NOT FUNNY.

and almost everyone else.

however i am pleased to report that the new Shooting Stars is up there with the first three (much better than the poor last series)

The Simpsons now = makes me laugh til it hurts, but I feel a strange guilt for enjoying so heartily something that everyone else thinks sucks.

Chris Tucker (maybe he is live, but not in films)

Alan Davies (not since he started doing Abbey National adverts or bloody Jonathan Creak)

Harry Enfield (not for about ten years now!)

Stuff that isn't funny:

Victoria Wood
Absolutely Fabulous (no arguments - it isn't funny)
Spaced

..you must just have a different opinion to me, or something...

and Letterman used to be funny...

you should buy the Season 3 DVD/VHS set when it comes out in a few months...then compare it to newer episodes (you should be able to tell which are the newer ones, they're the ones where Homer sounds more like Scooby-Doo or does stuff even more preposterous and outlandish - or just not as interesting - than going into space or winning a Grammy) - if you can't tell the differences then...i'll...er...roll my eyes and sulk i guess

My Family however is such a simple, albeit hackneyed idea but I find the humour quite refreshing and the script is excellently written.

I cannot believe that someone doesn't find them funny.

what was to dislike about them? i thought they were all pretty cute. i'd admit there's a slight tweeness to them all that tries to display them all as intensely loveable that may have been overbearing (kinda like Belle & Sebastian or Lemon Jelly perhaps), but the surreal quirks and/or ultimately human aspects of their characters prevailed

I mean, come on it's not a new or funny revelation that people working in creative media are often bums or egotistical slackers (like me) so why point it out as if it's the funniest thing in the world?

i dont think they were dragging it out that badly, i dont recall seeing a realsitic depiction of creative types struggling to get motivated and get work anywhere else in a British sitcom in recent times...its not even meant to be 'funny' as in 'look, you must laugh now' - just a well observed, well executed half-comment to me

That bit where the modern artist is explaining how he paints "aggression, pain, frustration" and it's presented as if it's a joke. Very funny - "modern art is, like, really weird man! Look, people covered in paint - they must be mad!". or "Wow! Clubbing is funny. Look people on drugs - they're really funny."

the "pain, fear, aggression" (or whatever it was) thing is funny because its a swift, well executed montage and because of Mark heap's facial expressions (his 'fear' face cracked me up).

the clubbing episode was VERY cliched, but still funny to see Mike in a tight pink leotard and Tracks (the Irish courier) having a flashback and buzzing his tits off to the sounds of roadworks, the telephone and a boiling kettle - yes VERY Human Traffic, but again well executed and just something to make you smile if not roll around on the floor like an epileptic having a fight with a 6ft feather duster

apologies to everyone for getting into another Spaced: Good/Bad thing, i'm sure there have been loads before and opinion is divided probably 50/50

anyone else think My Family is funny tho?!

I can feel my lip starting to curl again.

no-one liked the Alexei Sayle bits tho admittedly, probably not even Alexei Sayle

i dont think they were dragging it out that badly, i dont recall seeing a realsitic depiction of creative types struggling to get motivated and get work anywhere else in a British sitcom in recent times...its not even meant to be 'funny' as in 'look, you must laugh now' - just a well observed, well executed half-comment to me
Anyone who's ever made fun of students has done this. Squaddies aren't funny.

the "pain, fear, aggression" (or whatever it was) thing is funny because its a swift, well executed montage and because of Mark heap's facial expressions (his 'fear' face cracked me up).

Normally I'm a big fan of this kind of expressive comedy, and I think things like League of Gents has this down to a fine art but soz, it didn't float my boat - just made me cringe.

the clubbing episode was VERY cliched, but still funny to see Mike in a tight pink leotard and Tracks (the Irish courier) having a flashback and buzzing his tits off to the sounds of roadworks, the telephone and a boiling kettle - yes VERY Human Traffic, but again well executed and just something to make you smile if not roll around on the floor like an epileptic having a fight with a 6ft feather duster

Okay, I must admit that the show did make me smile once in a while. There's one outtake of them singing "This Beat is Technotronic" which made me titter and some of the clubbing episode was fairly heartwarming. Just not enough in there to make me think of it as anything more than a lukewarm attempt at simplistic observational humour.

Cor I can't half rant about this programme can I? Apologies as well for the repetitiveness of the "Spaced" subject, but I'm just confused at myself for not getting it considering it gets so much good press and has a lot of actors whom I normally enjoy seeing in other programs. I do WANT to like it, really - I bought the DVD for chrissakes. Maybe series two is better?

its hard to appreciate Dad's Army but i'd accept it was a good British sitcom even i probably never laughed at it once - same goes for Porridge, one of the best Uk sitcoms ever really, and i think i did laugh at it once or twice in the past...working under the view that british sitcoms in their traditional format are just utterly redundant these days

NB their dimness was a constant whether they had just smoked pot or not.

our reading of the characters remains quite different tho - i think they're all great, perhaps more cariactures than characters indeed, but this is not a problem

you might prefer series 2 altho i'm not sure i do (so maybe you would ;)

I suppose you could call Blue Jam etc. creepy and unpleasant too but that impressed me in other ways.

PS I was well under 25 and an unemployed socialist drunkard so I can see no sociological basis for my dislike.

When I was 10 I didn't really understand that they were students, or at least I didn't understand anything about student life. I don't really know what I thought they were doing in that house.

As a burlesque parody of 80s students I think Rik was pretty good.

And then the was.. Mike.

i suppose i was obssessed with the Young Ones as a kid, and Blackadder also. Vyv was my favourite character in the Young Ones - didnt find Mike funny at all as with Sayle's skits tho. perhaps its so embedded deep in my humour psyche that i refuse to consider the possibility its crap...i mean i could watch it now and not laugh or smile at all because i know it so well, but that dont make it a dud in my book.

i also loved Bottom up until the middle of the third series where it went beyond formulaic, beyond self-parody and into...nothing. by that point i'd realised Mayall and Edmondson together were one trick ponies and didnt care, but from then on, it just stopped being remotely funny.

