Hi.

In my almost three years here at Mudcat I've started two other threads on this topic (can't even remember the titles) 'cause it's obviously something near and dear to my heart. There are so many more folks here than a year ago, I thought I'd throw it out again.

Humour is SO important to me that I've probably missed out on quite a few interesting relationships simply because I couldn't detect a sense of humour in someone on first meeting. Almost everyone that I am (or have been) close to in my life laughs a lot, or constantly makes others laugh.

Some have that deadpan dark Andy Kauffman style that can knock you off your guard and leave you feeling "had".(I laugh loudest when I've been "taken") Others go for the "literate aside", and a few are terrible "punsters". Some simply have "a delivery" that makes me smile.

As I did the first time I broached this, I still wonder how we get to the point where we think something (or someone) is screamingly funny, while our neighbour finds the same thing horrid, nasty, stupid, dumb (and dumber) or in rare (but documented) cases murder-worthy.

It's how each of us looks at the world isn't it? When I was growing up I used to watch comic after comic (mostly American) go on Ed Sullivan and make "Mother-in law" jokes. I simply never "got it". Was that because my Mom's Mother lived with us and fit none of the stereotypes that Alan King or Henny Youngman focused on? My Dad thought the world of her. Same with Bill Dana in his "Jose Jimenez" character. In Montreal, as a kid I doubt I ever heard a Spanish accent (let alone, equate it with some kind of ethnic stupidity) so after about twenty seconds I simply couldn't fathom why others would find this funny.

When I first heard "The Goons" on radio, that all changed. I could barely understand the various British Isles dialects, but I quickly "got" what I thought was their focus...that this world is totally illogical and that they were as confused as I was...and THEY WERE ADULTS!

I felt the same kind of thing in a much milder form from the American humourists Shelly Berman, Bob Newhart and Mort Sahl. They simply commented on "how silly it all is", and I seemed to relate to that. Some of the Comics like Sid Caesar, Steve Allen, and Ernie Kovacs did this in visual ways, but didn't do much for me as I found them having to go "over the top" 'cause they WERE doing mainstream TV and had to keep a general audience (sort of) in the loop.

What I did find was that folks like Bob Hope started to become hilariously funny to me because (in my mind) they were so totally "unhip", and that in itself made me laugh. I think I was ripe for the kind of humour that Saturday Night Live, Kids in The Hall, National Lampoon, and The Realist (anybody remember THAT?) presented. My impression was that the folks involved in those ventures ALSO thought that Bob Hope was funny for the wrong reasons!

Shows like AB/FAB, Yes Minister, Rising Damp, Bottom, Northern Exposure, Married With Children (the first year), The Simpsons, King Of The Hill, and that Brit cartoon one about the dentist, who's title I've forgotten, seem to be "up my alley" laffs-wise. With films, it's things like Fargo, Spinal Tap, Waiting for Guffman etc. I'm really looking forward to Best In Show, simply because Christopher Guest and Fred Willard are in it.

I remember one Simpsons episode where the family is in Washington, and somehow they're at the Whitehouse during a comedy performance by Tom Lehrer wannabe Mark Russell. Bart yells out "That guy is SOOOO lame!" I actually said to the TV (causing Heather to once again question her choice in husbands) "Way to go Bart! YOU understand"!

Anybody got any humour thoughts?

Rick