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Areas of comedy/ comedy genres you just don't find funny

Started by 23 Daves, April 27, 2005, 01:10:48 PM

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23 Daves

It seems to me that as with music, art, literature or just about any other sphere of entertainment or artform, comedy has its genres or areas which, regardless of how well they're done, some people really cannot see the funny side of.

There are obvious examples out there such as racist banter, where the audience member can't appreciate the joke for being downright offended.  What I'm thinking of more, though, are specific areas of comedy that aren't necessarily offensive, but seem utterly pointless to you.

My area of doubt is drag queens.  A number of my friends think it's absolutely hysterical to go to the nearest revue and watch some men dressed up as women sing Abba or Boney M songs badly.  They find it absolutely uproariously funny when the not-feminine-in-the-slightest performers then wander around the audience humiliating members in a manner which Marc Wootton might find objectionable.  This, in its entirety, is an act many of them pay a lot of good money to see.

I'm continually told that I'm not appreciating the history, the art, the craft and above all THE HUMOUR behind the performance.  That's just not it, though.  The bottom line is I don't find it funny.  There's a bloke dressed up as a woman.  He's insulting people, and singing songs badly, and doing over-exaggerated feminine gestures which have been copied almost exactly from other performers of his ilk, to the point where all meaning in the modern world has almost become lost.   Where's the joke, I ask you?  Also, when all the acts in an entire genre are basically interchangeable and are doing roughly the same routine that's been around for a hundred years, it smacks to me more of stagnation and a lack of imagination than having any right as a "cultural phenomenon".

The only exception to the rule is Rachel Pantechnicon, a drag artist who reads bizarre and surreal stories and poetry, the best of which periodically puts Harry Hill in the shade.  However, he/she also dresses up in unattractive seventies clothes and talks about working in a typing pool in a very deep voice, so is an absolute anomaly.

Any other examples of crap comedy genres? (And the first person to say "shit like Nathan Barley" gets hit with my designer handbag in an unfunny way).

butnut

Fart jokes. I just don't find them funny.I can't think of a single amusing fart joke in a film or TV show. I hate that scene in Blazing Sadles and I haven't made it through my Family Guy box set yet because I got so pissed off with the fart jokes about the Dad.  Yeah I know there's only a few, but they really annoyed me.

Of course an analyst would put this down to my mother's bowel cancer when I was younger. Clearly I don't find them funny because it beings up uncomfoartabe memories. (She's fine now, before you ask!)

Rats

When I was in London, we were in a pub and this woman was on stage dressed as a man, singing frank sinatra songs and making genuine, kind remarks to the front row, it wasn't that funny but I'd go again.

edit: hehe, bowel

Hmm, I don't know exactly what you mean.  I can laugh at anything, depending on the context, style and delivery.  I don't think there's any big area that turns me off.

Neville Chamberlain

Agree with you about singing drag queens and such like.

Also, I've never seen the humour in the Bonzo Dog Doodah Band and that kind of stuff, which just comes across as intensely irritating rather than in any way funny.

Stuff like Naked Gun as well as those spoof horror movies that were all the rage not so long ago - utter balls if you ask me.

Quote from: "Jim"Agree with you about singing drag queens and such like.

Also, I've never seen the humour in the Bonzo Dog Doodah Band and that kind of humou, which just comes across as intensely irritating rather than in any way funny.


Get out of my sight.

butnut

Hehe, wait till poor old Surferghost reads that. It'll probably kill him.

Neville Chamberlain

Quote from: "Banana Woofwoof"
Quote from: "Jim"Agree with you about singing drag queens and such like.

Also, I've never seen the humour in the Bonzo Dog Doodah Band and that kind of humou, which just comes across as intensely irritating rather than in any way funny.


Get out of my sight.

Um...oh dear :-(

Rats

Don't worry Jim, the truth hurts, they've been lying to themselves for so long that it'll come as quite a shock.

Jemble Fred

This thread is designed to shorten lives, either through stress or murder.

But I hate 'funny websites'. And most US sitcoms. And...

I dislike stand-ups who pretty much stick to one topic, such as a woman who goes on and on about being on the blob et cetera, or a fella going on and on with a 'blokey' meathead routine, or Ed Byrne going on and on about his (ex-)girlfriend.

I hate kids comedy movies based around goofy, slapstick grown-ups like Ernest P. Worrell (from "Ernest Scared Stupid").

Little Hoover

Now a farting drag queen, that's got to be a truly awful place for comedy.

Jemble Fred

OBVIOUSLY:

Hidden camera shows/irritating the general public shows.

Hoax phonecalls. Even when it's Morris.

And pretty much all stand-up, unless it's a full, carefully honed show by someone who has already proved they're talented. Open mikes, competitions and so on make me want to SHOUT.

Rats

a farting drag queen who's on the blob, doing a routine about being on an aeroplane. Fuck me, is that the bbc3's Stuart Murphy coming over the horizon with a wheelbarrow full of cash?


Blumf

With the exception of Danger Mouse, anything with David Jason in. Don't know why exactly, his presence just seems to suck the funny out of whatever he's in.

Regular John

Musical comedy for the most part, only Reeves & Mortimer have consistently made me laugh with songs.

rjd2

Quote from: "butnut"Fart jokes. I just don't find them funny.I can't think of a single amusing fart joke in a film or TV show. I hate that scene in Blazing Sadles and I haven't made it through my Family Guy box set yet because I got so pissed off with the fart jokes about the Dad.  Yeah I know there's only a few, but they really annoyed me.


