i didn’t find wannabe howard stern bob and tom on their original radio station "Q95"back in the 80s …
originally the band kept the audience entertained when nothing was going on
I’m with you. Closest I ever came to laughing was cringing.
I love The Young Ones. But the segments are often interrupted Alexei Sayle doing a short bit of stand up comedy, which I find annoying.
He was the weakest link in the Carol Burnett Show. I often see clips in which Harvey Korman (who really was funny) being reduced to tears by Conway’s incessant mugging and going off script, and I’ve never understood why.
I have not seen the show but I’ve seen plenty of promos for it on TBS. The basic idea seems to be:
- Guys off camera tell the guy on camera what to say
- Guy on camera repeats what they tell him to say
- Guys off camera laugh like a bunch of drunken frat boys
I can barely tolerate it in a 30 second promo. I can’t imagine sitting through an entire half hour of it.
(My 8 year old grandson is a big fan of some YouTubers who do a running commentary while they are playing videogames, and it’s close to the same schtick - one of them makes a comment then they all laugh like a bunch of f***ing morons. I just don’t get the appeal.)
I was subjected to some of that when I had the roommate from hell. It’s cable access material writ large.
Speaking of annoying laughter- the Car Talk guys came close to overdoing it a few times. A remnant of it survives in the Ebay Motors commercial- “you need a new bumper…hya hya, won’t need a car wash…hya hya”.
Tim Conway’s physical humor never connected with me, but he seemed like a fun guy with a pleasant disposition, so I’d watch his skits with mild amusement. The only physical comedians who can really make me laugh are the Big 3 silent era comedians (Chaplin, Lloyd, and Keaton) and Mr. Bean.
As one who doesn’t watch any regular shows, my beefs are with YouTubers.
I find it difficult to watch videos by folks who are constantly trying to be funny while at the same time explaining how to configure a server or something like that. It is annoying.
Perhaps the best example of this for me is AvE: he is a really sharp guy who has serious engineering chops, but I finally stopped watching his channel because I grew weary of his bumbling drunk uncle schtick with his made up words (“put your comments in the dooblydoob” indeed). I realize that many, if not most, viewers like that, and I’m fine with it just being me. I unsubscribed.
I thought that was just common Canadian vernacular? No?
I agree though…it got to be too much. He also started putting in too much personal pontification. I think some folks get a big enough audience and start to think they are some sort of oracle. I don’t go to Youtube to get your thoughts on politics, religion, men’s rights, or guns.
How about the seeming competition to see who can have the biggest microphone-on-boom set-up? I’m waiting for one that completely obscures the guy’s head. And a lot of times their sound quality is less than the guy they’re interviewing using the mike on his phone.
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I judge YouTubers harshly!
I strongly dislike people who insist on playing a mind-numbing drumbeat in the background for the entire duration of their video.
As soon as someone inserts a movie meme clip in a technical video I’m out of there. No, I don’t think it’s even the least bit funny.
I allow people to suck their teeth twice in a video. The third time, I’m gone.
I refuse to watch technical how-to videos that have subtitles with zero dialog. While I understand that perhaps the author doesn’t speak English well, it is very annoying to watch someone fly through a UI with sparse subtitles mentioning a thing here or there. If they were speaking, they would likely provide plenty of valuable tips between the key moments.
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(I know…I’m turning into a grumpy old man)
Holy moly. I mean YMMV and all, but damn. Not all of Tim Conway’s comedy landed - I never found his Old Man character all that funny - but when he was on, he killed. His “incompetent dentist” routine with Harvey Korman still brings me to tears. As does the “elephant story” outtake from Mama’s Family, although that one is really down to Vicki Lawrence’s killer improv line at the end.
Jimmy Fallon’s too cute, self-serving corpsing during SNL sketches are far more annoying than they are funny. Genuine breaking is funny, like when nobody could keep it together during the first Debbie Downer sketch, but making it a point of most of your appearances doesn’t add to the show so much as draw attention to yourself.
In my days, I’ve come across a few webcomics that do a whole annual “Fractured Fairy Tale” Christmas bit where Santa is an evil wizard or one of the characters IS Santa or whatever and they’re all terrible. Not only are the stories bad but, because of the pacing of your typical webcomic, it takes months to wrap up and I might as well write off the comic between late November and early March each year while it goes on about Evil Santa Corp and ninja workshop sniper elves. First one I experienced doing this was Sluggy Freelance but I’ve probably come across it in several others (both running and now concluded).
I’m much less bothered by one-offs in other mediums like the Futurama Christmas episodes. I think it’s the long plodding nature of this in webcomics that really makes it tiresome (well, that and it never actually being funny/interesting/clever).