A compound fracture of the funny bone

When people take it upon themselves to describe me, the three most common terms would be "gorgeous," "asshole" and "funny." Even though I don't really take compliments, I know that two of those are meant to be. In some contexts, I even take all three to be complimentary, regardless of the speaker's intention.

Since they're good things to be, and also because I'm such a nice person, I present another public service blog. Now don't get excited; I can't teach you how to be gorgeous. You've either got it or you don't. Most people don't want to learn to be assholes for some reason, so this blog will teach you a bit about funniness.

Actually, it will teach you about funniness by subtraction. That is, teaching about some things that aren't funny. Things that may once have been funny, and now aren't or things that have been bafflingly mistaken for funny. And those are important. Much as gorgeousness can't be taught, funniness is also difficult to teach. But knowing what isn't funny is at least 1/3 of the battle.

Here we go!


The '80s: once funny
Humor level: extinct
Cause of death: beaten, raped, drowned, cremated, beaten and raped

People love to reference the '80s like it's a bottomless goldmine of hilarity. There's no shortage of "hilarious" t-shirts with '80s icons on them, '80s movies etc. Not that that was necessarily wrong. The 1980s was an era of reprehensible fashion, music and pop culture. Hair was big, music was terrible and clothes were an eye-bruising abomination. The '80s were funny. WERE.

Moment of death: Whenever Kickin' It Old Skool was released. The Wedding Singer mercilessly sucked the blood of the 1980s for every comic possibility, but it didn't kill the joke because the movie was somewhat funny. Rather, it turned the joke into one of the undead; shambling around, soulless, a shadow of its once-vibrant self. Kickin' It Old Skool represents not only the cyanide-tipped stake that was rammed into the joke's heart, but also the chainsaw that cut its head off and the shoes that danced on its grave. It was a long, slow death, with brutal blows coming when shows like The Golden Girls were released on DVD (?), but the joke is finally dead. Yes, the '80s gave us all some great, ironic laughs. But let it go.


Irony: still kinda funny
Humor level: endangered

Irony is far too enduring a device to ever die. It's almost invincible. Think of it as the Superman of humor. But you can still stab Superman in the urethra with a kryptonite spike, which is exactly what our society has done in the last few years. The irony that we've done to death is embracing uncool things and touting them as cool. This is mostly done in t-shirt form, as deconstructed in this fine blog on the subject. But it's not limited to t-shirts.

The crippling blow to "uncool = cool"-style irony is hard to pinpoint. It could have been 2004, when Napoleon Dynamite, a never-ending carnival of quotable uncool-ness came out. Or maybe it's when they started selling Napoleon Dynamite-themed mints or "vote for Pedro" t-shirts. Or maybe it's when "hilarious" t-shirt stores sprung up like weeds throughout the world. I've seen them all through Ontario and Asia, so it's safe to assume they're ubiquitous.

The pivotal question in irony is, "Do I actually agree with this sentiment I'm expressing?" whether it's a literal statement on a t-shirt or elsewhere, or a metaphorical statement made through some other form of personal expression. If you can't answer yes, you're probably too ironic for your own good. So put away your D.A.R.E. shirts and leave irony alone for a while.


Irony part 2: Juxtaposing What a Wonderful World with non-wonderful things
Humor level: extinct

Anyone who's seen Good Morning Vietnam will probably recall the montage of violence that occurs while Louie Armstrong sings that famous song. Whatever the shortcomings of that movie, it's still a great and effective scene. But with the entertainment industry being as unoriginal as it is, this worthy concept has since been throttled by the wannabe-ironic. The joke died the first time someone stole the idea, but it's hard to pinpoint when that was. The most egregious offender was Bowling for Columbine, used to tacky effect by the jaw-droppingly insincere windbag Michael Moore (but he's a blog for another day). The song is currently being abused in a stupid ad for a Playstation game that shows some manner of futuristic coyote blowing up spaceships while a punk version of the song plays. Sure, the target demographic probably doesn't know you've stolen the idea, but that doesn't make you any less stupid, Sony.



Chuck Norris jokes: very briefly funny
Cause of death: crushed to death in a hydraulic humor press operated by 10,000,000 stupid fratboys and bloggers trying to squeeze every last bit of hilarity out of it.

I know at least one of my subscribers is unfamiliar with Chuck Norris jokes. If only I was so wonderfully ignorant. I suppose, for the purpose of informed discussion, I should include some here. Well, I won't. If you want that shit, you can find it elsewhere. These jokes are dead for any number of simple reasons.


Fact: a search for "Chuck Norris jokes" on Yahoo yields 2.4 million hits.
Fact: Some useless twat has published a book of Chuck Norris facts.

What do those facts mean? See "reason number 1 that Chuck Norris jokes are dead" below.

Here are two more reasons:

1) They were absolutely beaten to death through millions of emails and people who can't let go of a decent novelty joke. This is known to some as Saturday Night Live syndrome.
2) Family Guy used one. That's no an indictment of the show, mind you. Actually, it is. Anyway, it takes months and months and months to produce one episode of such shows. A joke has to be around for a while to make it into an episode and Norris jokes never had that kind of longevity.
3) It's a combination of an 80's reference and irony. No joke can survive that vicious combination for long.



Scottish accents: never funny
Cause of death: redundant, since it was never funny, but Mike Myers

Scottish accents seem to be a tool of choice for mildly talented actors with or comedians with poor impersonation skills to appear funnier, so they're springing up all too often for something that's not inherently funny. It started with Mike Myers, a wildly overrated actor/comedian who loves the Scots burr. He started it off with the "If it's not Scottish, it's CRAP!" joke that erupted onto Saturday Night Live in the era when any vaguely popular joke was quickly and efficiently beaten to death (Rob Schneider as the "Steve, Steverino!" guy is another great example). He continued flogging the dead comedic horse with the worthless Fat Bastard character from the equally worthless second and third Austin Powers movies. But don't give up Mike! If it ain't funny the first dozen times, try try again! Myers inexplicably insisted on giving Shrek a Scottish accent, an affectation that simultaneously adds nothing, makes no sense and isn't funny. Triple play!

It now appears without rhyme or reason in completely random places, including ads for money mart and Kellogg's Crispy Minis, the current offender being in a series of animated gum commercials. Since Scottishness has nothing to do with the gum or the ad, it's obviously a Myers-inspired "joke." It's also a terrible accent.

Nice work, ya bampot! (That's Scottish)

Whew! Once I get going on this, it's hard to stop! But in the interest of not making this entry just torturously long, I'll leave it there. For now. But part 2 is on the way, and will dispatch such painful phenomena as Vince Vaughan and jokes about "more cowbell!"

Stay tuned, and be funny.