did you laugh cause it's funny or cause it's wrong?

yeah i didn't understand nabisco's comment either and i demand a full ilx inquiry

well, considering where we both work, I think we can call this a federal investigation

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2007/04/19/us/20attorneys-600.jpg

hi guys!

My answer to this question is usually "Yes!"

hi pete!

dan, rock hardy already beat you to that joke. which brings up only more questions - did one of you make that joke thinking it was funny, but the other make it thinking "this is so wrong?"

if multiple people make a joke which is superficially identical as regards structure, intonation, etc. but they have different intent, is it still the same joke? how does (or how CAN) context inform a gag?

the context of whose mouth it's shoved in normally does

hahaha so wrong

did i laugh?

one time we were smoking outside the NSA and my barracks roommate came up and said something he thought was pretty funny and nobody laughed and he was like "oh come on that's funny" and then

Helltime: No, that's not funny, because it's true, and everybody knows it. See, this is how it works. Tom, ask me what I had for breakfast.

Tombot: Hey Dan, what'd you have for breakfast?

Helltime: Nothing. (beat) See, nobody laughs, because it's true. Now ask me again.

Tombot: Hey Dan, what'd you have for breakfast?

Helltime: PANCAKES.

*laughter*

Barracks Roommate: I'm from the swamp. I don't understand y'all's college humor!

hmm. did Helltime actually shout "pancakes"?

he said it with a bit of emphasis one would not normally expect in the answer to breakfast query

cadence + volume = lulz

hahaha, that's hilarious true

Tombot is the new Bergson.

To laugh means: to be malicious [schadenfroh sein] but with a good conscience

tombot, people laughed at that cause pancakes is a fucking hilarious word. if he'd said 'eggs' you would have got your beat back.

also, i've never had a prostate exam, so i could admittedly be very, very wrong here, but i always thought coughing was for nuts and physicals. i'm assuming nabisco thought as much too.

xpost

WHAT I MEANT:

*cough* Jonah Goldberg *cough*

-- Alfred, Lord Sotosyn, Thursday, February 7, 2008 8:00 PM (22 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

*cough* Yes *cough*

-- Daniel, Esq., Thursday, February 7, 2008 8:02 PM (20 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

are you guys getting prostate exams over there or what

-- Mr. Que, Thursday, February 7, 2008 8:03 PM

"did you laugh cause it's funny or cause it's wrong" = it's a great zinger, but surely Mr. Que is mentally mixing up prostate exams with hernia tests

what people find funny is just as mysterious as what people find sexy

ahhhhh see i thought you had to cough for prostate stuff too--my bad. i fucked up people. i'm glad we could come together for this.

carlos mencia = scat

so wait does the doctor stick his finger up your ass for both exams?

If a doctor asks you to cough during a prostate exam, he is trying to get you to pleasure his finger and you should get a new doctor

carlos mencia = MC scat cat

do we mean "wrong" in a moral sense or in, like, a logical sense?

i took a really great course called 'comedy of terror' in which we read a bunch of nabokov, dostoyevsky, strindberg, pynchon, vonnegut, and delaney, and tried to find examples of humor that weren't, ehh, chuckling into the void and ... basically failed.

after like four months of consideration, we kind of arrived on the decision that the only humor consistently appreciable without terror/schadenfreude/pain/some element of nastiness was wordplay and punning, but that was an unsustainable device for driving a comic narrative.

i dunno that i think funny/wrong are separable in a lot of cases?

wordplay and punning, but that was an unsustainable device for driving a comic narrative.

finnegans wake?

what about "it's funny because it's true"? is that wrong? is it funny?

if one possible pre-requisite for something being funny is because it's wrong, then "it's funny because it's true" is wrong and therefore funny, qed.

wordplay and punning, but that was an unsustainable device for driving a comic narrative.

http://www.zak.to/library/work/work_b140067cc4c56828d8dd5d9c772543c6_nOulipo_poster1.jpg

N/d Rag/tt

there's a lot of chuckling into the void in FW too tho.

There are lots of lulz in ridiculousness which is a kind of rongness but not the same thing as morally wrong or simply inappropriate? I'm not that into sick humour at the expense of other people's misfortune - unless they really deserve that misfortune, and yes I am the only one judging that - but I get a lot of bleak laffs out of my own ridiculousness. There is something very lol about a character who deliberately or naively breaks a social taboo tho, perhaps.

like when a dude farts in an elevator and you can hear it

even if the dude is the only person in the elevator and you are that dude

I am actually laughing just thinking about a person farting alone in an elevator

Helltime: No, that's not funny, because it's true, and everybody knows it. See, this is how it works. Tom, ask me what I had for breakfast.

Tombot: Hey Dan, what'd you have for breakfast?

Helltime: Nothing. (beat) See, nobody laughs, because it's true. Now ask me again.

Tombot: Hey Dan, what'd you have for breakfast?

Helltime: PANCAKES.

