The wiki page makes several references to them being used for comedic effect.
Why are they funny? Is it universal? That is, if you played a kazoo for someone who’d never heard one, would he find it funny?
I guess you could ask why anything is funny, but many funny things are funny for a reason: we’re programmed (somewhat) to enjoy the misfortunes of strangers; some concepts are shocking, and we have no other response but to laugh; strange and unusual situations produce a kind of intellectual dissonance which tickles us.
But why the sound of a kazoo?
I am pretty sure one was featured on the Brady Bunch before. That has to be a source of bizarre comedy if you study it like a scholar.
The original kazoo factory was in the paper just yesterday New York’s Original Kazoo Co. stays true to name
“The same belt and pulley machines that stamped and shaped the world’s first metal kazoos circa 1900 still stamp and shape kazoos today. The machines are still in the same building, making the same ker-thwunk sound as they perforate, fold and shape.”
I can’t find the picture, but they make them also shaped like choo-choo trains and race cars and airplanes.
A “buzzing” sound - and I dunno, very nasal, pretty rough - just starts out feeling, ah, not formal or polished. Still, would be interesting if anyone could work it into a serious piece with listeners mistaking it for a trombone (as suggested by Wiki).
Most people can learn how to use one, which makes it a great party toy - and since most everyone can play one, you can get often get a kazoo band that’s, well, mostly off-key. Leads to the atmosphere of not being too serious.
Oh yeah, the name is funny, too. But I don’t think that anyone who had never known they were a toy would automatically think they were “funny,” any more than an Australian bushman would think that a digereedoo (sp?) is funny.
My analysis:
K’s are rather funny.
Z’s are very funny.
Double O’s usually can be counted on to lead to a guffaw or a grin.
If it were not for the A, the Kazoo would be almost too funny.
And if invented today, it would be the iKzoo, which would be just lame and not very funny at all.
Because it’s like the little trumpet that… couldn’t.
The attitude of a kazoo noise is that of a brass instrument like a trumpet or something, something that might be used in a fanfare. It says ‘important stuff is happening and I’m heralding it in so listen to me!’. Self-important, in charge, etc.
However, the noise that accompanies the attitude sounds like a trumpet farting.
It’s the interaction of the self-importance and the lack-of-actual-importance - the failure of the kazoo to live up to it’s attitude - that makes it funny. It’s like a pompous looking little guy running to keep in front of a parade because he thinks he’s leading it - but actually he’s in their way.
That’s my theory.
I like kazoos.
Originally posted by Terminus Est
I’m gonna have go agree with you on this one.
Buckler of Swashing, that was possibly one of the funniest things I’ve ever read.
MT
They sound like an affronted duck, only the range can go more falsetto. Perhaps an affronted angsty teenage duck with acne.
One of the funniest things I ever heard was a six-man band consisting only of kazoo and Jew’s harp players. Breath takingly beautiful.
Well, beauty is in the eye of the beholder (or ear).