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Re: different senses of humour

Messages in this topic: 16 View All
Sarah FalkMar 23, 2007
 

 
One of my English LiveJournal friends once made a beautiful post on
her observations on what British humor really is. I can't find it at
the moment, but one thing I remember her saying is that it "reduces a
situation to its lowest common denominator". You're given a situation,
an occasion, and are told, "Well, there it is." The humor is not
thrown at you; instead your mind comes to it and rejoices in the fact
that it knows that everyone else appreciating the humor has come to
the same conclusion.

--- In just-a-minute@..., Dean Bedford <dbedford@...> wrote:

> You've pretty much summed up there an example of the use of irony in
> humour. So perhaps broadening the discussion a little into what I hope
> will be a potentially more interesting area...
>
> It's often said that the difference between British and American sense
> of humour (humor for our American friends!) is that the British love
> ironic humour. And that's why a lot of British comedy doesn't translate
> to American markets. A lot of the humour in JAM is definitely ironic,
> almost all of the material around Nicholas certainly but a lot of other
> stuff as well. My favourite line when Aimi Macdonald is counting up
> "one, two, three...:" on the subject roulette, and after a wrangle over
> a challenge, Peter Jones says "can we get on, I'm very anxious to get
> into the 30s!" That is an excellent example of ironic humour.
>
> Much of the humour of Kenneth Williams is highly ironic. The shouting
> about his gold-spun hair, the way he will praise Nicholas one minute
and
> call him a "great nit" the next, etc etc.
>
> I've never been sure that irony isn't a part of American humor though.
> For example, I'm just watching this week a DVD of The Cosby Show and a
> lot of the humour there is through the characters teasing each other
> ironically.
>
> I hear people say who they think is funny - the reality is we all
have a
> different sense of humour and to say someone "simply isn't funny"
always
> seems to me to be a dangerous comment to make. The British TV comic,
> Benny Hill was hugely successful for a very long time. For those who
> haven't seen him, his humour was based around him chasing after, or
> being chased by buxom young women, and on double entendre. To me the
> humour is stale and repetitive - but millions if not billions found him
> absolutely hillarious.
>
> Perhaps any Americans on the list might like to comment on the
> differences as they see them between American and British senses of
> humour, and perhaps why they feel themselves they like this very
British
> comedy show JAM. I rather doubt the average American would find Kenneth
> Williams funny - or Paul Merton or Clement Freud for that matter. Or do
> you think they could have made it big in the US if opportunity had
> struck.
>
> And what else makes you laugh - especially American comedians/comedy
> shows...
>

 
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