Things that are NEVER funny.

[BeardFaceMan]

I'm standing very firm on this one. He should have the words 'NOT FUNNY' branded into his forehead just in case he ever thinks he is. In my opinion, which is the right one, of course.

Stay strong, Woody Allen is very shit and always has been.

[Kankurette]

White people doing "things white people like" riffs is sus as fuck by now surely?

I wish they'd just say 'white middle-class Americans' and be done with it.

One of my favourite players when I was a kid, so I always disliked his appearance being mocked.

As a Kevin Pressman fangirl, I agree. YES, HE'S FAT. WE GET IT. No, random Sheffield United fans, throwing a bag of crisps and a loaf of bread at him[nb]This happened, it was when he was goalkeeping coach at Millwall[/nb] is not as funny as you think it is. He's a goalkeeping coach, not a seal in a zoo.

On a similar topic, adults who put dolls, teddy bears etc into positions to make them look like they're having sex. I don't think I'm a prude but to do that with kids' toys just seems really sordid and warped.

What about when kids do it? Loads of people did that with Barbie dolls when I was in primary school, me included.

[Famous Mortimer]

All hidden camera shows, which was kind of mentioned before but deserves to be mentioned more often. Basically just "haha, isn't it funny when people are trusting!"

[Kankurette]

Would also add that Stella Street is one of the few impression shows that is actually funny.

ETA: 442oons is terminally unfunny. Not just the fact that their sole jokes about Everton are 'Everton have not won a trophy since 1995', 'Jordan Pickford has small arms' and 'David Unsworth is fat', but in general, they're just not funny at all and their songs are shit (speaking of which, nobody wants to watch Dean Smith shitting into his hands). The Champions is much better, especially the running gag about Messi's hand puppet.

[Andy147]

Nope. I've genuinely never heard of it. But you're a man of taste (in birthdays at least) so I'll try and check it out on your recommendation. Sue Townsend invented the whole concept anyway, it's the crap imitators (and they really are all crap) I can't stand.

Private Eye's been doing parody diaries since the 60s (Mrs Wilson's diary).

[gib]

Regional stereotypes being reeled off by people from the south of England. "Ahahahaha Welsh people shag sheep and have no electricity or running water ahahahahah Scottish people are all violent alcoholics who eat haggis and the men wear skirts ahahahaha people from the north of England are all poor and uncultured and thick ahahahaha. As Jockice has said, these aren't jokes, they're just insults. And it's annoying hearing them from a bunch of sexually-repressed bowler hat-wearing Morris dancers.

This isn't quite accurate, we also point out that the scotch like deep fried heroin.

[mr. logic]

I'm standing very firm on this one. He should have the words 'NOT FUNNY' branded into his forehead just in case he ever thinks he is. In my opinion, which is the right one, of course.

Yeah, but he's obviously one of the funniest people ever.

[Dusty Substance]

Yeah, but he's obviously one of the funniest people ever.

Agreed.

Woody Allen's stand up is some of the finest I've ever heard and he's written, directed and (sometimes) starred in some of the all time greatest comedy films.

Yes, of course there's the whole unavoidable unpleasantness of that time he

Spoiler alert

boxed a kangaroo

[close]

which is frankly unforgivable, but there's no other reason for anyone to dislike his work.

[kalowski]

Yeah, but he's obviously one of the funniest people ever.

Just for the scene in Sleeper where he keeps slipping on the giant banana skin.

[Pavlov`s Dog`s Dad`s Dead]

Also 'Ken Dodd's dad's dog's dead'

Oh, why's that, then?

[Phoenix Lazarus]

All hidden camera shows, which was kind of mentioned before but deserves to be mentioned more often. Basically just "haha, isn't it funny when people are trusting!"

Trigger Happy TV was good, due to the ridiculousness of what Joly did making it self-deprecating rather than mocking of others involved.

[Jockice]

What about when kids do it? Loads of people did that with Barbie dolls when I was in primary school, me included.

Yeah, but that's kids being kids. I just think adults should know better. I was actually thinking of a specific occasion when a couple I know were visiting my place. He's a bit of an arse and she has a drink problem (I have mentioned her before. No matter the company she'll be the drunkest person there). Anyway, I popped out to the car to get something, leaving them in the living room for a few minutes. I returned to find her giggling uncontrollably. Hey, guess what she'd done? She'd rearranged the ornaments and toys lying around to make them look like they were having an orgy! The ceramic tortoise was giving the plastic velociraptor a blowjob! And the fluffy dog and monkey that had been bought for me as presents were up to something too! Who'd have thought it eh? Toys having sex!

