BS: The structure of funny

Subject: BS: The structure of funny
From: Nick E
Date: 10 Nov 07 - 09:55 PM

Is there any credible, scholarly examination of funny?

Subject: RE: BS: The structure of funny
From: catspaw49
Date: 10 Nov 07 - 10:01 PM

Built into a structure it is no longer funny.

I think Steve Allen said as much when he wrote several books on the subject concluding you can't really put comedy into an exact framework. Like many of the best things in life, it's an art and not a science.

Spaw

Subject: RE: BS: The structure of funny
From: Amos
Date: 10 Nov 07 - 10:04 PM

There are some studies on humor, Nick; but they won't necessarily be found on the 'Cat although we are a pretty funny lot.

One book of interest is Norman Cousins' report on his self-induced healing acheived by making himself a lot, helped by old Charlie Chaplin films. Here's a paper on the physiology of it which mentions him.

As to what makes something be funny, it is a rejection of logical distortion between two sets of data -- the assumptions you make about how the world is, and the torque of illogic imposed on it by the story or line.

The assumptions and sense of normalcy vary with culture, which is why Russian jokes sometimes strike Westerners as flat dull, for example. But there are some elements which are almost universal. Death, sex, and stupidity come to mind.

A

Subject: RE: BS: The structure of funny
From: dick greenhaus
Date: 10 Nov 07 - 11:40 PM

Old Sigmund had a shot at it.

Subject: RE: BS: The structure of funny
From: katlaughing
Date: 10 Nov 07 - 11:49 PM

I was afreud you were gonna say that, Dick!

Subject: RE: BS: The structure of funny
From: Micca
Date: 10 Nov 07 - 11:53 PM

Do you mean Funny Ha Ha or Funny peculiar???

Subject: RE: BS: The structure of funny
From: autolycus
Date: 11 Nov 07 - 06:18 AM

The structure is a) set-up, followed by b)switch or surprise.

American humourist Richard Armour ,asked to define humour, said,

"Humour is funny stuff."

That gives you a 2-word set-up and not one but two surprises; each of the other two words.


       Ivor

Subject: RE: BS: The structure of funny
From: John on the Sunset Coast
Date: 11 Nov 07 - 04:30 PM

Seeing this thread is funny to me. I am currently reading "Who Stole the Funny?", subtitled 'A Novel of Hollywood', by Robby Benson [yes, that Robby Benson]. Timing really is everything!

Subject: RE: BS: The structure of funny
From: Peace
Date: 11 Nov 07 - 04:32 PM

'Consider this snippet from recent Stanford research: "Our analysis showed extroversion to positively correlate with humor-drive blood oxygenation level-dependent signal in discrete regions of the right orbital frontal cortex, ventrolateral prefrontal cortex, and bilateral temporal cortices. Introversion correlated with increased activation in several regions, most prominently the bilateral amygdala ..."'

From the www.

I trust that clears up any misunderstandings . . . .

Subject: RE: BS: The structure of funny
From: autolycus
Date: 11 Nov 07 - 04:49 PM

That's what I was saying, Bruce, only you put it more succinctly.


    Ivor

Subject: RE: BS: The structure of funny
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 11 Nov 07 - 06:29 PM

Well to start with, there's "funny ha-ha" and "funny peculiar".

Subject: RE: BS: The structure of funny
From: Bill D
Date: 11 Nov 07 - 08:43 PM

"funny"? ...sure, it's like 'folk', 'beautiful', 'tasty', 'important', and 'moral'.....it depends on who's doing the analysis and what the context is. Now if you'll just settle back for 3-4 hours, I'll lay out the basics and....hey! wait.....


Seriously, it DOES depend on many things. What is funny to a bunch of 9 year olds practicing smarmy jokes, may not be a bit funny to educated, urbane adults at a night club.

And there are so many kinds of 'funny'...jokes, sight gags, use of language, bad puns, stories of people in 'strange' situations..etc..

It IS the case that much humor depends on some concious entity (not necessarily human) being the brunt of the joke...(like a kitten chasing a flashlight beam). Some humor is not at all funny to the subject of the joke..(i.e., mean ethnic jokes..[unless told BY a member of the group])..see how complicated it can be?

And a good joke, told badly, can be a real flop. Sometimes one word or inflection can make 'sorta cute' into 'hilarious'.

...and some educated, urbane adults STILL titter at smarmy jokes like 9 year olds tell. I know 3-4 of them.

Subject: RE: BS: The structure of funny
From: Wilfried Schaum
Date: 12 Nov 07 - 05:35 AM

You can read it up in Freud, Sigmund: Der Witz und seine Beziehung zum Unterbewußten (The Joke and its relation to the subconscious). One of the best descriptions I know.

