Funny stuff... I promise

Max Werner
January 28, 2009
Humor

The Boy Raised By Pythons and Black Adders
(or My Sense of Humor)

I grew up, for the earliest years of my life, in Berlin, which is perhaps the reason that my earliest exposure to English Language humor was to comedy of the British persuasion. At age five I cut my comedic teeth on Monty Pythons: The Holy Grail, to this day I still laugh with the same uproarious glee at that film (perhaps more so now because I definitely get more of the humor, being as I am now, marginally better informed than I was then.) When I discovered The Flying Circus I devoured that to with equal voracity. Blackadder, a British comedy series featuring Rowan Atkinson as the cynical, sarcastic and deeply self-interested titular character (Edmond Blackadder), also made a big impact me. The ridiculous metaphors and similes that Blackadder’s every day language was peppered with enthralled me. When he would describe something as “About as useful as a barbershop at the foot of a guillotine,” or laments that the course of his life is “Strewn with cowpats from the devil’s own satanic herd.” I would think, ‘Wow, that’s clever!” This is, perhaps, the origin of my peculiar taste in humor, which tends to favor witty observations about mundane things or clever turns of phase over topical humor and political satire.
That said, I am as much of a Daily Show enthusiast as the next man, I can appreciate the odd bit of topical humor, or cliched’s standup routine about how inept the Bush administration is. But it doesn’t really draw me in as much as the one-liners, quips, impeccable and yet totally unpredictable and novel delivery/timing, and generally bizarre world view of comedians such as Mitch Hedberg and Dimitri Martin. Hedberg is a particular favorite of mine. Famous for his funny, if somewhat odd, one-liners and observations Mitch Hedberg had a totally unusual voice and mode of delivery. The cadence of his speech was irregular, he would pause oddly in sentences and his voice would increase in speed and intensity and then slow rapidly in a way which was both unpredictable, and utterly rhythmic. His routine’s influence, to a greater or lesser extent, can be felt in the acts of a great many ‘dead pan’ comedians today. People from Will Farrell, Alec Baldwin on 30 Rock, to Jon Heder of Napoleon Dynamite fame, all employ a presence and delivery which bears traces of Hedberg’s distinct style. Hedberg’s stage presence was also quite unique his famous for his long hair which he polled down around his face, presumably to hide himself, his slouched, closed off stance, his nervous fidgeting and the self-concious nervous he spoke in, rather than impeding him, became iconic parts of his persona.. Hedberg is, himself, a paradox, a living example of the incongruity theory of comedy. He is a clearly stage-shy, uncomfortable man (as demonstrated, among other things, by his frequent practice of periodically facing away from the audience while still delivering his jokes.) doing standup comedy in a way his fear is clearly visible and yet he is somehow, still, hysterical. Dimitri Martin, to a lesser extent, exemplify this comic uniqueness and daring willingness to admit ones flaws and to be one’s self on stage, while still being utterly hysterical and clever.
I suppose ultimately, the reason my comedic palate evolved to favor the styling of People like Dimitri Martin and Mitch Heberg, over more topical humorists like Jon Stewart, goes back to my days watching British Television Comedies, where it was, more than anything else, the wit and absurdity, not the ‘pop-cultural’ relevance, of a joke that was prized. Had I grown up on Seinfeld (famous for his ‘real world’ observations) rather than Monty Python (whose comedy has always been more otherworldly) I might have, as the vast majority of my friends do, grown up favoring topical humor. Just as I am frequently told that the humorists I admire most (who tend, admittedly, to adhere to the incongruity theory of humor pretty strictly, it would seem) are “weird” I feel that the jokes made on the daily show are, though funny, ultimately not as timeless or enduring as the more abstract jokes which I prefer. Sure, its funny when a clever comedian makes a snarky remark about the president, but in twenty years that topic will be tired and that joke utterly unappreciated, but the flying circuses absolute lunatic absurdity, will almost never fail to rouse at the very least, a giggle, from even the most taciturn of viewers.

Dancing, Gravity, and other things that can ruin an evening

1) The Joke: From Class
Question: Whats worse than biting in to an apple and finding a worm.

Answer: The Holocaust.

Certainly, there was a fair bit of laughter at this joke, and that might be because of Release Theory (raises a decidedly uncomfortable and catastrophic event). However, I personally find myself to be, generally speaking, to buy into the whole incongruity theory bit. And certainly, there are few things less congruous than the grave misfortune of biting into an apple to discover it is the home of a worm, and the Holocaust. Setting these two things side by side serves to starkly portray gargantuan the difference in scale between the two negative occurrences in a way that one can not help to laugh about. I guess it is ultimately something of a mixture between release and Incongruity.

This weekend, in accordance with assignment given to me by this class, I sought to observe and record an event that was humorous. Knowing full well the gravity and seriousness of the subject matter, I sought to empirically asses the relative 'funniness' of each event I witnessed according to a strict eight category rubric. Comparing the results of my data collection, I would then select the anecdote which received the best score on my rubric and then report it as diligently and objectively as possible... realizing this was ridiculous, I instead decided just to type up an account of something that happened Saturday night.

T'was the 25th of January and I was tending bar at a fraternity the name of which does not bear mentioning. Invigorated as they were with the evenings festivities, a quartet of girls decided to dance on the bar. This bar was not, as you can imagine a long, stately, or even particularly clean one. Rather it was short (only about five feet long) and only about a foot and a half wide. The bar had been carved from some dark wood and was, at one point in its life, a regal bit of furnishing, but now those halcyon days had passed and it was dingy, pock marked, and vaguely sticky. In short, the bar is not an ideal surface for dancing. However, this was not an issue for these four, and they climbed up upon the surface, amidst cheers and a few concerned looks from some of the brothers, and proceeded to dance. They might have been stopped, had one of them, not thirty seconds after climbing up, danced wholly off the bar and come crashing down on a folding chair situated to the right of the bar (intended to block people from walking behind the counter). Thankfully, only the chair (and very likely the girl's ego) were harmed, however, there was a chorus of laughter and even the odd photograph. To me, this can only be a manifestation of Superiority Theory, of people laughing because, no matter how many mistakes or slip ups they had doubtlessly made in the course of the day, at least they had not fallen on their posteriors in front of a crowd of revelers whose focus had been centered on them.

Things I find Funny:
1) Mitch Hedberg
2) Douglas Adams
3) Really really Bad Movies
4) Lists
5) Jon Stewart and Mr. Steve Colbert.