on best-of lists and so forth… and my wife and I just did. not. get. it. The total lack of even trying for some sort of historical accuracy was too annoying (many sailors were actually very good with sewing, they had to be), buit yeah, not funny. > [@NDP](#): > > The shelf life for even good comedy is shorter than that for popular music and seems to be shrinking at a faster pace. _Barney Miller_ is still good, and so are _WKRP_ and most _Night Court_s. But there ain’t many. But _Friends_ has not aged well. > [@terentii](#): > > The group I used to hang around with were all great lovers of Monty Python, but they failed utterly to appreciate _ **Fawlty Towers** _. I suspect it’s because they had never experienced travelling in the UK and staying at British hotels and B&Bs in particular. Could be, but again, the lack of unlikable characters is an issue there. I love Cleese, but I despised his character. > [@MaxTheVool](#): > > I looooooooooved Revenge of the Nerds in my younger days I still like the final scene, but yeah some of the antics are horrifying today. ---
**Author:** ![msmith537](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d9b06d/32.png) [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)\ **Post date:** [December 7, 2022, 8:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ever-watched-a-comedy-that-had-no-laughs/976094/92 "2022-12-07T20:50:28Z")
> [@bump](#): > > So a couple of weeks ago, my wife and I ran across the movie "Drinking Buddies’ from 2013 on Netflix. It’s billed as a comedy/drama/romance, and has the cast to make that work. Olivia Wilde, Ron Livingston, Anna Kendrick, Jason Sudeikis and Jake Johnson. > > And… it wasn’t funny. Not even one bit. No jokes, no funny situations, no pratfalls, and generally nothing comedic in the least bit. It wasn’t cringe comedy, it wasn’t deadpan/tongue in cheek type absurd stuff. > > It was a straight up drama- wasn’t even really romantic. Granted I only got through about the first 45 minutes or so, but I’d think that’s enough for the funny to reveal itself. > > Why do they call this a comedy? Is there some style of comedy that’s not intended to amuse you that I’m unaware of? Yeah, there’s a whole ton of these films made from the 2000s - 2010s. Films like Sideways (2004) Garden State (2004) In Her Shoes (2005) Sunshine Cleaning (2008) 10 Years (2011) Young Adult (2010) I could go on. They are usually classified as comedy/drama or romcom/drama. And for the most part they aren’t bad movies. Some are actually quite good. But to your point, they don’t seem to be actually “funny” in a sense of being parody, absurd, or laugh out loud hysterical. Maybe “ironic”? That’s a form of comedy. I think these movies are considered “comedy” in the sense that (according to Aristotle) dramas deal with serious people dealing with serious problems while comedies deal with dipshits dealing with dipshit problems. While not hilariously funny, all these no-laugh comedies tend to deal with flawed people trying to deal with messes that are largely their own making. ---
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [December 7, 2022, 8:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ever-watched-a-comedy-that-had-no-laughs/976094/93 "2022-12-07T20:55:38Z")
Opposite for me: hated the monologue opening with the early seasons. I don’t find Seinfeld’s stand-up particularly good. The show was the laugh fodder for me. ---
**Author:** ![bump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7c8e57/32.png) [@bump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bump)\ **Post date:** [December 7, 2022, 8:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ever-watched-a-comedy-that-had-no-laughs/976094/94 "2022-12-07T20:57:47Z")
Maybe you’re right- I didn’t find Sunshine Cleaning funny at all, and there were a VERY few moments of Sideways that were amusing. Mostly both movies were just kind of painful to watch people do some combination of doing stupid stuff and suffering. ---
**Author:** ![Sam\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Sam\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_Stone)\ **Post date:** [December 7, 2022, 9:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ever-watched-a-comedy-that-had-no-laughs/976094/95 "2022-12-07T21:12:20Z")
The line between funny and unfunny is very thin. _Archer_ used to be side-splittingly hilarious, but the last two seasons have been just awful. The characters still go through comedy ‘beats’ and say similar things they used to, but they took the edge off the show and now it’s just a shell of what it was. Witty, subversive writing has been turned into sitcom mush. My family loved Archer. We watched the first episode of the last season last night, and none of us so much as cracked a smile. At the end my kid spoke for all of us when he said, “Well, that was painful.” ---