Sadly Eddie Murphy - i blame the ladyboys

The Young Ones still holds up mostly, I think. A lot of people say it's dated, which is true in certain points (the references to Thatcher, etc) but there are loads of moments that are just plain silliness which continue to be enjoyable today - as Chaki said. Vyv going to Narnia, the whole thing in "Bambi" where the entire cast are amoebas or something which get eaten by an elephant, Rik writing to the lead singer of Echo & The Bunnymen because he thinks MPs are facists... and there are character-based lines which are just fantastic (Neil: "Open uuup, it's the piigs"). I love the exchanges between Rik, Vyv and Neil. But it's true those Alexei Sayle bits are pretty awful, except certain times when he's sticking to the script ("Oh no, some bastard broke your chair!" - the delivery of that is hilarious to me, for some reason).

Blackadder IV, though, is terrible drivel. They were repeating themselves by that point. The whole thing is just really lame.

-- Martin Skidmore"

Surely a keeper for the DVD boxed-set cover blurb?

*disclaimer: 2 times outta 3 South Park is more irritating than funny to me

(just accept it.)

Curb Your Enthusiasm.

doglatin is insane.

And am I imagining things or does Doug Benson have the worst toupee in Christendom? And he's like, what, forty?

Upright Citizen's Brigade. UTTER SHIT. Absurdity isn't comedy ENOUGH.

Oh I can't believe we've gotten this far without mentioning "My Hero" which is now in it's fifth or sixth series and they've even replaced Ardal O'Hanlan with the gay dude out of Thin Blue Line/Gimme Gimme Gimme. It is seriously seriously not funny.

what the fuck are you smoking, son?

and now i know!

wtf u smokin' otm

Ypu. Substance over style please.

yeh that's cye.

Because surely funny = stuff that is funny like jokes or funny ideas as opposed to some guy going round and being chastised (quite rightly) for being an uppity shitbag.

this shocking revelation could really undermine the purpose of this thread tho i fear.

most OTM.

xxxpost

-- a naked Kraken annoying Times Square tourists with an acoustic guitar (crucial.bonu...), September 27th, 2006.

Not when Tobias Funke said it. :-D

a lot of the jokes are callbacks to earlier jokes, to a point where i could totally imagine not getting half of the first shows in series three without having watched the first two series. also, i got the dvd of series three a couple of weeks ago and have already watched it twice, and ended up watching the shows on bbc2 again the other night - the density of jokes in the show is dizzying - not just background jokes a la The Simpsons (a charlie-brown-esque george michael walking past a huge doghouse still being my favourite), but lines in the show that you miss through laughing at the line immediately preceding it.

arrested devlopment is easily my favourite tv show since chappelle.

this stuck out to me. serious? cos everything i've ever seen on BBCA looks like it was shot by some trainee soap crew. is it some kind of transfer thing? or eye-acclimation? or ur rong, or what?

NOT FUNNY: inter-newsreader 'banter'. Wins for me every time.

i didn't understand it either. USTV pwns generally. be glad you don't get Spooks or 11th Hour over there to go with the crap comedies.

NOT FUNNY:

Anything Leigh Francis has ever been involved with ever (Bo Selecta/Avid Merrion)
doglatin's comedy scripts that he posted on ILX once
THE GREEN GREEN GRASS
Little Miss Jocelyn

cable stuff generally classier (though not 'curb').

xpost, cilla makes me laugh.

another fugly-ass but great us show: 'the daily show'. music and graphs just ugggghhhh.

I've noticed this! I think this was one of my primary attractions to Arrested Development, was that, even with the majority of it taking place in either the model home or Lucille's apartment, it felt like it was occurring in real places (it did help that they frequently went outside a la trip to Mexico ["20 miles to Legoland"], the banana stand, etc).

British sitcoms tend to occur in two places: inside (VT) and outside (film).

i don't think this has been the case for a fair while - does anyone shoot on film now? (genuine question, cannot think of any right now). the filmed outdoor stuff in old sitcoms always looks so much more 'realistic', less 'stagey' than the old skool video stuff, but i guess with technological advances this is much less the case.

its intriguing, isn't it? episodes of the office, for ex., have a very filmy grain to the picture, but its video...

least funny much-hyped stand-up i've ever seen or heard.
not a titter missus.

*ba-dum tish*

-- EARLY-90S MAN (miltonpinsk...), Today 11:13 AM. (Enrique) (later)

dude do you not get that it's supposed to look like a cable news show?

wtf@people saying bernie mac

also it bears repeating

family guy
family guy
family guy

Michael is OTM. Everyone involved with this show should have at least one of their fingers chopped off for being involved with something so dull and ugly.

And then they'll pull back the corners of their eyes with their (remaining) fingertips and be all "ching chong bing bong" because tired racial humor = EDGY!

Artie Lange - sometimes funny

Season 1 was the Groening/Simon/Brooks, whatever that means to you. Sam Simon hires the Army Man staff as writers, most notably, George Meyer and John Swartzwelder.

Season 2 was still crediting them, but Al Jean & Mike Reiss were doing much of their work. The show starts to get funny.

Al & Mike take over totally in season 3 and were scared as first-time showrunners, demanding as many rewrites as possible. Full on funny.

After season 4, Al & Mike left to do The Critic, which I never watched...because...Jon Lovitz NOT FUNNY

Dave Mirkin took over the Simpsons in seasons 5 & 6. Mirkin is kinda funny, but hits you over the head with the joke (followed by lengthy explanations of each joke on the commentary track).

Mirkin was the man behind Chris Elliot's Get a Life, which I only thought was funny in its final season.

Even worse was that John Swartzwelder, an adamant supporter of smoker's rights, was no longer allowed to smoke in the rewrite room as of season 6, so he began submitting scripts form home and not attending rewriting sessions.

Mirkin lost out to newcomers Bill Oakly & Josh Weinstein, who worked with the writers at the Harvard lampoon long before any of them got jobs as writers in tv. Bill & Josh were hardcore Simpsons fans and wanted to overthrow Mirkin's big-dumb reign and return it to Al & Mike's style, which they did greatly in nearly all of season 7 and most of season 8.

Ironically, Al & Mike returned for like 3 episodes in season 8, which ended up being mirkin-esque duds (eg the x-files ep)

Everything at this point ranges from excellent to good. But...

