Complex Numbers

The Pun is Mightier than the Sword

Some people say I'm funny. I have to remember that looks aren't everything.

Merit Badge Mini-Contest Day! See below for details.

PROMPT July 15th

Describe your sense of humor. Is it dark, sarcastic, slapstick, silly, or something else? Do you have any favorite comedians? What always makes you laugh?

All that and more, I guess?

I don't usually categorize humor until after experiencing it, at which point it's not funny anymore, so I usually don't bother.

Having done editorials for the Comedy newsletter for something like 13 years, I've had quite a bit to say about humor. If you've read any of those, or if you've read enough of this blog, you probably already have a pretty good idea what I find amusing. Most likely, you know better than I do.

Like everything else, my views on comedy have evolved over time. I remember when I was in high school, Young Me had an unfortunate (to Old Me) tendency toward gross humor. I had a spare notebook, and in it, I collected jokes. There were a couple of pages dedicated to dead baby jokes in particular. Every time I heard one, I'd write it down. My first attempts at crafting comedy came from making up my own dead baby jokes.

Whether it's from repetition or maturity (gods forbid), I don't usually find them funny anymore. I have to say, though, I'm kinda stoked that some of the ones I invented are still circulating -- though it's not like someone else couldn't have come up with them independently.

When it comes to dark humor (as opposed to gross humor), things get a little more complicated. You walk a line with those. As my friend's kid once told me, "dark humor is like food: not everyone gets it."

I howled.

Some other things that are never funny to me:

Any pun on the name of the seventh planet. Give it a rest, already. Yes, I get it, it sounds like "your anus." Ha fucking ha.

Whenever I talk about the possibility of intelligent life elsewhere in the universe, some would-be comedian always, without fail, brings up the old "there's none here either" or some variant thereof. That was funny exactly once, when Monty Python did it.

Pranks played on me. Pranks played on anyone else are hilarious, though.

Rape jokes. Look, I have to admit, sometimes jokes based on stereotypes can be mildly amusing, though they really shouldn't be. But rape jokes just aren't funny.

Fart jokes. Hey, I can be mentally ten years old, too. But come on. We get it, people fart.

One thing, and exactly one thing, is never NOT funny to me:

Horse masks. Those things are always comedy gold.

Which, when I think about it, makes zero sense, logically -- insofar as one can apply logic to humor. Almost all humor, almost without exception, is based on someone's pain, physical or emotional. There's a line from Heinlein's Stranger in a Strange Land that I used to quote in every Comedy newsletter before I branched out:

“I had thought – I had been told – that a ‘funny’ thing is a thing of a goodness. It isn’t. Not ever is it funny to the person it happens to. Like that sheriff without his pants. The goodness is in the laughing itself. I grok it is a bravery … and a sharing … against pain and sorrow and defeat.”

Even my preferred method of crafting comedy, the all-powerful pun, follows this pattern -- because it's painful to the listener. When's the last time someone honestly laughed at a pun (absent chemical influences)? No, you don't laugh at a pun, because a pun hurts. It twists the mind. The only one who laughs at a pun is the one who created it, which is why I prefer to be the one creating them.

My father always told me that a pun is the lowest form of humor. No, Dad. You were right about a lot of things, but not that.

Except, of course, any pun involving a certain ice giant out past Saturn.

It takes a brilliant mind to create a pun, one that's not afraid to make connections that shouldn't be there. I obviously qualify. Hell, I'm so bright my father called me "Sun."

But getting back to the prompt...

I guess the only thing I haven't addressed yet is "favorite comedian." I almost hesitate to go there. 20 years ago, if someone said their favorite comedian was Bill Cosby, that person would be kicking themself right now. How do I know that anyone I say won't turn out to be as uncool as he was revealed to be?

Besides, I already answered this, kind of, in a previous post, when I talked about Patton Oswalt. I just caught his new routine on Netflix a few days ago, and it had me rolling.

Ask me next week, and I'll have another answer.

Comedy is funny that way.

WIN a MERIT BADGE!

Tell me a joke in the comments below. Keep in mind I've heard most of them already, so delivery matters. Don't get lazy and link something. It can be a riddle, a joke, a limerick (though remember we're 18+ here), or whatever as long as it's funny. The one I like best will get a Merit Badge tomorrow. As usual, the deadline is midnight WDC time.

As a bonus, I might throw one or more of them into the Comedy newsletter next week. Okay, yes, I'm stumped for ideas for the editorial, so it's up to you to inspire me.