She seemed very very proud of this. I thought: "Just fuck off." I don't know if it's sentiment but I find stuff like that really irritating. And unfunny. Didn't fall out with them though. In fact I saw them last night. According to her (we were outside a pub with several others. She loves her private chats) they're on the verge of splitting up. For the 20th consecutive year.

And then there's that time on a children's TV show (Number 73 I think) when Iggy Pop grabs a teddy bear and starts humping it. This is seen in some quarters as a great subversive moment. When actually it was a middle-aged man pretending to shag a furry toy. Pathetic. And I actually quite like Iggy.

[Jockice]

Just for the scene in Sleeper where he keeps slipping on the giant banana skin.

Sleeper is the film that started all this for me. In my teens I ended up at someone I didn't know well's house. It wasn't really a party more an impromptu 'hey his parents are away, let's get some cans and go round' job. It was a pretty posh place and they had a video player (pretty rare in those days) and even some pre-recorded tapes. One of which was the aforementioned movie. It was put on, people were rolling about on the floor in hysterics and I was sat there pretending to laugh along while all the time thinking: "This isn't remotely funny. And that bloke is just creepy."

I have tried watching several of his films since and nothing I have seen has changed my mind. And yes I know that Sleeper isn't a typical Allen film and he deals in different types of humour. The only problem is I don't find any of them funny. And once I decide someone is creepy I find it very hard to separate the art from the artist. I still find can't listen to Roxy Music because I disliked Bryan Ferry so much as a child.

[Icehaven]

The ceramic tortoise was giving the plastic velociraptor a blowjob! And the fluffy dog and monkey that had been bought for me as presents were up to something too!

And you actually keep these things in your lounge?

[Jockice]

Private Eye's been doing parody diaries since the 60s (Mrs Wilson's diary).

Fair point! It's the 'secret diary' prefix I was thinking of there. They're still never funny though

[Jockice]

And you actually keep these things in your lounge?

They're just lying about. I don't do home decoration, am almost completely oblivious to my environment don't often chuck things out and they just end up where they end up. Where else should I put them. Down the toilet? In the cellar?

The dinosaur was a present from my mum. In fact she bought me a few, I do like my dinosaurs. Dunno where the tortoise came from. I had a real one when I was a kid so it's possible she bought me that too. So using them for a puerile visual gag is just...well...puerile.

[Icehaven]

They're just lying about. I don't do home decoration, am almost completely oblivious to my environment don't often chuck things out and they just end up where they end up. Where else should I put them. Down the toilet? In the cellar?

No point in blocking up a perfectly good toilet and presumably they have some sentimental value so the cellar is good, or at least in a cupboard.

[idunnosomename]

Yeah, but that's kids being kids. I just think adults should know better. I was actually thinking of a specific occasion when a couple I know were visiting my place. He's a bit of an arse and she has a drink problem (I have mentioned her before. No matter the company she'll be the drunkest person there). Anyway, I popped out to the car to get something, leaving them in the living room for a few minutes. I returned to find her giggling uncontrollably. Hey, guess what she'd done? She'd rearranged the ornaments and toys lying around to make them look like they were having an orgy! The ceramic tortoise was giving the plastic velociraptor a blowjob! And the fluffy dog and monkey that had been bought for me as presents were up to something too! Who'd have thought it eh? Toys having sex!

She seemed very very proud of this. I thought: "Just fuck off." I don't know if it's sentiment but I find stuff like that really irritating. And unfunny. Didn't fall out with them though. In fact I saw them last night. According to her (we were outside a pub with several others. She loves her private chats) they're on the verge of splitting up. For the 20th consecutive year.

And then there's that time on a children's TV show (Number 73 I think) when Iggy Pop grabs a teddy bear and starts humping it. This is seen in some quarters as a great subversive moment. When actually it was a middle-aged man pretending to shag a furry toy. Pathetic. And I actually quite like Iggy.

while i agree with all this I keep thinking of putting an old Obi-Wan round the back of a big hairy Bantha and it amuses me

[Jockice]

No point in blocking up a perfectly good toilet and presumably they have some sentimental value so the cellar is good, or at least in a cupboard.

Yeah, I don't want anyone coming round and thinking I'm not a proper adult. I get enough of that on the streets.

You've never been round my place have you? (Rhetorical question obviously). The sort of home some people have where everything is hidden away and there are only four things on display which all have to be in the same place at all times is my idea of total hell. I genuinely couldn't live anywhere like that. Each to their own and all that, but I prefer the random mess I live in. To me it's natural.

(Having said that, I am goiing to have to do some tidying up this week as I'm having someone come round to fix my internet sysyem and I can't even get to the hub myself at the moment. Grr. I'm not a big fan of visitors. A scotsman's home is his castle. In ruins.)

