The Whitest Last Paragraph U'Know (anyone know why it does this, I can't fix it)

A joke is a joke, but you should never underestimate the comedic power of the reaction.  It can be used to enhance the humor already employed. Incongruity is enhanced by other people reacting to it.  One of the classic YouTube accounts of our era (aka like middle school), The Whitest Kids U’Know base a lot of their comedy in creating these bizarre situations and then having someone else present, not a part of the craziness, but just bearing witness.  The best way to explain it is through example.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mqgiEQXGetI

That scene is a perfect example of the first usage.  Having a person reacting to an incongruity to provide an avatar for the viewers frustrations and give the incongruous situation or oblivious person someone to bounce their incoherent thoughts off of.  In this case we have a man pitching his idea for a soda commercial to a board of executives.  His idea for “the Grapist” character is of course ridiculous, and watching a full grown man in a grape costume chasing kids around isn’t what you’d expect from a commercial marketing a children’s beverage. But then having to watch the man try to justify his choice extends the scene, giving us the chance to revel in the incongruity.  Of course he is completely oblivious to the main problem. The only one of the executives really seems to be seeing what's wrong with that scenario.  He struggles to try and get the others to see what's wrong.  He’s a voice of reason that highlights everything wrong with what’s happening.  Somehow he’s the crazy one and gets called out for seeing such inappropriate things in the harmless commercial. His crisis as he eventually approves the commercial can be just as funny as the commercial itself.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tFUvmZWf4hI

This video takes a different approach to the reactions, here we have a man who also has some serious problems with the story he’s being told, but just out of social pressure, he’s trying his best not to react in the way one should.  It’s an everyday scenario, two old college friends see each other out in public and catch up a little bit. However, here, one of them is holding a gallon of PCP.  That comes as a bit of a shock to the other. He does his best not to show it though, but his panic continues to grow as the story continues. He’s just too polite and never actually addresses that concern. It’s still a lot like the last video, though. He is able to raise questions about all of the absurdities of the story leading people to where the jokes are.  In my case, it didn’t even register at the time that PCP wouldn’t be liquid until he brought it up. We just get to watch him squirm in this situation, trying to get through the interaction without freaking out, while still being sickened but curious.  Just to add insult to this, the other guy has a good job and is more successful.

Whitest Kids U’Know really seem to have a formula of their own.  They create a ridiculous scenario, usually from an everyday interaction, and then insert one sane person to deal with it all.  Their isolation frustrates them which is funny in its own right, but it's also used to highlight the insanity around them.  They’re the benchmark for crazy.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mKwj3efLxbc

This scene gives us the opposite scenario, instead having everyone just sort of accept the incongruity.  Here, we’re the sane one, left out, questioning what’s going on . First we watch the teacher torment that poor kid whose mother died, with the rest of the kids playing along. Then we watch the other kid celebrate when he finds out he doesn’t have any parents. Neither of these seem like the right reaction in the scenario.  No one reacts that way, though.  The kid just gets to go wild. When one man asks him why he’s hitting a building with a hammer and he responds because his parents are dead the man is like, “curses he’s right”. It escalates the scenarios each time with reactions seeming more and more wrong. It’s frustrating, but at the same time it’s funny because it’s so ridiculous. As soon as his parents die no rules apply to this kid, even apparently those of space and time.

I Don't Make the Comedy, I Just Know It

I believe I am in the minority here, but I didn’t enjoy either of these sketches all that much.  That could be largely because they’ve already been done.  Abbott and Costello did them first but I’m seeing them do it second. The baseball scene was copied for the Kids in the Hall sketch, “McCillicutty and Green.” It was, of course, killed by this scene. Having the joke cannibalized for the sake of that scene crushed any amount of humor in that joke.  Being a mathlete back in middle school I was exposed to the same sort of tricks as in the second video a lot. I had a teacher who always did it to stump the students, but I had her for four different classes, so it got old.

Following a formula for comedy doesn’t sound good. This class has shown us it's hard to boil it down into anything so simple.  I think there is a general framework to sketches.  Introduce a scenario, usually a weird one or one that is slightly incongruous. Build upon that idea with examples, usually three, the golden number of comedy.  To end it, wrap up with one final joke  that ties back to a joke or comment previously made in the sketch.  That’s the formula that seems to work. SNL especially can be seen following this pattern in its skits, like “Jeopardy” that typically only goes through like three questions before Alex Trebek loses control, or .  One of my favorites, “Meet Your Second Wife”, also does this. https://youtu.be/MJEAGd1bQuc  It starts with a ridiculous concept for a game show, gives three contestants with increasingly young wives (though the third one trips us up by starting with the older woman), and then wraps it up by giving everyone a new kayak, expanding on what would lead to the second contestant's wife's death.

While some don’t like this rigid, predictable structure, I think it can have benefits.  The three examples are enough to establish a pattern, with the third one either taking the pattern farther, or completely breaking from it to create incongruity.  Then the joke at the end leaves them laughing, and the reference to a previous portion of the sketch just leaves them laughing harder as another layer is added to what was already funny.  As I blogged about earlier with the “Debbie Downer” sketch. Being able to expect a joke, anticipating it and then having that realized is an effective comedic device.  Whether the audience gets exactly what they’re looking for or a slight spin on it, they’re still delighted by a character’s compulsion or a remarkable coincidence.