Mike Scully took over after that, and was extremely hit or miss (mostly miss). He lasted from seasons 9-12. Anything after season 10 makes me violently angry.

Fans complained greatly about Scully. Al Jean took the show back over, but by then, the writing staff had MUCH turnover, so there was no saving it, even with george meyer on staff.

The movie is going to fucking suckkkkk

New SNL

I feel like they're not telling jokes, they're telling me they're telling jokes.

are you suggesting the former representative enjoyed his hot lunches, hot carls, and glass-bottom boats served up by strapping young bucks?

-- kingfish prætor (jdsalmo...)

SCREECH FOLEY TAG TEAM

-- David R. (quoteidio...)

now, now, some things are even too kinky for the bebearded Screech. Man has _some_ standards.

-- kingfish prætor (jdsalmo...)

-- Tuomas (tuomas.alh...)

MAD PROPZ

FREAKSHOW. dude from home movies and david cross on the unfunniest thing i've seen in eons. since mind of mencia.

David Cross is on Freakshow? :( I thought he was just going to branch into kidshow/kidmovie "angry principal" characters ala his roles in Curious George & She's The Man. Unless he plays a cranky uncle or principal in Freakshow, I'm disappointed.

It didn't quite work.

-- researching ur life (goforgrad...), October 9th, 2006.

I swear we were just talking about this on another thread. So true.

http://i36.photobucket.com/albums/e18/emomonkey666/i_fuck_on_the_first_date1.jpg

^that as facebook profile photo.

"The Late Edition"

NOT FUNNY.

Which is weird, because I saw Marcus Brigstock do stand-up this summer and he killed.

Dane Cook
NOT FUNNY
Sinbad
NOT FUNNY
Kevin James
NOT FUNNY

Family Guy.

(bears repeating)

I have been laffing at Charlie Brooker on Screenwipe. I still can't stand his column.

If you like David Cross, just go die.

I am now remembering a thread where Jess talks about liking Earl, or My NAme is Earl, or whatever that tv show that comes on before the Office is called. OMGWTF!

yah jess loves Earl. wtf.

It's funny.

i fucking hate that show.
xxp

funnies r subjective amirite

Deliberately using poor grammar (i.e. "I has") (and thereby most people here)

you has a flavor, BUZZKILLA VANILLA

^^^^^^ funny

:D

dan also thinks Drawn Together is funny. he is not a good judge of comedy obv.

Drawn Together isn't funny anymore. It's far too self-aware about how horrible it is which kills all of the "Oh my God, I can't believe they thought this would be a good idea" lolz.

I kind of enjoyed the 15 minutes of Drawn Together I saw... but you could REALLY sense that this wasn't going to be around for long.

My sister's bf likes this show that looks like 8 bit graphics... you know, that one?? Not. Funny.

Drawn Together has been on for THREE SEASONS now.

Drawn Together has been terrible for THREE SEASONS now.

We've been talking about Drawn together for SEVEN POSTS now.

I am thinking of the one with the anthropomorphised animals. BAnal real-life conversations coming from clay animals... I guess it's not Drawn Together.

no. i like that show. its funneys.

athf is funny. Movie was deese too.

Mastodon song was awesome.

My sister's bf likes this show that looks like 8 bit graphics... you know, that one??

Code Monkeys? Yeah that sucks.

I've never understood why athf is more popular than Tom Goes To The Mayor. But then again, I'm a huge Strangers With Candy fan and prefer my comedy along those lines.

tom goes to the mayor is somewhat difficult visually and in the delivery of the characters where athf is cute, cartoony food items with slapstick humour.

not really that hard to figure out.

But the visual characteristics are what make it so appealing. It's so odd/funny to see characters that are stuck in suspended animation, mid-speech. It's like the film Awakenings, but you're actually supposed to laugh at it. One of the few shows I can watch on mute and still laugh.

ATHF is funny for autistic, 13yo stoners...or South Park fans that have outgrown South Park.

ok i'm so glad i'm not you.

what chaki said

I've always thought the same about everyone here.

ATHF is funny for autistic, 13yo stoners...or South Park fans that have outgrown South Park.

you don't see how this kind of makes you seem like a pompous ass?

most things that try to be funny aren't, but I only notice (and despise) the stuff that people constantly try to shove in my face to get me to laugh with them about...

99.9% of gossip writing
anything on NPR
Dennis Miller (never was)
Christopher Guest
political slogan type humor ("lol we have a bush and a dick for president rofl"), t-shirts, bumper stickers, bloggers, etc.
lolcats
Goldentine
Larry the Cable Guy
the "Phil Collins speech" in American Psycho
Spoof movies
Weird Al
"Chocolate Rain"
puns
people who say "sarcasm is the lowest form of humor"

I could go on and on.

all "grown-up" cartoons

does the Venture Bros count as "grown up"? i like that one.

yes. and its genius. metalocalypse is too.

people who say "puns are the lowest form of humor"

people who be hatin' and not celebratin'

the truth is i probably havent really seen any of those cartoons

ATHF is funny for autistic, 13yo stoners

i saw a trailer for a dane cook film. him.

ATHF is not funny
one big reason being that there's such weak context
anytime you want to do the 'insane, irreverent and arbitrary' schtick, there has to be much stronger context
space ghost C2C had that... and it was way way WAY funnier and more entertaining as a result
ATHF is just a huge mess

people who say "sarcasm is the lowest form of humor"

yeah, 'cause it's puns.

the "Phil Collins speech" in American Psycho

nah, that's deep

Keegan Michael Key, presenter of the Planet's Funniest Animals.

Painfully unfunny. And the more unfunny he gets, the louder the crowd applauds because some dude is holding up a "laugh" sign behind the camera. Not only that, but he EXPLAINS jokes. You don't explain jokes! Never! ("My cat invited 100 other cats for a party, but nobody came... That's what happens when you throw a POOL PARTY for CATS!" (silence) "THEY HATE WATER!" (audience absolutely explodes with laughter) )

Poor guy probably thinks he's the shit, but man... :-(

Haha, I've never seen that but it sounds kind of awesome, unfunny shoving unfunniness into unfunny jokes by overexplaining them...I like that stuff.