Subject: RE: BS: The structure of funny
From: Bill D
Date: 12 Nov 07 - 07:21 AM

or...for a learned, but narrow analysis, complete with thousands of examples, find a copy of G. Legman's "Rationale of the Dirty Joke".

There are some very good jokes there...and even more of 'the other kind'....which to me, helps clarify the differences between 'funny' and just using naughty words for shock value.

Subject: RE: BS: The structure of funny
From: Mr Red
Date: 12 Nov 07 - 08:04 AM

Sigmund said that a joke was as beneficial as a glass of sherry in promoting a feeling of comfort, conviviality and well-being - or some such condition of that ilk.

Having heard one of his jokes I would opt for the bottle.

In polite Victorian Viennese society it was customary to have "at homes" which meant people visited and were offered a glass of sherry as they came through the door. In the Frued houshold they were proffered a joke.

And just to prove the point about trying to nail-down the nature of a joke I once told an Austrian the old chestnut (paradoxes to the fore) "The German sense of humour is no laughing matter" and she, in all seriousness, insisted that was exactly the case. Which, like all good humour, said a lot more - in this case about the rivalry of neighbours rather more than what each neighbour was (in the broadest sense) like.

Subject: RE: BS: The structure of funny
From: bobad
Date: 12 Nov 07 - 08:54 AM

...beware of heartless them
(given the scalpel,they dissect a kiss;
or,sold the reason,they undream a dream)

-EE Cummings

Subject: RE: BS: The structure of funny
From: GUEST,Russ
Date: 12 Nov 07 - 12:00 PM

Many years ago I listened to a philosopher read a paper that was a conceptual analysis of "funny (ha ha)."

Totally soporific.

The response from another philosopher was hilarious.

Russ (Permanent GUEST and former philosopher)

Subject: RE: BS: The structure of funny
From: PoppaGator
Date: 12 Nov 07 - 02:59 PM

Based on my recent experience of the past couple of years, observing my son Cassidy's efforts to make a career in comedy, I would contend that structure has an awful lot to do with funniness. Certainly, timing is critical to the delivery of any utterance meant to be taken as humorous.

Cass has always been tremendously witty, always able to come up with an immediate retort or quip sure to get a laugh. When he began performing at comedy open-mikes a couple of years ago, he very quickly established himself among his fellow comic wannabes as the funniest guy in the group ~ offstage ~ easily and by far. He has slowly been learning, the hard way, that this inborn talent does not necessarily translate directly into on-strage success.

A mere six weeks after making his local open-mike debut here in the show-biz backwater of New Orleans, Cass moved to New York City to make his mark, leaving with the blessing and encouragement of his fellow would-be comedians, who seemed to have quickly agreed that he was indeed the most promising and the funniest character among their number.

For the first year or so, Cass tried to prepare brand-new material for every single appearance, hoping to emulate the great Lenny Bruce by being fresh and new and improvisational every time out. After a good while, he finally recognized the wisdom in taking the more conventional approach and preparing set "bits" as the cornerstone of his performance, and only inserting a few new and unproven elements (if any) for any given evening's work. Of course, the "old" material that constitutes the main body of any given evening's performance is always being sharpened and restructured for maximum effect. In other words, structure generally trumps spontaneity when it comes to professional comedy.

If you're in or near New York, or planning a visit, you can catch Cassidy's act any Thursday evening in the back room of the Telephone Bar, on 2nd Ave between 9th and 10th St. on the Lower East Side. He's the emcee and coproducer of the weekly Comedy Clubhouse show, four or five up-and-coming young comics each week, no cover charge.

Subject: RE: BS: The structure of funny
From: Joe_F
Date: 12 Nov 07 - 08:09 PM

Malice, wit, humor.

Subject: RE: BS: The structure of funny
From: dick greenhaus
Date: 13 Nov 07 - 07:46 PM

32








a real knee-slapper

Subject: RE: BS: The structure of funny
From: Peace
Date: 13 Nov 07 - 07:48 PM

Yeah, Dick, but you know it's all in the timing.

Subject: RE: BS: The structure of funny
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 14 Nov 07 - 06:43 PM

Actually, Dick, I think you got that back to front ...


it's 23!!!!

Subject: RE: BS: The structure of funny
From: GUEST,leeneia
Date: 14 Nov 07 - 09:51 PM

Here are some thoughts I have.

There's no one good definition of funny. I remember wathcing Bob & Ray on the Johnny Carson Show once. My family thought they were hilarious. The studio audience was completely silent - evidently didn't get it at all.

Another time, my husband and I watched a mime on educational TV. Again, the DH and I laughed our heads off. The studio audience was completely silent, probably couldn't understand his act at all.

