joke analysis

[swears]

Now this must be some sort of weird cognitive dissonance on my part, because while I think Curb is one of the funniest things I've ever seen I find Seinfeld utterly abominable. I mean, like worse than Friends.

I started watching Seinfeld as a teenager out of sheer boredom, it didn't even make sense to me at first. Then I started to find George (who is basically Larry David) funny, then I realised nobody is meant to understand what the fuck Kramer is on about anyway, then I got into Jerry's laid back nihilism, and realised that Elaine is the straight man. Chuckles all the way from there.

Friends is just a soap with jokes though, good looking people aren't funny.

 

[zhao]

humor often simply does not translate from culture to culture. i heard that Koreans find John Wayne movies roll on the ground hilarious, and that he is a famous comedian in Korea. besides these obvious examples, the humor of children are not the same as that of adults either -- and not simply a case of "out growing" it, i think it's entirely a different thing.

 

[grizzleb]

Now this must be some sort of weird cognitive dissonance on my part, because while I think Curb is one of the funniest things I've ever seen I find Seinfeld utterly abominable. I mean, like worse than Friends.

What the hell? It's almost identical in style, once you get passed the basic stuff. George is amazing (and basically LD), and the format of Chekhovs gun shit that gets used in every episode is the same.

Worse than Friends? Now you're just taking the piss...

 

[Mr. Tea]

I dunno, there's one thing that sticks in my mind about Seinfeld which was this joke (can't remember what it was about) that was really funny and had me properly laughing, because what was funny about it was the unspoken punchline. Then one of the characters went and said...the line that was obviously in everyone's head anyway.

And it wasn't like it made the joke stop being funny, it was like the joke had never been funny to start with. Doublegag, so to speak. And don't get me started when someone makes an entrance and there's uproarious applause, eeurgh.

American humour over the last 15-odd years, for me, amounts to The Simpsons, King Of The Hill and South Park. And Frasier on a good day.

 

[mixed_biscuits]

King Of The Hill

Love it!

Mike Judge also created The Goode Family, which affectionately mocks bien-pensant Liberals.

 

[marxbert]

it's the 21st century--we can submit any type of discourse to some sort of analysis...
i don't think the point of joke analysis can really be to determine if a joke is funny or not. certainly, all sorts of awful, unfunny jokes can be put through the same sort of analysis as gut-busters. there are all sorts of methods at analyzing jokes--from those of professional comedians to psychological, philosophical and literary methods. i don't think any analysis exists that can separate successful (ie funny) jokes from unsuccessful jokes--mainly because the same joke can be successful to one audience, incomprehensible to another, and offensive to a third.

(of course, if you want to submit that jokes can be objectively funny, i'll listen. this is what i really want to believe, but i've had a very difficult time in philosophically justifying this position.)

someone commented that jokes work at confounding expectations. this is certainly one method of joke analysis--and the one i tend to hear from stand-ups (NEVER sketch writers, sometimes improv comedians)--but is very abbreviated. generally, when talking about jokes confounding expectations, stress is put on the joke following a consistent logic. the talk about consistent logic is a load of nonsense in my mind--there are too many sketches where any consistency goes to hell by the end--and it's all the funnier for it.

i'm quite partial to joke analysis. the earliest book on jokes (rather than on "the comic") that i've been able to find is freud's "Jokes and Their Relation to the Unconscious." freud began the book after a comment that dreams worked along the same lines as jokes (condensation, displacement, etc.). at the beginning of this work, it is enough to say that the mechanisms by which jokes work are sufficient to cause some pleasure. by the end of the work, he concludes that jokes, the comic, and humor all work through an economy in [psychical] expenditure...('The pleasure in jokes arises from an economy in expenditure upon inhibition'--the pleasure from the comic and humor come from the conservation of different psychical expeditures). i don't want to go on too much about freud's manner of joke analysis--but his argument exhibits some of the depth of joke analysis.
i've seen some book by Henri Bergson on humor/the comic in bibliographies--and even freud mentions it i think--but i've yet to pick it up. anyone else read it?

there are all sorts of jokes that can cause or become problems for joke analysis, if the point of the thread is just to drive someone crazy. there is the whole debate about sense of humor and the subjective vs objective nature of comedy/humor/jokes (analagous to debates about "taste" in literature). then there are several particulars--i've inserted my own quick answers:
can a joke be funny that does not produce laughter or smiles?
[certainly. many jokes are meant to insult and, even though funny, are not likely to cause merriment.]
can an unfunny joke become funny?
[perhaps. a running gag can grow on many people. what was bizarre or annoying the first time could be funny the third.]
can a funny joke become unfunny?
[more like "when does a funny joke become unfunny." usually, a funny premise goes on too long without adequate payoff. while amusing at first, it quickly stagnates.]
what is the place/role of visual gags? can visual gags be submitted to analysis?
[flying circus has a whole slough of pretty innovative visual gags--early endings and credit rolls, the links, cuts to stock footage (the theater audience applauding is always great). it could probably be submitted to freudian analysis, but the show doesn't hold up to anything i've heard standups say about writing/performing]

i've only seen the the first question really dealt with in the literature (though the last couple questions have come up in my conversations with others about joke analysis).
--
can anyone argue that joke analysis can somehow separate funny/successful jokes from unsuccessful ones? i would desperately love to believe this, but it does not seem possible. the first step would be to say that an individual's sense of humor does not determine the hilarity of a joke--which i can't really justify.