In HS me and my friends made a fake "America's Funniest Home Videos," and the kid playing Bob Saget help up this Monopoly house and did this monologue with too many pauses: "See this house?...It's my producer's house...My producer is poor!...That's why he lives in this house!....My producer can't afford a big house...This is his house...You know, my producer was telling me he lived in this house, and I laughed because he's poor!...He doesn't have any money so his house is small!" And that's a nostalgic thing for me so maybe that's why yr thing is making me laff Stan M.

:-)

(I know not all of these shows are unfunny, I don't get depressed by Tom Bergeron.)

Are you talking about the Animal Planet host that does kind of a combination of news report/funniest home videos thing? Because he is not funny. Just aimed at small children and shut-in's.

"I guess not every dog has its day. Especially when it's raining cats and dogs, and you've just stepped into a poodle..." etc

s1ocki, what do you define as grown-up cartoons? you mean like king of the hill? or like fritz the cat?

im SO over nick swardson

Chelsea Handler

xpost - planet's funniest animals is fricking HILARIOUS with the sound off. but when it's on - SO NOT FUNNY

http://i.tbs.com/v5cache/TBS/Images/Dynamic/i40/franktv_bush_prem_640x480_101020070345.jpg

http://llnw.image.cbslocal.com/10/2008/08/28/320x240/comicsunleashed400x300.jpg

Arrested Development

NOT FUNNY.

I received the complete box set for Christmas and it is fair to say I was pretty fucking pleased. I had never seen more than a few seconds of it (for various reasons) but here I had several days of solitary at-home on-call duty awaiting in that grim interregnum between Christmas and New Year and what better way, you might think, than to while it all away with every episode of the "smartest show on TV" or whatever the fuck people say about it. People have said quite a lot about it, along these lines. I lasted three episodes and finally turned off the TV, slack-jawed, just unable to understand how this show corresponded with the descriptions I'd heard. Every character, every flashback, every joke, is so painfully obvious and overplayed, it's like a British pantomime. Which I love, but only once a year. Yes Bateman is great but he is NOT FUNNY particularly. What in the fuck???????

shut the fuck up.

sorry, i was just trying to be NOT FUNNY

you should give it a few more episodes

transatlantic high-5 to Tracer

So I can continue to watch David Cross be "wacky"?? So I can continue not laughing whenever someone hilariously says "homosexual"???? I'd rather get my printer's color management working properly TBH.

yeah, banana stand jokes, Segway jokes, magic jokes, jokes about the SEC, jokes about model homes, jokes about people who wear jeans cutoffs 24/7=so obvious and overplayed

TBH

"You may agree or disagree as u please, fux0rz"

It doesn't matter what the material is if everyone (besides Bateman and his son) is so determined to play a stylized Type instead of a human being, if everyone (besides Bateman and his son) gives off the unmistakable impression of being above the character they're playing. Like between takes I can just see them chortling amongst themselves, "God, my character is so fucking dumb, isn't that hilarious??"

Maybe this is how certain movies and shows and directors get a reputation for being "smart", like the Coen Brothers - they feature many deliberately dumb characters about whom they go great lengths to assure you they are personally far superior to.

you sound kind of superior yourself tbh.

yeah, just about all comedies have people acting foolishly. (I have only seen a handful of AD episodes btw.)

i was never a huge fan or anything but what exactly is wrong with laughing at wacky characters? especially if the writing is sharp, which i thought it was. seems like you're expecting chekhov out of a satire! x-post

I would've been disappointed if I'd been expecting Taxi out of it.

yeah taxi was a laugh riot. Woah that latka sure is foreign.

i can't believe there's a comedy out there that expects you to laugh at the characters! what will they think of next!

i think that was the point x-post

I think TH is talking about how laced w/ contempt the laughter (or the show) is.

Man, I hate when humor is mean and laced with contempt.

i laugh at the show because it's funny--not because i think the characters are inferior or below me.

I thought Taxi was funny.

It doesn't matter what the material is if everyone (besides Bateman and his son) is so determined to play a stylized Type instead of a human being

this is such a weird criticism of a comedy

It's almost like these people are acting!

Tracer, did you ask for the box or was it a Christmas surprise?

My brother watched the first ten episodes at his friend's insistence & just could not get into it. That was far enough in to start the whole "hermano" story arc, and to have seen Gob perform on stage, both of which were big sells for me getting into the show. So I had to face the idea that some people just can't enjoy Arrested Development. That's fine. I mean I have gotten enough shit in my life about not liking Led Zeppelin to know getting that sort of opinion waved in your face all the time is annoying as hell. What I am saying is, Tracer, it's ok not to like Arrested Development.

Good job, guys. You have invalidated all of his criticisms, and now he will surely enjoy the show.

Yeah, comedy is one of those things you can talk people into liking -- people either find something funny or they don't. xp

can = can't, argh

Yes. I mean, look, some of you laugh at it. That is great! I really don't mind! I just completely cannot comprehend it!! Ultimately one cannot perhaps explain these things!

maybe i should list all of my criticisms of granny dainger so you guys can invalidate them and then i will surely enjoy his posts.

you clearly "get it", it just looks like youre too busy thinking to enjoy it

xp

zs/que otm

yes he's thinking "why don't I find this funny?"

OK OK here's my attempt to explain. I know it won't "work" as an explanation but I'm trying anyway. Why, who knows. And yes, I actually think I do get it. I am not asking for help here.

- Wacky "types" instead of characters
- People acting totally fucking dumb all the time, almost as if they are mentally disabled.
- Actual humor at the expense of mentally disabled people (i.e. Buster)
- David fucking Cross. Oh yeah and his character has a really funny name, hahahahahahahahahahahahahaha!
- Abstract earnestness about the value of "family"
- Every reaction shot narrated by Ron fucking Howard leaking out everywhere

I mean! Ron Howard!!!!!

Buster is not mentally disabled

I could totally see how someone could not enjoy Arrested Development. But a lot of that sounds like it could apply to plenty of shows. Say, Curb Your Enthusiasm.