There are times when I'm the one not laughing. I think much of the humor on TV consists of setting up a victim to look stupid. Then the stupid person is ridiculed. I quit watching shows like that a long time ago. 'I Love Lucy' is an example. I quit watching that show at the age of 10, and I don't understand why people still go on about it.

I agree that incongruity plays a part in humor, at least most of the time. Everything funny is somehow inappropriate. (This doesn't mean that everything inappropriate is therefore funny.)

Subject: RE: BS: The structure of funny
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 15 Nov 07 - 05:15 AM

I adored "I Love Lucy", but then I knew that the Real Person was only ACTING stupid - I knew that SHE WROTE the show...

and on that line, let me tell you that when I came back with my high IQ Score from the Employer p[aid tests, my Manager was trying to convince everybody else that I was so stupid, that I had rigged my answers to the tests, so that my IQ would score higher than it really was...

:-)

Subject: RE: BS: The structure of funny
From: Stephen L. Rich
Date: 16 Nov 07 - 05:00 AM

I thought that it was "42"? Was I wrong?

Stephen Lee

Subject: RE: BS: The structure of funny
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 16 Nov 07 - 07:04 AM

Stephen, you have the right answer, just the wrong Question!

:-)

Subject: RE: BS: The structure of funny
From: Riginslinger
Date: 16 Nov 07 - 11:02 AM

I deal with people from a varieties of backgrounds and experiences on a daily basis, and I found that things that might be funny to one group, is not funny at all to another.

Subject: RE: BS: The structure of funny
From: Gurney
Date: 16 Nov 07 - 10:51 PM

I've read two books which attempted to analyse humour.

The authors didn't know of what they wrote. In my subjective opinion.


From that small sample, Nick, no.

Subject: RE: BS: The structure of funny
From: Jeanie
Date: 17 Nov 07 - 07:13 AM

Here's a brilliant book on the subject: "The Craft of Comedy" by Athene Seyler. Still in print, it was first published in 1943. It takes the form of a series of letters written by the then reigning queen of high comedy, the actress Athene Seyler, to a young actor, Stephen Haggard.

This is what she says in one of the earlier letters:
"What, then, is at the root of comedy ? The essentials are: lack of balance, distortion, over-emphasis or under-emphasis, and surprise. Now, all these things are only relative to something else: the truth. So that you must first see the truth of a character before you can upset its balance. But you must *believe* in the distorted view of the truth that you have discovered. Having drawn the character a little out of proportion you must passionately believe in that measurement as the correct one. I think that your true comedian does both these things at once; that is to say, he is aware instinctively that the emphasis he is laying on one side of his portrait distorts it, and yet he offers it as a true likeness."

....and here is Ray Cooney, the master playwright of farce:

"In the beginning, there is The Plot. I'm not searching for a 'comedy' plot or a 'funny' storyline. I'm searching for a tragedy. Farce, more than comedy, is akin to tragedy. In 'Run For Your Wife' the hero is a bigamist. This situation in real life is an absolute tragedy for those involved. My play doesn't dwell on the tragedy but the audience instintively understands what is at stake.

The characters must be truthful and recognisable. This is why the audience laughs. The characters are believable; ordinary people who are out of their depth in a predicament which is beyond their control and they are unable to contain - tragedy again. "
(This quote comes from 'Life in the Farce Lane' by Brian Rix).

True comedy is timeless. I remember the first time I saw "She Stoops to Conquer", written in the 18th century, and it dawning on me as the play went on that all the hilarious situations and conflicts between characters were exactly the same as the ones being used so successfully in 20th century TV sit-com.

- jeanie

Subject: RE: BS: The structure of funny
From: Riginslinger
Date: 17 Nov 07 - 09:50 AM

I've run across a number of people who though Seinfeld was funny. Frankly, he bored me to tears and so did the show.

Subject: RE: BS: The structure of funny
From: Uncle_DaveO
Date: 17 Nov 07 - 03:24 PM

I don't think anyone here has yet mentioned, this but the difficulty (not to say impossibility) of defining humor or comedy is the fact that you can't explain a joke. Even with a shared and understood cultural background, a joke either flies or it doesn't. If you try to explain it, not only is it not funny, it's dead, dead, dead. And the "explainer" stands there with egg on his face and his foot in his mouth.

Dave Oesterreich

Subject: RE: BS: The structure of funny
From: Bill D
Date: 17 Nov 07 - 06:03 PM

"...and so the turtle said, "have you seen my new people-neck sweater?"

One of the earliest 'jokes' I remember, from a Donald Duck comic in the late 40s. That's how they told it - with no lead-in...just the punch line...and I got it and saw the point.