 

[mixed_biscuits]

A 'joke' is normally defined as a statement that is intended to be funny.

However, I would like to add a further requirement, as I believe that statements that no-one but the joker finds funny - 'shit' jokes - don't deserve to be called jokes at all, just as Austin Powers doesn't deserve to be called a 'comedy' or Lenny Henry a 'comedian'. For me, a joke needs to be intended to be found funny and actually found funny.

I would rephrase 'can an unfunny joke become funny?' as 'can a statement that had been intended to be found funny be initially found unfunny (= not a joke) and yet later be found funny (= joke)?' The answer to this question is, of course, 'yes': statements can drift in and out of jokehood, as all it takes is for others to find them funny or unfunny.

If, on insulting someone, you defended yourself by claiming to have been 'joking', the unsmiling insultee is then correct to retort that you hadn't. What you had been doing was intending to create a joke.

 

[grizzleb]

I've been thinking recently about those rare moments where a funny situation seems to take on its own logic and you are left crying tears of laughter. There's something about those moments, like the whole thing makes sense in your mind in a strange way. It's like a whole theme comes out of one silly gesture of phrase, and takes on a life of its own...

 

[Mr. Tea]

I've been thinking recently about those rare moments where a funny situation seems to take on its own logic and you are left crying tears of laughter. There's something about those moments, like the whole thing makes sense in your mind in a strange way. It's like a whole theme comes out of one silly gesture of phrase, and takes on a life of its own...

Sometimes I think the funniest things are not verbal 'jokes' as such, but funny images or scenes you either see in real life or make up, especially if you have a friend with a similar sense of humour so you can just kind of riff off each other.

A while ago I was talking to a mate about the tragic and hilarious death of Rod Hull, and we ended up inventing this kind of sketch that revolved around the idea that Rod Hull always had Emu on his arm, even when he's doing completely everyday things like brushing his teeth or whatever (Rod and Emu in the shower together, each with his own appropriately-sized shower cap; Emu makes a mess opening the shower gel bottle with his beak; Rod tuts and smiles indulgently...) - and while Emu is sometimes helpful, he sometimes has other ideas...then one fateful day Rod and Emu are up on the roof trying to fix the TV aerial, and have a disagreement about how to do it. Then suddenly they're grappling - Emu lets go of the aerial to snap at Rod; Rod tries to fend off the demented puppet while scrabbling desperately for something to hold onto with his single free hand - then disaster strikes, and they tumble to their shared fate. Rod's piteously laboured last words: "Emu...oh Emu, I'm so sorry...". For the sake of the gag, we'll assume Rod is Catholic and has an open-casket funeral, lying there all peaceful looking with his arms folded across his chest, Emu still in place - united in death as they were in life. The coffin is closed and lowered into the earth, the priest reads a eulogy to them both as the first handfuls of soil are thrown into the grave and finally a procession of weeping mourners slowly files out of the churchyard.

But later that night, as an owl hoots ominously under a yellow moon, the shot slowly centres on the fresh grave and suddenly Emu bursts forth from the soil, Carrie-style, and looks around to get his bearings, a hideous rictus of triumph on his fabric face. The final shot is of Emu scurrying off through the undergrowth at the bottom of the deserted churchyard - in search of a new host!

You probably had to be there, but we had so much fun envisaging this little story. I'd love to see someone actually film it - oh well.

 

[grizzleb]

Heheh. Yeah I know exactly what you mean - good when you are in company who you know 'gets' whatever shit you find funny. Like when you are doing something and you catch something funny/ridiculous out of the corner of your eye/ear, and all you need to do is give said person a glance and they've already clocked it. Good times.

 

[baboon2004]

A while ago I was talking to a mate about the tragic and hilarious death of Rod Hull, and we ended up inventing this kind of sketch that revolved around the idea that Rod Hull always had Emu on his arm, even when he's doing completely everyday things like brushing his teeth or whatever (Rod and Emu in the shower together, each with his own appropriately-sized shower cap; Emu makes a mess opening the shower gel bottle with his beak; Rod tuts and smiles indulgently...) - and while Emu is sometimes helpful, he sometimes has other ideas...then one fateful day Rod and Emu are up on the roof trying to fix the TV aerial, and have a disagreement about how to do it. Then suddenly they're grappling - Emu lets go of the aerial to snap at Rod; Rod tries to fend off the demented puppet while scrabbling desperately for something to hold onto with his single free hand - then disaster strikes, and they tumble to their shared fate. Rod's piteously laboured last words: "Emu...oh Emu, I'm so sorry...". For the sake of the gag, we'll assume Rod is Catholic and has an open-casket funeral, lying there all peaceful looking with his arms folded across his chest, Emu still in place - united in death as they were in life. The casket is closed and lowered into the earth, the priest reads a eulogy to them both as the first handfuls of soil are thrown into the grave and finally a procession of weeping mourners slowly files out of the churchyard.

you can't beat Rod Hull/Emu vs Snoop (Doggy) Dogg in 1994 (?). That was the best fight of all time, apart from the Rumble in the Jungle.