Other shows Tracer likely won't enjoy:

It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia
30 Rock

Oh yeah and his character has a really funny name, hahahahahahahahahahahahahaha!

One of the things I love about AD is that so much humor comes from language: puns, double entendres, silly wordplay, etc.

a lot of it sounds like every comedy ever--Dickens had characters with funny names, we still read Dickens.

i think this is the only thing i've liked david cross in

xpost to self
Specifically the first three criticisms (wacky "types", everyone's an idiot, making jokes out of politically incorrect situations)

- Actual humor at the expense of mentally disabled people (i.e. Buster)

what words do u stress in this sentence when u say it out loud

"I don't find this funny, so neither should you" vs. "I find this funny, so you should too" followed by excessively analytical discussion of comedy truisms and archetypes. Should be a productive discussion.

the internet is amazing

People acting totally fucking dumb all the time, almost as if mentally disabled is where the show most closely approximates life for me, and makes.me feel like, all in all, my problems aren't all that bad.

this fall, the New Adventures of Fezziwig & Chuzzlewit

Tracer Hand is a funny name

You know what Que, I think Dickens also said that family was like, real real important. You're right - this is just like Dickens!

Haha Mordy I have totally avoided those shows.

Z S I love Curb Your Enthusiasm (or least I did a few years ago, when I watched it last) but I guarantee I would not be around for that shit if Ron Howard was narrating every line like some kind of kindly scout troop leader.

Super Cub when did I ever say no one else should find this funny?? In fact I explicitly said, twice I think, that if you like it, great! I just can't understand why that would be!

I had no idea Buster wasn't supposed to be mentally disabled. They certainly make him seem that way in the first three episodes.

please note, i did not say that the show, Arrested Development, was just like Dickens.

I love AD for the characters and the writing and the acting and the premise.

Also, the second half of the second season was completely fascinating to watch as the show marched toward annihilation and the writers fully acknowledged that fact.

xpost, Tracer true, I was just describing a larger pattern of internet discourse. Apologies.

xp to self: actually a big contributing factor to my enjoyment of most television/movies/novels.

http://www.wearebored.com/gallery2/d/10728-2/Dickens+Energy+Cider.JPG

Doesn't Buster have several college degrees?

(This may not have been established until later, I don't remember.)

if you think Buster is wacky now, wait until he has no arm!

no i think in the first episode it's suggested he has multiple degrees

NOT FUNNY - education is impt

What is impt? Is it a past tense of some verb to "imp"?

like a more light-hearted, puckish version of "trolling"?

It's true that Curb has plenty of people doing extremely dumb things that you cannot imagine a real person ever doing. But usually it's just out of carelessness. Which is pretty relatable. One of the things I like about Curb is that it feels loose. Though often plotted very tightly, each scene feels like it could careen off in any direction. The actors feel less like actors and more like improvisers. You can see them really aggravating each other, really making each other laugh. If a situation escalates it feels slightly out of control.

Haha it is hilarious to me how utterly futile my efforts to explain why I can't find this show funny are.

Who needs DVDs??

this whole exchange is why i try like hell not to post about shit i don't like

i know, right?! (not that i try that hard on that front obv ; ))

Maybe stick with it for a few more episodes? I didn't 'get' a lot of the greatness first off. (It's now my favourite US show).

That said if you're actually finding it hateful rather than just a bit bewildering/ unsure of it then perhaps there's no point.

I wonder if it makes a difference being familiar with the actors already - when I watched it I had no idea who David Cross, Will Arnett or M Cera were. I only knew Lindsay from being in Ally McBeal. So I'd not seen any of their 'schtick' before.

didn't like this show at first but then gave it another chance and the rest is history

if you hate funny names then the scott baio appearance will leave you in stitches. from attempted suicide!

Though often plotted very tightly, each scene feels like it could careen off in any direction.

perhaps... larry will make a faux pas!

- People acting totally fucking dumb all the time, almost as if they are mentally disabled

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arrested_development

However, in the Mental Health Act of 1983, the term "arrested development" was considered a form of mental disorder consisting of severe mental impairment, as a lack of intelligence.[1] Other researchers have objected to the notion that mental development can be "arrested" or stopped, preferring to consider the mental status as developing in other ways, rather than the notion of mental growth as arrested. Consequently, in psychological terminology, the term "arrested development" is no longer used by them in referring to a developmental disorder in mental health.

- They put a spoiler in the title

- Abstract earnestness about the value of "family"

in a show about a dysfunctional family. makes no sense. i mean boy that is silly

the david cross/ron howard gripes i get but the former really is pretty good in this and the latter you get used to as the show progresses but obviously ymmv

So are you going to sell your box set Tracer or are you just going to have emotions at it as it sits unused on your shelf?

he needs to write a one-page, single-spaced margin-less essay about why it's not funny first </mcm joke>

tracer will keep it so he can feel superior to it

I dunno. It's not like I can regift, what am I gonna say? "I thought this was pretty lame but it seems right up your alley!"

"I thought this was pretty lame but it seems right up your alley!"

"you may enjoy this popular comedy programme"

perhaps... larry will make a faux pas!

― Dean Gaffney's December (history mayne), Tuesday, December 29, 2009 8:12 PM

haha

hang on weren't you meant to be pubbing with us rather than slagging off the funniest tv show ever Tracey boy

This might explain why he wasn't pubbing with you.

i'm slowly turning the goodfolk of freaky trigger off socialising one by one eh :D

just move to America, dude.

watched 15mins of AD once a couple years ago and really wasn't feeling it. david cross def. a factor. also generally do not like movies/shows where the action pauses and characters start talking to the camera. AD does this, right?

It doesn't do that latter thing, no.

i think tracer's reacting too much from the fanfrenzy but the criticisms are otm. after watching a few it was pretty evident that nailing that particular tone and pace and certain other unconventions were almost the whole point of it, but it was also something good enough to sit through if there was nothing else on. i could swear the style was borrowed from something else too can't remember what, maybe a movie?

