 Comedy: December 13, 2006 Issue [#1424] |
  Comedy
This week: Edited by: Mavis Moog  
More Newsletters By This Editor 
1. About this Newsletter
2. A Word from our Sponsor
3. Letter from the Editor
4. Editor's Picks
5. A Word from Writing.Com
6. Ask & Answer
7. Removal instructions
This is my last Comedy Newsletter. In the Letter From The Editor I recap, very briefly, what I've learnt about writing funny stuff, with a special note about taste.
Editor's Picks brings you some wonderful humour from our own writers.
Find out what you get when you cross a hippy in Ask and Answer. |
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And the Frog Dies
This is my last Comedy Newsletter. I have been editing one a month since November 2005. It's only fair to let someone else have a go.
Writing about comedy is even more difficult than writing comedy. Victor Lewis-Smith summed it up when he said, "Analysing humour is like dissecting a frog - few people are interested, and the frog dies."
I've opened up that frog a little. I've looked at taboo-breaking, parody, satire, hyperbole, surprise, humility, punning, insult, malapropisms, and eggcorns, but in the end, I have to admit there is no golden recipe for humour. Everyone's sense of humour is different.
I am one of those strange people who likes puns. Many writers do, you know. It's because we have an interest in words. Someone once said, "Punning is the lowest form of wit," to which another replied, "Quite; that's why it's the foundation of all wit."
Some people prefer farce and absurdity while others enjoy the sophistication of slow-burning humour. The fact is, we can only appeal to some of the people some of the time. The trick is, to know yourself, and what makes you laugh, and hope there are others like you.
I asked a question a couple of months ago, about how excusable is it to steal jokes. The consensus seemed to be, it's ok amongst friends in idle chatter, but not acceptable in work produced for a paying audience. Many comic writers ignore this wisdom. A common method of joke writing is to use an established format, and adapt it for ones own purposes. Here are two jokes, one told by Bernard Manning and the other by Jimmy Carr. Can you see the similarity?
 "People accuse me of being a racist and a Jew-hater. But I'm not. I'm not anti-semitic. Something people don't realise is that my uncle died in a concentration camp.....Yes, he did...He fell from the machine-gun tower." ~ Bernard Manning
"My grandfather never got over the war. He couldn't forgive the Germans for what they did to him. They passed him over for promotion, time and time again." ~ Jimmy Carr.
Now, I'm not saying Jimmy Carr stole Manning's joke. I think his is actually the better of the two, but I wouldn't be surprised to learn he'd heard the Manning joke, would you? This adaptation of other people's material seems to be acceptable, as long as something new, in terms of slickness (or should that be sickness?), timing or setting is injected. The basis of shock and dubious taste is shared by both jokes. If that's what makes you laugh, you'll probably find them both funny. If, on the other hand, you think such a subject is too shocking, you may feel a boundary of taste has been crossed.
In the Ask and Answer section of this newsletter you'll find the suggestions you made for the punchline to a joke I gave you last month. The original joke, written by a friend of mine, is certainly a taboo-breaker. Which punchline do you find funniest? Inevitably your answer will depend on your personal taste, and that's one of the secrets of humour. It's often a matter of taste.
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As this is my last newsletter, I thought I'd finish with some famous last words. Try this little quiz. The answers are below.
Whose last words were......
 "I'm half cra-zy o-ver the love of you. It won't be a sty-lish mar-riage. I can't afford a car-riage---"?
"The rest is silence."?
"Rosebud"?
"Applaud, my friends, the comedy is finished." ?
"I should never have switched from Scotch to Martinis. "?
"This is funny."?
"Die, my dear? Why that's the last thing I'll do!"?
Answers
Hal-9000, in 2001 A Space Odessy.
Hamlet.
Kane, in Citizen Kane.
Beethoven
Humphrey Bogart
Doc Holliday
Groucho Marx (adapted from those of Lord Palmerston)
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I hope everyone has a splendid holiday, and the new year is everything you want it to be. Good luck with all your writing, expecially your humorous endeavours.
Thank you for reading.
Good bye.
Mavis Moog |
All these items won an honorable mention in "Invalid Item" .
More pest control. This time it's raccoons.
This funny story might teach us to keep quiet about our aspirations  .
These three are definitely in the taboo-breaking category.
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