Recently, I had an online discussion regarding humor, and more specifically, black humor -- not the racial kind, but the kind that cops and doctors and reporters and undertakers tend to engage in. I was taken to task by somebody when I told a story about my days in the medical field. Admittedly, it was not something normal people find funny, but a lot of folks who deal with death or serious trauma use such stuff to blow off steam.
Tragedy, Mel Brooks said, is when I cut my finger. Humor is when you fall into an open sewer and die ...
Different strokes. What one person finds hilarious, another thinks is vile. If you have the whistling-past-the-graveyard sense of humor, and if the joke stays just inside the fine line between hilarious and too much, a lot of things can be sidesplitting. Funniest stand-up routine I ever saw involved a fighter jet plane crashing into a motel and killing half a dozen people.
Second funniest involved a killer whale attacking a baby seal. (My wife was there for that one, and she is as tender-hearted over small creatures as you can find, and even she was laughing so hard I thought I'd have to take her home in a plastic bag.)
The Fawlty Towers routines, about the rat, and the one about the Germans, are politically incorrect out the wazoo, and some of the funniest material ever aired -- for my money.
Um. Anyway, the guy I was talking to was unhappy because somebody was being made the butt of a joke, and I explained that somebody was always the butt of a joke. Not talking a cute-puppy-smile kinda thing, but in a roiling, belly-laugher, somebody or some thing, or some group is always being made fun of -- there is always a goat about whom we are laughing.
For me, the best of these usually involve the teller making fun of his- or herself, or the group to which they belong, but not always.
So I invited my correspondent to dust off his funniest jokes and find one that didn't involve humor at somebody/thing/group's expense.
He couldn't.
Anybody here got one?
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
5 comments:
This guy walks into a talent agency and says "I've got a great act!"
The agent says "What sort of act?"
"It's a family act!"
...
A priest, a Rabbi & an Imam all walk into a bar with a dog & the bartender says "Hey, what is this...Some kind of joke??"
...ouch!"
Look up "Barbie Goes to the Gauntlet"
An old Polish man had enough left from his pension to buy a beautiful lamp at an antique store. Sure enough, when he polished it out popped one of the Djinn.
"O Child of Earth," thundered the afrit "you are master of the lamp, and I am bound to grant you three wishes! What do you desire?"
After a moment he said "I want the Mongol hordes to invade Poland .... and then go home."
"Are you sure, O Master of the Lamp?"
"Of course!"
*galumph*galumph*galumph*Hack*Slash*Rape*Pillage*Burn*Hack*Slash*galumph*galumph*galumph*
"And what is your second wish, O my Master?"
"I want the Mongol hordes..."
"To invade Poland?"
"And then go home!"
"Very well."
*the Golden Horde and its allies arise like locusts on horseback, sweep across the steppes into Poland as far as the German border, then turn around and head East*
"And for your third wish?"
"I want ..."
"Far be it from me to question the wisdom of the Master of the Lamp. But why, for the love of Allah, do you want the Mongols to invade your homeland thrice?"
"Because they'll have to go through Russia SIX TIMES!!!
Post a Comment