30 rock is an interesting comparison, it seems similarly impressed with itself as far as having a tone and maybe acidity unique to television but they also barrel forward with a bunch of jokes which are just good enough to serve as an engine and make the other stuff less annoying

ZOMBIES

I've always thought david cross was a weak point in the show, but I derive enjoyment from snowballing of in-jokes that accumulate as the seasons go on

I recently tried to get into Always Sunny, but I just didn't feel it at all.

I've also sat through plenty of episodes of The Office (US) without cracking a smile, just wondering to myself why so many people I know love it (or loved it up until the last season or two).

I didn't like the almost forced zaniness of AD the first few times I saw it, but it eventually won me over mostly thanks to Bateman, Cera, and Tambor. It reminds me of The Simpsons more than any other show, in the way it tries to appeal to so many different types of humor. I don't care for wacky names or puns, but love stuff like the flashbacks of the stunts the dad pulls (using the one-armed guy) to teach his kids lessons they won't forget. By the way, I think referring to anyone in that show as 'mentally disabled' is kind of missing the point. Everyone in the show is fairly dumb, but I think they can all be split into two groups: Greedy, selfish, narcissistic parents, and the fucked up kid of these parents.

yeah this might work better if you think of it as live-action Simpsons

The "Hitler ranting with alternate subtitles" thread

Comics Unleashed

Autotuning anything

steve martin

the 'backin up' rmx being the exception that proves xp

fully terrible thread

just wanna post:

FAMILY GUY

in case no ones done it recently

Antoine Dodson = funny
Antoine Dodson remixes = not funny

http://29.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lhremnxlrt1qcxcjfo1_500.jpg

actually the goat's head is verging on being so unfunny it's funny territory. it's liminal atm

Dave Spikey was on Daybreak, plugging his new show.

Apparently, it's themed around song lyrics, and how tenable or otherwise, they are.

e.g.

"Roy Orbison, right, "I drove all night?".. it goes "I drove all night, crept in your room, Woke you from your sleep to make love to you, is that all right?" "LET'S HOPE SO EH???"

Any road, he's registered blind, so it's probably not a good idea!"

Hmm, now what exactly is wrong with this particular unfunny?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4tt5DE4hbYY

People who find Miranda funny. You're wrong.

ironic that this thread has led to me spending the last half hr or so laughing hysterically at limmy clips.

Watson and Oliver

NOT FUNNY

videos where characters from movies/tv shows are edited together to make the lyrics of a song

http://laughingsquid.com/mad-men-rickroll/

wow arrested development discussion upthread -- tracer if you're still listening and you still have that boxed set, I also found the show grating for some of the reasons you mention at first and later warmed up to it a lot. I think a lot of what I enjoyed about the show was not the "wackiness" per se, but the way it captures people's inability to escape their own delusions about themselves, and about the tendency to imagine we are making progress when we are actually trapped in the same dysfunctional pattern. I think this describes pretty much every character on the show, actually. Yes, they're mostly "wacky types" (excepting maybe Bateman and Cera), but their wackiness stems in large part from a failure of self-perception, and at times the show is even poignant in its insights into this, for example in the way Bateman repeatedly tries and fails to have an idealized father-son relationship with Cera.

gif tumblrs in this style:

http://nola-problems.tumblr.com/

yeah gettin p sick of those

http://www.reddit.com/r/standupshots

idk, i can get into those. ann friedman is awes.

er, to hurting. no reddit.

http://i.imgur.com/I9z1z.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/urbvq.jpg

that must be why someone broke both his elbows

seeing a lot of Halloween costumes I would post to this thread

That guy who presents Russell Howard's Good News has managed to ruin comedy for me.

what's he called?

ryan gosling won't eat his cereal

DISAGREE

hurting you are so wrong

It's a serious matter. Breakfast is the most important meal.

soluble fibre is no laughing matter obv

The trick is to close the gap as much as possible between the amount of sugar and dietary fiber when shopping for a healthy cereal.

buzzfeed: never not not funny
http://www.buzzfeed.com/jenlewis/miley-cyrus-twerks-on-famous-paintings

topical though.

Those Kroll Show ads in the NYC Subway

http://www.thomasmizer.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/Kroll-Subway-Card-1-550x130.jpg

https://twitter.com/Mumbler3/status/504204976739319808

lol dnw

classic pash thread title and opener here

http://www.bustle.com/articles/38462-tindafella-instagram-account-parodies-womens-tinder-photos-but-is-it-just-lighthearted-fun

pictures of someone giving someone else "side eye" or "shade"

Those things on The Toast where they do pisstakes on historical paintings.

https://www.facebook.com/millennialsofnyc?fref=photo

also that "bat dad" youtube guy

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q81_bY6CMJU

why was 'smack the pony' googleproofed in the opening post?

not clicking on 'do the white thing', obv

basically it's just a lot of warmed over hipster jokes. "locally sourced" as a punchline in 2015.

hits too close to home, huh.

I don't get this chewbacca mask lady video that's going around

same. don't want to ruin anyone else's fun, but

NOT FUNNY

not even that... uplifting.

John Waters movies. I think that JW himself is funny though.

Terry fucking Pratchett

yeah i never really understood what was so great about his books. A poor man's Douglas Adams gone fantasy.

inbreeding jokes

Most instances of humans trying to be funny.

is this the new "Posts you had second thought about and decided not to post to the 'Posts you had second thought about and decided not to post - put them here'" thread?

Covfefe

Lol

TBF, covfefe actually is kind of funny, it's just that 99% of the content about it is terrible and ruined it instantly.

What is wrong with people

man alive otm

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Nd693I5X1E

David Sedaris.

or any Sedaris, maybe.

Challops, or make a CD /SD thread.

Rob Corddry

The Hard Times (usually)

The Hard Times is 95% shit, 5% funniest shit ever.

that ratio sounds about right

Ihttps://www.newyorker.com/humor/daily-shouts/excerpts-from-the-all-girl-remake-of-lord-of-the-flies?mbid=social_facebook

Hahaha heehee if girls were trapped on an island instead of boys they'd all be nice to each other ahahaha what an original and well-observed premise!

Limmy

I'm surprised Andy Borowitz has never been mentioned here.