To summarize repeating a joke is disappointing. Even if the audience does find it funny again, it’s rarely as funny as it was the first time. However, following a similar structure doesn’t repeat the jokes, it just delivers the jokes in a familiar, easily understood way.

Why did the Maya Rudolph cross the road?

This is one of the most infamous clips in the entire movie.  I find it extremely funny.  I think I'm able to do this because the movie never actually confronts us with the poop itself, just a little throw up.  What we are treated to is the characters pain and struggle as they sweat it out in the bathroom. They try to keep it together as best they can but they all fall apart. All the while the real mess is safely concealed under lots of fabric.
One of the best parts of this scene, though, is the contrast between the two settings of this scene. There is the refined dress shop, filled with dangerously white carpet. The bathroom itself is just as refined, but the scene inside of it quickly devolves.  The movie cuts between the two of them making the humor in either even funnier. The bathroom is full of women screaming at each other as they destroy it. It's loud and chaotic. Outside, in the store, Annie is doing her best to maintain composure and Helen, who didn't eat the meat, is completely fine. We laugh as Helen torments the sweaty Annie by talking about her distress and even getting her to eat.  The two of them are basically whispering with refined piano music playing in the background.  It's quiet and sophisticated.  Going from the quiet of the store makes the turmoil of the bathroom more jarring.  Then going from that back to Annie's quiet suffering makes it more fun to watch the pain in her eye.
I don't believe trying to relate Mr. Hankey to the Bridesmaids scene would really work.  Their humor is different, they're mainly just tied together by the presence of poop.  Mr. Hankey is about this crazy character and what he represents.  South Park makes him a Santa like character. On the other hand, Bridesmaids focuses more on the behavior of the characters as they perform this normal act, taken to an extreme by the questionable Brazilian food. Poop humor is a thing, but not all humor involving poop is necessarily poop humor.

Was Feline AIDs Ever Not Funny Though?

The question posed was how long it takes for something tragic to become funny. The answer, 22.3 years.  At least that’s what they say on the show South Park.  The episode “Jared has Aides” focuses on this quandary as the people of South Park are finally able to laugh at AIDs. At least they laughed at the miscommunication in which everyone thought Jared Fogle wanted to give children AIDs, which is made so much worse with the more recent allegations, while only wanting to pay for them to have aides.  The show is focusing on the way that people, including the writers of the show, will eventually encroach on sensitive territory as people as a whole care less or have less emotion tied to these events.  

In honesty, I think it has to do with the distance someone has from an event and their ability to dehumanize the subject.  JFK and Lincoln assassination jokes are able to be funny because we don’t have much of a tie to these people or their families.  They are these figures well into the past we don’t really think of their personal lives or families. In the same vein, it takes some very dark people to make jokes about the murder of someone on the news.  This is a very person and people sympathize with them or their family.  Celebrities are different because they have become these icons.  With the 9/11 jokes, we are separated by minimal time, but for many people it is again this separate thing from their lives.  It is a historical event. There isn’t this clear face that people are sympathizing with. To extend this, I doubt someone who’s father died in 9/11 is going to find such humor very humorous. To them, it is a very real thing wrapped up in some real emotions. On the flip side, when something is small, it's often funnier when it is someone close to you. When you find security footage of a friend walking into and shattering a glass door it is much funnier than seeing that same video of a stranger. Its related to the Benign Violation Theory. When the situation is mroe removed from you, to you it seems more Benign. However, when it isn't to extreme of a violation its more rewarding to be able to put a person with the dumb mistake or small misfortune.

https://www.booster.com/giffordcatshelterfiv

Breaking character can make or break a skit.  In the case of Debbie downer, it definitely enhanced the sketch. There are other sketches with Debbie Downer where they do a slightly better job keeping it together. These are still funny and weird.  This sketch was written to exploit Debbie's compulsion to spout off such negative facts and topics. Her theme song sets the sketch up as making fun of her as an archetype. The way she sticks out at any social gathering they place her in, whether a family trip, thanksgiving, or a proposal, and always has a “fun fact” to share killing the mood and throwing off everyone else present is what defines her character. The use of the cliched sad trombone helps signal the audience that her sadness is itself the joke. It’s even better knowing that everything she says is completely true. Watching the whole cast struggle so much is funny in a separate way. Rachel Dratch especially looks like she is in actual pain trying to hold things in. We laugh at their failure knowing full well that we would be know better.

One of my favorite parts of Debbie Downer skits is the mention of feline AIDs.  We don’t get Debbie actually talking about it, only someone else complaining about her having mentioned it. Without fail she always responds “It’s the number one killer of domestic cats.”  It has become as much a part of her neurosis as every other morbid thing she says.  One expects to hear it, but they can never be quite sure when it’s coming, but when it comes out, you laugh at the familiarity. There’s almost a relief of tension. Recurring jokes across different episodes allow you to laugh at its specific usage, but also its general usage. In this case you laugh at Debbie exposing some poor girl at Disneyland to the world of feline AIDs, but just as much you laugh at Debbie’s preoccupation with feline AIDs.

The part that gets me every time, though, is the comment at the end.  After the skit has wrapped up and you’ve heard the last joke, as you’re still holding your sides recovering, she gets you one last time. In this case it’s “they never did catch that anthrax guy.” It’s that final kick while you're down. It's such an unsettling thought, but with the context, having already spent six minutes laughing at her extreme pessimism, it becomes a hilarious cherry on top.