I’m not talking about particular comedians, not whether you find Dane Cook (for instance) brilliantly funny or a pox on humanity. Nope, I’m interested in genres (for lack of a better term) of comedy. Examples are OK, but this is not the place to dump on particular comedians, but whole genres.
I love to laugh, and can remember the times in my life when I’ve laughed hardest, the times when I’ve laughed so hard I got an endorphin rush from laughing so hard - like seeing “This Is Spinal Tap” at a sneak preview with an audience gathered by the local hard rock station that had no idea it was a comedy. I had to visit the lobby to resume breathing.
But other types of comedy leave me cold.
[ul]
[li]Slapstick: Any humor that depends on hitting, slapping, eye-poking or (especially) being kicked in the balls. The Three Stooges, America’s Funniest Home Videos and “Dodgeball” are examples. The thing is, I’ve been kicked in the balls, and I’ve never felt pain like that before or since. I don’t laugh at scenes of pain, I wince.[/li][li]Poop: It’s just human waste. What’s funny about it? I understand there is a particular age range when children usually laugh uproariously at anything featuring poop, but I don’t recall ever doing so.[/li][/ul]
What are yours?
And while I find some episodes of Family Guy funny, in general it just seems…I don’t know. Like it’s trying too hard, or something. I’m not sure what else I’d lump in with it, though.
There are various types of humor in that show - slapstick, classic “Father Knows Dick” situation comedy, etc. The bits that annoy me is that Letterman style “Uma Opra” thing where you keep repeating something until people assume that it must be funny and start laughing at the repetition. But this is why I said genre, which is one specific style, rather than a specific comedian or show, which can encompass many different styles.
Agree. Early Daily Show correspondents found idiots, interviewed them, and let them look like idiots. But in the past several years, the idiots have wised up and generally refused to be interviewed, so they have the correspondents act like idiots instead. Doesn’t work. I’ve taken to skipping any “outside” segments on the show.
Whatever the genre of new comedy is, that I somewhere got the impression originated with Tina Fey, where people say things like “not so much” and “I just threw up in my mouth a little bit.”
Excessive “randomness”. It’s not that it was never funny, but it’s waaaay played out. E.g. the chicken fight.
And yeah, akward comedy. Any post-AD Michael Cera.
For me, “not so much” goes back to Paul Reiser’s married-couple sitcom of the '90s, [del]whose name for some reason escapes me at the moment[/del] Mad About You.
I’m curious: is it non-sequiturs in general, that don’t do anything for you, or just physical stuff that comes out of nowhere?
Old-style, stilted, scripted comedy. Like, for instance (raise shields, Ensign), the Three Stooges or the Marx Brothers. I’m sure it was great in its day, but we’ve changed.
Non-sequiturs in general, really. Like I said, they were funny around the late-90s when they were used with discrimination, but someone figured out that, to a 15 year old, “random” = “FUNNY!” and flooded the comedy market with them.
Slapstick, especially AFHV crotch-smashes, is not amusing. Farts are not funny. I also agree with the awkward Daily Show bits - not funny. Borat was not funny.
Stereotypes are not funny. I especially hate the current over-used scenarios with idiot man and smug, superior woman. ick.
The Stooges and The Marx Brothers are very different styles of comedy. The Stooges were almost entirely physical, slapstick comedy - hitting, slapping, eye-poking, goosing with a blowtorch - though they did it generally in a fish out of water venue. They were usually the lower-class workers hired to perform labor in an upper-class venue.
The Marx Brothers were a completely different style of comedy, though actually each of the three was a different style. Groucho was mostly verbal - word-play, comic lecherousness. Chico was a ethnic character and a conniver. Harpo was a silent clown. The only connection between the Marx Brothers and the Stooges was the shared fish out of water scenarios used in films, though the Brothers were often in the position of power.
I agree. But I think Dana Carvey’s “chopping broccoli” bit falls into the 1%. Adam Sandler, on the other hand, I never found funny when he was singing (or not).