Also, IDG stuff like this at all:
https://gizmodo.com/69-porg-photoshops-that-will-haunt-your-dreams-in-the-m-1819350916

Limmy

― ultros ultros-ghali, Sunday, October 1, 2017 3:30 PM (one week ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

;______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________;

Earlier on a comedy show on R4, a comic in front of an audience said: "I used to be a rebel, but now I'm a rebel with a mortgage". And the audience fucking laughed at that.

stop it with the lads shit ffs

lol what an angry looking post

Are u 'ladsing' lads

Seems like he is. I don't like it either, but the lads thread exists for a reason. Take away that reason and we can have it removed/locked/whatever, but unfortunately it doesn't work that way. The lads thread is there to fill a specific need one can't even confide to the 'posts you had second thoughts about' thread.

Tl;dr: stop being cunts lads, and the lads thread will be history. Until then, etc.

It's more nuanced than that!

But I can't control how ppl understand it or use it tbf

It is more nuanced, but.. try and nuance-splain to the rest of 'em.

You created a monster. A much needed one.

Ya nuancer

Ah great more high horse crap

You are both lads, iinm

stop it with the lads shit ffs

That's racist, dude.

Limmy

― ultros ultros-ghali, Sunday, October 1, 2017 8:30 AM (one month ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i declare a fatwa on you

Don't be a sulky dullard brimstead there's a good chap

alright it's all good

I need to snap into a slim Jim before I post or something, I'm always posting so hangry

you rang?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X-fjmZsVcg4

I had the council lads come round and install a system and up this popped

Go with god brimstead

Am half curious as to the meaning ppl have on lads now but I'd guess it's all things to all lads probably

Alls lads that ends lads

Re: Limmy I don't even feel hostile towards the guy, and admittedly I've only seen the odd sketch here and there, maybe his stuff has a cumulative effect I'm missing out on idk. It's just that all the clips of him I've seen seem like some laboured set-up for a feeble pay-off but that makes him no worse than, oh, pretty much all sketch comedy ever made.

I was interested to hear an Irish girl at work use 'lads' the other day (in an 'oh come on', eye-rolling context) directed at two female workmates.

I have explicitly noted this on more than one ilx occasion but if I may allow myself a very limited martyr moment there's many lads around the place determined to misunderstand or project to maximum reproval and always at the expense of increased cultural comprehension

xp, I think I may have noted in the past that my other half has, on at least one occasion, referred to her mother as ‘lads’ in the same situation.

Danny Baker ahahahahaha gosh you're whimsical you smug cunt

there's more that could be c+p'ed from wiki but this

Baker is a lifelong supporter of his local football club, Millwall.

is all you need to know really.

everything on 5 live is very bad.

sometimes you want to listen to a sports game

Baker makes Colin Murray seem like a passable attempt at a radio presenter tho, that's a tremendous achievement in the field of twattery

I used to like Tim Vickery and 606, but I find them unbearable these days. I've probably changed more than either of them have.

some days i end up listening to the World Service because it's less aggravating than whatever's on 4 or 5

some very good stuff on there, apart from when it gets too Trumpcentric.

What's wrong with millwall?

xp
The major danger of falling asleep with R4 on is waking up to Chris Grayling's voice. You don't get no trigger warning ffs.

What's wrong with millwall?

I grew up following Rangers, no offence but I wouldn't expect too much off this site.

It's almost as if it was......my fault, or something.

off = of

Frankie Boyle.

I presume he's on the box. He can make me laugh sometimes, but when he's bad he absolutely fucking reeks.

He's a joyless prick with no charisma and no comedic skills - he's a comedy writer not a performer.

I used to absolutely hate him for his attention seeking lol disablism type shittiness. But his short lived election/Scot-ref shows were at least not HIGNFY, and quite funny in places. I know, a very low bar, but I think I'm slowly going back to my original position, but that he's not much cop rather than hating him.

if a millwall fan started posting to ilx i would engage in good-natured top bantz with them

About right, yes.

I'd make up a cruel football chant to piss them off, based on the Your Relegation one.

We all know you're going down to live in Doncaster (Talkin 'bout your relegation gentrification)

Well it's the right thread for it.

fuck me that Leigh Francis is hilarious

wow.doxxed

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gRqa3tyeisM

The Festival looks like a new Inbetweeners movie in all but name

Just. everybody. die.

why hasn't Jonathan Pie been mentioned in this thread? Why hasn't he been mentioned in every post in this thread?

https://i.imgur.com/8SMeQpo.jpg

!

http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/6512/558/1600/File0057.jpg

My mind is trying to process the idea of Dara O'Briain, Frankie Boyle, and David Mitchell being considered "not funny" because they've become three of my favorite comedians ever. OTOH, I cannot second the "Bat Dad" mention strongly enough and every time one of my friends on FB repost that fucker it only makes me want to beat the shit out of him and his entire horrible family.

I'm really sad to find that "Family Ties", which was one of my favorite TV shows as a little girl, has aged terribly and isn't very watchable these days. OTOH I'm delighted to see how well "The Facts of Life" has aged and that my adoration of it as a kid was correct. I also find a lot of American stand-up comedians hacky and as diametrically opposite of funny as possible, e.g. the examples am0n posted on October 31, 2012; the first one is especially "LOL flyover country amirite?" hackneyed and tired.

The fly on Mike Pence’s head

it's still there?

It's here all week

Ba-dum-tsss!

actual lol

People keep sharing videos from something called Channel 4's The B@it and it every single one of them is the worst thing in the world, like a perpetual turtles-all-the-way-down festival of unfunny bullshit

viz: https://www.comedy.co.uk/videos/group/the_bait/
just scrolling down the list of video titles brings me to a special level of despair

Can’t decide about this:

Whimsical French woman, written by a man who's never met a woman. #LazySusan pic.twitter.com/FCFXnDhGQK

— BBC Comedy (@bbccomedy) July 30, 2019

Is it something to do with getting older that i feel like i haven't seen anything truly funny coming out of UK TV comedy in ten years?

That "French woman" sketch was okay... It didn't make me laugh but the idea was funny enough. Some of the jokes and observations were well written. But something about the execution made it feel clunky and kinda cringey. It plays on a pretty tired trope for a start, while not really doing anything original with it. As such it's more of an extended meme than a sketch.

