h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Wasn't there an American movie this year in which characters bonded over their attempts at suicide on the same roof at the same time?

On the more general topic, I have often thought that almost all humour boils down to joy at the failure of others, with a consequent evolutionary advantage to yourself. Either the comedian mocks others, demeaning them socialy, or they imitate making a mistake of some kind themselves, allowing the audience to feel that sense of victory over them. On that level, slapstick is one of the closest forms to the root: we see someone undergoing physical pain and failure.
I still find it funny, though.

I agree. For some reason, I did not think of it at the time.

I lot of humour just comes from the unexpected outcome - you expect a, but b happens, and the result is laughter.

Although comedy can be provided even when you anticipate what is going to happen, and it does.

<BB<

That's in the timing. Which is what makes a good comic truly funny.

OK... here's a question that illuminates just how difficult it is to define humor.

Are puns "funny"? Why or why not?


I greatly enjoy a good pun, I even sometimes rather than . Puns aren't at the expense of another so they don't fit the superiority theory of humor. Nor is there any of the tension/release of the relief theory. There isn't the unexpected surprise of the Incongruity theory. Maybe an argument for it fitting under the play theory, where a lack of seriousness is key, but maybe not.

Do you find puns genuinely funny?

They are though. A pun apes a mistake of language. Alternatively, it may allow the hearer to feel good about their superior knowledge of language, shared with the teller but still implied to be exclusive to some degree by the nature of the joke.

Puns are a bit like rhymes in poetry. When they link two different concepts by sound, they can be clever, funny, or thought-provoking. But when they are shoved in with a crowbar just because they sound similar, that's when it tends to become and not .

Puns are fun when a whole group of people suddenly starts throwing them into the ring. It's a great game with everyone on an equal footing and no one being laughed at.

>A pun apes a mistake of language. <

A pun apes a QUIRK of language

FTFY :P

How does a turnip shaped like a thingy fit the 'humour at the expense of others' theory?

Equally, as a career chemist I find amusement in the seminal research paper 'the chemistry of arseoles'

And puns - how are they to do with inferiority/superiority?

Sorry but that theory fits *some* humour, not all

Simple: they have both accidentally (or 'accidentally') associated themselves with socially taboo subjects, thus incurring a social penalty. You feel superior to them because you recognize their humiliation. I hasten to add, this is all on a semi-conscious, evolutionary level. Feeling superior to a character in Blackadder is nonsensical to the conscious mind, but the unconscious, instinctive mind makes no distinctions.

"On my side of the Atlantic, it is believed that jokes about death can never be very successful."

Terry Pratchett's Mort was considered for a film adaptation, but the Hollywood executives wanted to "lose the death angle".

TRiG.

How bizarre! I am often struck by how much death is involved in entertainment. Violent bloody death - mostly murder too. Just a few dramas that come to mind:-

Midsommer Murders (loads of death in that one)
Morse
New Tricks
CSI Miami
CSI Walsall (excuse my lack of expertise in this area but you get my drift).

And Mort wasn't nasty about death.

PP.