[pigamus]

On hidden camera stuff - hate it, can't watch it, can't bear the prospect of anybody being embarrassed or humiliated, identify too strongly with the victim - but I did once turn on Trigger Happy TV when he was going round and round a roundabout in a taxi, much to the bewilderment of the person in the back, and I must admit it made me laugh. So he gets off on a technicality, the cunt.

[BeardFaceMan]

A celebrity is dead...













unhappy to be the subject of a tired, unfunny gag.

[jfjnpxmy]

It never ceases to amaze me how many English folk think it's hilarious to talk in shit Scottish/faux Jock, saying 'och aye the noo' while mentioning kilts and bagpipes and expect me to find it amusing too

I would say there is one - and only one - exception.

The bit in Catastrophe where Chris is starting to do a scary speech, and the guy he's trying to intimidate just goes "BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH OCH AYE THE NOO BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH". Made me do a proper Idiot Guffaw, that.

[thenoise]

I wish they'd just say 'white middle-class Americans' and be done with it.

Yeah. None of the weird American cliches about white people has challenged my belief that there is no such thing as a global 'white' culture. Probably true of other ethnicities too, i couldn't say. But there's something incredibly offensive about a lot of white Americans drinking lattes or whatever and saying ooo gosh look how white we are being, as if dressing it up in guilt and self-awareness will hide your petty local small-minded prejudice.

[Video Game Fan 2000]

More often than not it starts by including "lame" things like Coldplay, never seasoning chicken and putting mayonaisse on everything and ends up listing signifiers of higher ed, desk jobs or suburbia. Ha! Ha! Ha! Lattes and owning a house! Ha Ha! Find this chucklesome and you'd have been Love Thy Neighbour's demographic in 1975 because the joke is that white is the normal, boring thing and everything else is exotic.

100% fine with non-white people making fun of rednecks and white council estate residents, jokes about white people being overly polite in service jobs, etc. Not particularly beholded to the punching up/punching down thing when it comes to that stuff.

[sutin]

On hidden camera stuff - hate it, can't watch it, can't bear the prospect of anybody being embarrassed or humiliated, identify too strongly with the victim - but I did once turn on Trigger Happy TV when he was going round and round a roundabout in a taxi, much to the bewilderment of the person in the back, and I must admit it made me laugh. So he gets off on a technicality, the cunt.

Agree with this. I once ended up being secretly filmed for a hidden camera show and the prank was so utterly shit. When the guy emerged from a car with blacked-out windows asking me to sign the paperwork I didn't have to think for a second to reply "um nah, you're alright pal". He seemed much more embarrassed than I was when being pranked.

I was also very stoned at the time, which made the decision even easier!

[Phoenix Lazarus]

Oh, why's that, then?

Just that self-congratulatory way people repeat something that's been said a million times before as if they're being really clever and funny - and as I said above, that particular one's not even a joke, it's just a tongue-twister

[Pauline Walnuts]

The outtakes of actors fluffing their lines and then swearing so it don't get used for the film.

[steve98]

On hidden camera stuff - hate it, can't watch it, can't bear the prospect of anybody being embarrassed or humiliated, identify too strongly with the victim - but I did once turn on Trigger Happy TV when he was going round and round a roundabout in a taxi, much to the bewilderment of the person in the back, and I must admit it made me laugh. So he gets off on a technicality, the cunt.

Yeah :)

PERSON IN BACK: Leicester Square.

JOLY: Leicester square? I'll give it a go.

[Poirots BigGarlickyCorpse]

More often than not it starts by including "lame" things like Coldplay, never seasoning chicken and putting mayonaisse on everything and ends up listing signifiers of higher ed, desk jobs or suburbia. Ha! Ha! Ha! Lattes and owning a house! Ha Ha! Find this chucklesome and you'd have been Love Thy Neighbour's demographic in 1975 because the joke is that white is the normal, boring thing and everything else is exotic.

100% fine with non-white people making fun of rednecks and white council estate residents, jokes about white people being overly polite in service jobs, etc. Not particularly beholded to the punching up/punching down thing when it comes to that stuff.

That stuff doesn't bother me until they start up with "gluten-free foods, hahaha". Celiac disease is real you stupid fucks.

[willbo]

That stuff doesn't bother me until they start up with "gluten-free foods, hahaha". Coeliac disease is real you stupid fucks.

Andy Weir (The Martian author)'s new novel Project Hail Mary opens with the hero thinking grumpily to himself that he couldn't get something good to eat before his space trip because everywhere was "gluten free and vegan"