*laughter*

Barracks Roommate: I'm from the swamp. I don't understand y'all's college humor!

Proof that being posted to Korea is just like M*A*S*H (canned laughter era)

like when a dude farts in an elevator and you can hear it

-- El Tomboto, Thursday, February 7, 2008 10:23 PM (2 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

even if the dude is the only person in the elevator and you are that dude

-- El Tomboto, Thursday, February 7, 2008 10:24 PM (1 minute ago) Bookmark Link

as am I

It's all good fun until somebody gets on at the next floor and there you are with nobody to blame.

noodle vague brings sage wisdom

This is a rich thread, I think.

there's a lot of chuckling into the void in FW too tho.

JJ's last words reportedly = "Does nobody understand?", so yes perceived void absolutely!

If dude farts in elevator and nobody's there, does etc etc.

what people find funny is just as mysterious as what people find sexy

-- n/a, Thursday, February 7, 2008 4:00 PM (36 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

As the late Gene Siskel once said, "Two things are not debatable: eroticism and comedy. If you don't think it's sexy, or funny, there's no way I can change your mind."

N/d Rag/tt

I must believe.

Also, I think the real meaning "it's funny cuz it's true" is "it's funny because it's something we've all thought but rarely vocalized" -- whether that's because it would be impolite to do so (as with edgy, "politically incorrect" comics) or just too banal (Seinfeld, etc.). Laughing at the funny-cuz-it's-true joke is like a sudden burst of recognition.

Just like Pagliacci did
I try to keep my sad face hid
Smiling in the public eye
While in my lonely room I cry
The tears of a clown

To answer OQ: mainly I think wrongness (out-of-placeness) is the real funny to me. The schadenfreude usually makes me cringe rather than laugh, although some on-high idiot being cut down can obv be funny (but is this not just a morally amplified version of the wrongness?).

Also ambiguity I think I think is funny: Que's thing on prostate exams made me laugh, possibly because it got me two scenarios in head at the same time: a) NON-SEQUITUR (ie out-of-placeness again) and b) image of coughing person getting rectal exam and trying to image WHY person was coughing.

xpost: Laughing at the funny-cuz-it's-true joke is like a sudden burst of recognition.
Yes agreed, but the reason it's funny is often that one hasn't thought of exactly that aspect of the situation before isn't it?

Parenthetically, why the fuck would a person with any interest in the Oulipo mechanically substitute slashes for e's?

He's bucking for the next Perec?

"§§h l§§k at me I can make a lip§gram!!"?

We need Louis Jagger here to give us the straight answers to this question.

UNBAN L0U15 J4GG3R

I Am Louis Jagger

You laugh because it's funny, and Sometimes it's funny because it's wrong. Sorted.

I Am Louis Jagger

The ending of Spartacus comes to mind.

I am Ned Raggett

Who knew?

Tombot: Hey Dan, what'd you have for breakfast?

Helltime: Nothing. (beat) See, nobody laughs, because it's true. Now ask me again.

Tombot: Hey Dan, what'd you have for breakfast?

Helltime: PANCAKES.

I just tried this, it didn't work.

Too close to Shrove Tuesday. Pancakes too plausible.

it's a continuum

no wait it's a simple set error

On an alt.universe...

Tombot: Hey Dan, what'd you have for breakfast?

Helltime: NOTHING!!!!! (eyes widen)

I think wit is why I would laugh normally. Somebody being self deprecating or making fun of something, or being abstract or feigning stupidity.

Wrongness is different, I constantly, especially when nervous, make inappropriate comments or jokes.

But sometimes the wrongness is the only funny thing and it's sort of laughing in the same way you might laugh when you're in school and a teacher is freaking out at you.

Haha, Tombot's story completely reminded me of this:

http://angryflower.com/timelo.gif

Absurdity is funny. If something immoral or distasteful is absurd, it's still funny.

Mel Brooks' 2000 Year Old Man: "Tragedy is when I cut my finger. Comedy is when you fall into an open sewer and die."

Held off a day on posting
http://stonybrookfilmfestival.com/fest06/images/alda-1.jpg
If it bends it's funny, if it breaks, it's not

there's something weirdly recursive and self-referential about the construction of helltimes' entire schtick. he lied when he said "i had pancakes for breakfast," but he also lied when he first said "i'm going to tell you a lie (i had pancakes for breakfast)and it's going to prove my point about lies being funny." it's like he subverted expectations by delivering a non-joke where you expected a real joke to exist, maybe, and that's why everyone present laughed? and that's the unstated lie that proved his point, not the actually stated pancake lie?

i dunno, i'm just trying to answer the question as it appears on the test, sir.

man I wish the phrase "subversion of expectation" was less waffly and nasal intellectual sounding because now that you mention it that explains a lot of jokes I like. doesn't achewood do this a lot?

also where are our other comedy science threads? Tracer had a good one about some series/list gag in futurama that I can't find