**Author:** ![MrLee](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/5f8ce5/32.png) [@MrLee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrLee)\ **Post date:** [December 7, 2022, 9:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ever-watched-a-comedy-that-had-no-laughs/976094/96 "2022-12-07T21:45:51Z")
[Nanette (2018), a live-recorded ‘stand-up comedy’ performance by comedian Hannah Gadsby.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hannah_Gadsby:_Nanette) Billed as stand-up comedy - and aesthetically structured as such - Nanette is actually an emotional monologue decrying the evils of misogyny, homophobia and heteronormativity (among other things). It’s searingly honest (she breaks down into tears while recounting a time when she was raped, for instance), and (clearly) powerfully-moving as an artistic work of social commentary. The Rotten Tomatoes critic score is 100%, with reviewers gushing over its bravery, innovation and transition to a ‘post-comedy paradigm’. However, I thought it was bloody awful - as did lots of other people (the Rotten Tomatoes user review aggregation is 26%). This wasn’t because I didn’t agree with (or took offence over) Ms Gadsby’s various theses (I have no doubt that it must have been hard growing up as a queer woman in 1980s-1990s Tasmania, for instance); rather, it’s because the whole event was _mis-sold_. This isn’t a comedy, it is essentially a secular sermon about the difficulties that middle-aged lesbians have faced (and continue to face)… A timely and necessary narrative? Absolutely. Comedic? Not in the slightest. (Dave Chapelle famously dug himself even deeper into a hole amongst the transphobia-business with his (accurate) injunction that [“Hannah Gadsby is not funny”](https://www.out.com/celebs/2021/10/26/dave-chappelle-called-hannah-gadsby-not-funny-his-latest-rant)). The best stand-up comedy finds a balance between serious social commentary and _jokes_, with a poetic interplay between the two. ---
**Author:** ![Snarky\_Kong](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a183cd/32.png) [@Snarky\_Kong](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Snarky_Kong)\ **Post date:** [December 7, 2022, 9:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ever-watched-a-comedy-that-had-no-laughs/976094/97 "2022-12-07T21:54:16Z")
Very much agree with this with the caveat that I wouldn’t trust RT audience scores to mean anything. They’ve increasingly been used to vice/virtue signal anything that can be considered political (which is nearly anything). ---
**Author:** ![Chefguy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chefguy/32/138_2.png) [@Chefguy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chefguy)\ **Post date:** [December 7, 2022, 10:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ever-watched-a-comedy-that-had-no-laughs/976094/98 "2022-12-07T22:11:45Z")
Benny Hill. ---
**Author:** ![Spice\_Weasel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spice_weasel/32/5435_2.png) [@Spice\_Weasel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spice_Weasel)\ **Post date:** [December 7, 2022, 10:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ever-watched-a-comedy-that-had-no-laughs/976094/99 "2022-12-07T22:23:51Z")
> [@MrLee](#): > > However, I thought it was bloody awful - as did lots of other people (the Rotten Tomatoes user review aggregation is 26%). This wasn’t because I didn’t agree with (or took offence over) Ms Gadsby’s various theses (I have no doubt that it must have been hard growing up as a queer woman in 1980s-1990s Tasmania, for instance); rather, it’s because the whole event was _mis-sold_. This isn’t a comedy, it is essentially a secular sermon about the difficulties that middle-aged lesbians have faced (and continue to face)… A timely and necessary narrative? Absolutely. Comedic? Not in the slightest. I thought it was hilarious. Or maybe I’m thinking of the one she named after her dog. The breakdown of Renaissance art was fantastic. It’s not unusual for stand up artists to mix comedy with social commentary or personal issues, Mike Birbiglia, Bo Burnham, Maria Bamford, and Jerrod Carmichael to name a few. ---
**Author:** ![Bootb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e19b73/32.png) [@Bootb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bootb)\ **Post date:** [December 8, 2022, 12:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ever-watched-a-comedy-that-had-no-laughs/976094/100 "2022-12-08T00:50:39Z")
> [@Asuka](#): > > I’ve always found comedies that are 2 hours or longer tend to be significantly less funny than 90 minute ones. They always tend to have to add a lot of non-comedic elements to stretch that plot out which makes them feel less funny. > > I really hate long comedy movies where the entire 3rd final act have almost no jokes because they have to actually settle the story. Do you feel that way about _It’s a Mad Mad Mad Mad World_? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ever-watched-a-comedy-that-had-no-laughs/976094.md?page=4) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ever-watched-a-comedy-that-had-no-laughs/976094.md?page=6)