General jokage - in my experience, the humour of quite depressed countries/communities tends to be the kind of humour I vibe with most. People generally refer to it as British or Jewish humour, but of course it's very close to Hungarian, Russian, Finnish....anywhere where the suicide rate is quite high.

 

[Papercut]

^^^^

Is that the same as Gallows humour? I think i like that the best. Well, i think the name is the best.

I like the earlier idea of Rod/Emu thing. Its good stuff to tap into. There is something faintly sinister about the human/soft toy ventriliquist thing.

Also been thinking a lot about humour since posting this. And while people have reduced humour down to a sort of show-and-reveal thing or the distruption of some scenario with something unexpected, isn't that a bit limited? Its does describe a great deal of (the majority?) of jokes but there are other ones that it doesn't really work for.

Take satire. Doesn't that just give us exactly what we expect, albeit in an exagerated or grotesque form. Is the exagerated form the distruption? That doesn't really sit comfortably for me.

And i was also thinking about, you know that bit in Big Lebowski with the ashes on the cliff. Thats effectivly slap stick. But thats not really why that bit is really funny. Its just kind of the accumulation of all the things i suppose. I can't really but my finger on why its so good.

 

[Mr. Tea]

Russian humour is famously dark. There's a joke about a guy with a stall in the market with a big basket of wild mushrooms (which are an important part of the local economy in rural Russia/Ukrain) labelled "Chernobyl mushrooms". A prospective punter asks "Who the hell wants to buy Chernobyl mushrooms?" - the stallholder replies "Oh, loads of people! Some want a present for their boss, others for their mother-in-law...".

The thing I like about the Rod/Emu sketch is the implication, right up until the end, that Rod Hull was just a mad bastard with a puppet on his hand, who got so caught up with the idea that he ended up deluding himself that it had a life of its own...but then, the final ghastly denouement!

 

[padraig (u.s.)]

the humour of quite depressed countries/communities tends to be the kind of humour I vibe with most

let me add professions which deal with a lot of really heavy stuff. one of the classes I'm taking this semester is an EMT (Emergency Medical Technician - what you guys refer to as an AT) course. the guys who teach it are all paramedics and/or firefighters and there is quite a lot of gallows humor, I get the feeling it's even stronger out in the field. I think it's very much in the order of "have to laugh to keep from crying" when confronting fairly awful stuff on a regular basis. as well the camaraderie that going through stressful situations together engenders. soldiers as well, in that regard. my own sense of humor has always been as bleak and deadpan as it comes so it works for me. tho one problem is that if you're not careful it can impart a kind of deadening cynicism to everything.

 

[woops]

i think it's time to lock this thread before no-one can make any more jokes ever again.

there's an asimov story about that. but anyway

 

[IdleRich]

I tend to find that I get on well with people whose sense of humour I share - my guess is that it shows that there is something about the way our minds work that is similar. What I mean is, the important thing isn't that we share a sense of humour, that's just a sign that something else (more important?) might be similar too.

"let me add professions which deal with a lot of really heavy stuff. one of the classes I'm taking this semester is an EMT (Emergency Medical Technician - what you guys refer to as an AT) course. the guys who teach it are all paramedics and/or firefighters and there is quite a lot of gallows humor, I get the feeling it's even stronger out in the field."

Wonder if they've ever done this

http://pbfcomics.com/?cid=PBF084-No_Survivors.gif

 

[baboon2004]

let me add professions which deal with a lot of really heavy stuff. one of the classes I'm taking this semester is an EMT (Emergency Medical Technician - what you guys refer to as an AT) course. the guys who teach it are all paramedics and/or firefighters and there is quite a lot of gallows humor, I get the feeling it's even stronger out in the field. I think it's very much in the order of "have to laugh to keep from crying" when confronting fairly awful stuff on a regular basis. as well the camaraderie that going through stressful situations together engenders. soldiers as well, in that regard. my own sense of humor has always been as bleak and deadpan as it comes so it works for me. tho one problem is that if you're not careful it can impart a kind of deadening cynicism to everything.

absolutely. my sense of humour has got even bleaker since starting my current job (prison charity). mind you, some of the shit that happens is pure slapstick, too.

 

[baboon2004]

I tend to find that I get on well with people whose sense of humour I share - my guess is that it shows that there is something about the way our minds work that is similar. What I mean is, the important thing isn't that we share a sense of humour, that's just a sign that something else (more important?) might be similar too.

true, but as a qualification i tend to find that i share different aspects of my humour with different friends.

 

[IdleRich]

Yeah, not a hard and fast rule I concur.

 

[baboon2004]

but i def. agree that the humour you share is frequently symptomatic of something deeper - and that rule holds, I'd say, the darker the humour gets.

(the one thing i find annoying is people who are very funny in an ironic/sarcastic/bombastic manner, but there's nothing deeper than that going on. Which figures, in a way...)