I agree totally, it strikes me the type of people who find them funny are the American Pie generation who think that movies like Euro Trip and Van Wilder represent the peak of comedy. In other words stupid frat boys.
Does that post make me sound like a patronising cunt?

Mister Cairo

Stand-up`s who allege that something they`ve made up for comedic purposes is "Absolutely True!". Half the joke is made up of them repeating how true this is.

Comedians who pick on some poor fucker in the audience and riducle them. What are they, made of gold?

I also second the hidden camera/hoax phonecalls as being a bag of shite. Especially the "celeb wind-up`s/glue Wayne Rooney`s Beamer to the road" ones

Fuck me, I`m a grumpasarous today

Jemble Fred

One in a thousand fart jokes are funny. Well, no, 10,000. But now I can't remember any examples.

Certainly, farting in real life is never ever funny, it's just foul behaviour. And I thought exactly the same when I was a kid (Kids are supposed to find all bodily emmissions amusing).

shit as fuck

Quote from: "Jemble Fred"One in a thousand fart jokes are funny. Well, no, 10,000. But now I can't remember any examples.

Certainly, farting in real life is never ever funny, it's just foul behaviour. And I thought exactly the same when I was a kid (Kids are supposed to find all bodily emmissions amusing).

Vic and Bob have done some good ones, haven't they?

The Stotts -

"Sting?  When you threw the [message in a] bottle, did you let off a little tommy squeaker?"  (it's all in the delivery)

And the Bob's bouncer in 'The Club' -

"One, two, three, Baron's nightclub is the place to [farts at unfeasibly high pitch] be."  (again, all in the delivery, the look on his face is an abolute picture).

Edit - And, of course, all of Le Courbusier et Papin.

Regular John

Quote from: "shit as fuck"
Quote from: "Jemble Fred"One in a thousand fart jokes are funny. Well, no, 10,000. But now I can't remember any examples.

Certainly, farting in real life is never ever funny, it's just foul behaviour. And I thought exactly the same when I was a kid (Kids are supposed to find all bodily emmissions amusing).

Vic and Bob have done some good ones, haven't they?

The Stotts -

"Sting?  When you threw the [message in a] bottle, did you let off a little tommy squeaker?"  (it's all in the delivery)

And the Bob's bouncer in 'The Club' -

"One, two, three, Baron's nightclub is the place to [farts at unfeasibly high pitch] be."  (again, all in the delivery, the look on his face is an abolute picture).

Edit - And, of course, all of Le Courbusier et Papin.

"Have you farted?"

"No"

"What.... NEVER?"

Gavin

I hate anything science fiction, comedy or otherwise. Phil Jupitus doing stand-up about Star Wars is the worst thing I can possibly imagine.

Neville Chamberlain

Quote from: "Gavin"I hate anything science fiction, comedy or otherwise. Phil Jupitus doing stand-up about Star Wars is the worst thing I can possibly imagine.

Aye, I have a massive aversion to anything Hitchhikers or Red Dwarf related.

I also hate street jugglers and their oh-so-fucking-hilarious banter. Mime artists can do one too.

Clinton Morgan

Quote from: "Banana Woofwoof"
Quote from: "Jim"Agree with you about singing drag queens and such like.

Also, I've never seen the humour in the Bonzo Dog Doodah Band and that kind of humou, which just comes across as intensely irritating rather than in any way funny.


Get out of my sight.

You're only saying that because you *are* 'Legs' Larry Smith.

Jemble Fred

Quote from: "shit as fuck"Vic and Bob have done some good ones, haven't they?

Jokes ABOUT farting, such as those listed, can be very funny. But 'Have you farted?... What, never?' is not per se a fart joke. I consider a fart joke to be a joke that involves someone actually farting, or pretending to fart.

The Petomaines were nearly always fucking awful – some of the worst work R&M have done.

Aha, with the exception of the monkey in the amusment arcade. One of those 'one in ten thousand' jokes.

EDIT: No, I thought Carl's wind in The Club was a very shit addition as well. A cringe amongst the endless belly-laughs.

The Mumbler

The final On The Lavatory With Frank Hovis on Absolutely (breaking wind noises galore and nothing else) is funny to me, but a lot of that is based on a) the logical conclusion of Frank's act, b) Sparkes' facial contortions, and c) as ever with Hovis, the apologetic air that surrounds the whole act.  

On the whole, though, fart jokes are rubbish.

The only thing I really have an issue with in comedy is performers who disown their own material.  They're the most cynical ones in the business.

Jemble Fred

Yep, that Hovis one could well be the best 'fart joke' ever. Anyone who fails to laugh till it hurts as his expression changes from mirth to desperation has no sense.

But, when you consider the long history of fart jokes, I still think the 'one in ten thousand' rule holds up.

Emergency Lalla Ward Ten

Whimsy.  Stuff with no content or no comment to make except 'we've put object A and object B together'.

I did try to argue once that good surreal comedy (Vic and Bob, John Sparkes' trouser dance, etc) is not actually whimsy because what they're doing is commenting on comedy itself. But I'm not sure if I can really support that.

When a comedian says 'I just do silly stuff', though, my heart always sinks.

Female impersonators can be funny (Dame Edna, obviously), but actual drag queens are the living embodiment of unfunny.

Jon_Norton

1. Jokes about Douglas Bader. Lazy, lazy shit.
2. Charlie Chuck.
3. Reeves&Mortimer, and any younger comics who wrongly think they were comedy geniuses. This defines an entire sub-genre of unfunny modern comedy.