And I think that's part of the problem: Comedy writers are now competing with meme artists for the lols, and the memes are winning. Memes can make an observation in an often surreal or oblique way and get it to land instantly. Memes also have an open-source anonymity to them, meaning you know they were made by SOMEONE but you don't know who, which is part of the fun - it feels like an in-joke despite having been shared thousands of times.

By comparison, TV sketches and satirical shows feel like lumbering dinosaurs roaring "The Channel 4 Corporate Board Has Written This Funny Sketch About A Man Who Identifies As Being 7-foot Tall Isn't It Funny Because That Is A Bit Like Trans People Which Is A Topic That Is In The News A Lot These Days HaHaHa".

At the same time, UK comedy still seems to be cribbing off older shows like Big Train, the Chris Morris shows, Armando Iannucci Show, Fast Show etc, but not doing it anywhere near as well. I can see the people behind B@it thinking of themselves as the edgy progeny of The Day Today and Brass Eye. But the anarchic nuance and flair of those shows has dissipated into tired lampooning of wokeness, kink-shaming, transphobia etc, with the thinnest veneer of surrealness or gross-out humour to cover for it.

But I couldn't really see Armando's "Hallo Hugh!" sketches being successfully turned into a meme, for example. The format of those sketches only really work on TV, and because they're so well executed, they land perfectly.

resoundingly otm

i watched the Amelia Gething show on iPlayer - why because she has an often very funny TikTok channel. very visual, very surreal. and the TV show is DREADFUL. i mean just beyond bad. and there are EIGHTEEN EPISODES. it’s just wild to me.

As for satire on TV, what a lot of writers who think they're the next Chris Morris forget is that TDT and Brass Eye rarely attacked cultural figures, politicians or specific news topics of the day, save for things like "Feel my nose and put my specs there roars drunken Major".
Chris Morris lampooned the medium of the media itself. By amplifying the sensationalism, the overbearing audiovisual bombast, and the ridiculousness of the presenters and correspondents, he was making fun of the news itself, as opposed to what was in the news. That's what makes those shows rare in that they're satirical pieces which remain funny today. You don't really need to know what was happening in the news in 1994 to get the jokes.
Compare this to stuff like The Mash Report or Jonathan Pie, and there's no comparison. These are the Oasis's to Chris Morris's Beatles in that they're copying ideas wholesale ("I know, let's shout the word 'FUCKMUFFIN', people love that"), without really pausing to think WHY those ideas were good in the first place.

There must be something going on at UK TV headquarters, cos it's not as though funny, talented people don't exist.
I'd not heard of Amelia Gething before, but the fact her TV programme doesn't work as well as her TikTok either means her humour isn't meant for TV (I doubt this), or her humour has been retconned to fuck by external committee.

Also, budgets for comedy must be extremely low these days. Everything looks like an old Children's ITV show. Cheap-looking props, sets, special FX through-and-through. Instead of giving these shows an edgy Young Ones-style DIY feel, it just feels insincere. Those B@it sketches are supposed to look like real news reports in order to get people sharing them, but you can tell from just looking at them that they're sketches.

Is it something to do with getting older that i feel like i haven't seen anything truly funny coming out of UK TV comedy in ten years?

Was thinking the very same when I saw this thread bumped. I don't think I find any of the innumerable comedians who infest every square inch of UK TV these days funny or engaging.

yep. panel shows are especially repulsive to me. i'm sure a lot of these comics are talented and put a lot of time into their craft. but these shows have the affect of razing everything into a middle-ground. i don't want to listen to these personality-free chumps trying to be funny in front of each other. it's cheap celeb-driven telly. easy to make, easy to put out, easy to watch, but in no-way nourishing or particularly funny or original

resoundingly otm

Perhaps cheap to put her in this discussion since I May Destroy You is kind of a different thing, but Michaela Coel's Chewing Gum series is from the past ten years and very good.

I think a big problem tho is stand-up comedians, who are good at that, getting crammed into sitcoms or sketch shows, which are different things. Love Sarah Kendall but her show was terrible. Love James Acaster but the one episode he guested on for Josh Widdicombe's sitcom (nb I don't rate that guy as a stand up either) was horrible.

Re: panel shows, I always have to mention that these are far worse in every other European country whose tv I've been acquainted with. Like House of Games level lineups on prime time.

I think a big problem tho is stand-up comedians, who are good at that, getting crammed into sitcoms or sketch shows,

And the rest. I got so used to seeing Romesh Ranganathan's face everywhere I almost expected to find him staring back at me from the mirror in the morning.

Dr Oz going into "Wegner's" for a head of broccoli, some whole carrots, asparagus, fresh salsa and guac for his wife to make a "crudite" platter is legit pretty funny, however the click economy had completely smothered and stomped the joke before I even got to see the original.

It plays on a pretty tired trope for a start, while not really doing anything original with it.

This is the problem with so much sketch comedy. I suppose there was a germ of a funny idea in there somewhere. The clip takes that germ and rather than developing it just repeats it over and over for much too long (about 1:30 too long, in fact). It's the same dynamic that has drained much of the humor from sketch shows like SNL.

I saw a clip of Jimmy Fallon "interviewing" "Ron Burgundy" and it was some really bad "comedy"

Until I started following (redacted) on bsky I had no idea that twitter thread of the horror authors round the campfire from like 2010 has apparently just been carrying on the whole time, it honestly rivals the Elon chive epic burgundy axis for a fascinating glimpse into internet paleo-humour

It sucks so bad.

Haha also when I typed burgundy there I wasn’t thinking of the anchorman guy I meant offerman guy

Do I even want to know what this is?

iykyk the answer is no

Shitty threads featuring parodic renditions of different canonical horror authors. Not shitty as in offensive, just very thread title.

this is the M******* S******?

Midnight society yeah

right. I don't find it funny but some other people seem to.

reminds me of

https://www.ilxor.com/ILX/ThreadSelectedControllerServlet?boardid=77&threadid=82861

wtf

OIC

"HAHAHA RAP LYRICS BUT LIKE ALL STODGY AND PROPER ENGLISH AND SHIT THANKS FOR THE EMAIL FORWARD DAD"