Humor is in itself a funny thing.
For example, most humor is contemporary. Rarely is humor "timeless."
Humor is also determined by whom you are being funny to.
I am 60. Rarely if ever are people under the age of 30 amused at anything I say.
It also is progressive. For example, I use to think Johnny Carson was a scream. I recently watched a rerun and found that the humor was not funny, predictable, simplistic, and actually childish.
Further example. Carson read an article from the newspaper entitled 'Clues That You are going to be Fired'.
They included: "Your boss doesn't have time for you..." etc. Johnny then said that they had made up a few more (and this was the joke part) "You come to work and your desk is on fire". Now that was hilarious in the 70s but it is just stupid today.
My humor is usually based on past events or a turn of phrase like changing the lyrics of a song.
"Later on will (perspire) as we sit (too close) to the fire. That kind of thing.
I know that I am funny. I know this because I can make almost anyone laugh. My mind is quick and qwerky. I see things differently than most. I have timing which is crucial to delivering a joke. BUT....my jokes are usually puns and elicit groans rather than full belly laughs.
Example. I wrote a scene that I found amusing. It was based on a small town that everyone in it knew everyone else. The town "criminal" so to speak had a dog that followed him everywhere. One day this criminal decided to hold up the ONLY convenient store. He came in wearing a ski mask and his dog had on a ski mask as well. Now I think that is hilarious but everyone I know thinks it's awful and just groaned when they read it.
Are YOU funny? What makes you think so?
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You think I'm funny? How am I a funny guy?
https://youtu.be/r_DwZfyXAXI
Edit (addition):
Hey, Myk! You're a real funny guy!
@Tin-man "Franky was he shakin?" LOL
Only clicked the youtube link to confirm what I immediately guessed based on that quote, that it was Joe Pesci in Goodfellas. I watched that movie perhaps to young and is probably one of the most memorable scene of any movie I have watched.
Cannibal eating a clown, says to other cannibal....
" Does this taste funny??"
Good one.
My grandmother always used to say "slow and steady wins the race". She died in a house fire.
I LIIIIIKE it Cronus!
Mykcob4, an old humanist friend of mine used the phrase "a refugee in time" to explain the cultural difference between himself and younger people, who not only did not laugh at his jokes, but did not know of, or understand, the impact of political and social issues that he had lived through.
I work with a lot of younger men, who stare blankly at me when I mention past comedians, or drop seemingly inappropriate comments, that I think hilarious. I am sometimes startled and saddened that they have no idea of the very recent political history of their country and lack any curiosity about it.
Its ok, its called "getting old". Gravity is an even greater problem.
You are amusing Myk, sometimes hilarious.
TM often has me in stitches but then he is older than both of us having his genesis in 1900 and his maturity in 1939.
I've been paid to 'be funny' or amuse for some 55 years. Humor is an odd concept, its fashion and generation prone, but only in style the basic themes remain, just expressed in a different way.
In my day comedians told jokes based on incongruity or misunderstanding like Jamaica? No she went on her own accord!
Nowadays the same themes of incongruity and misunderstanding are prefaced "----" what's with that? and then a story.
I spent seven of my last 10 years writing as a dialogue editor for a couple of TV shows, mostly rewriting the '20 something' aged female parts. The art of listening has died or is dying as young script writers have to hire fossils like myself to make their characters sound like real people yet have a humorous bite in their message. And that is funny.... 65 year old man writes dialogue for 20 something females for hit shows...see what I mean about incongruous?
Anyhoo, Myk you and TM coupled with others on here have reduced me to helpless paroxysms of mirth with your acerbic wit and TMS turn of phrase and outre phrasing!
Keep it up, your Dad jokes are my 'son ' jokes LOL....
edit: Punch lines added
A nun gets up and walks out of the cell and starts walking down the long corridor that is flanked by cells on both sides. As she passes a nun, the nun says "I see you got up on the wrong side of the bed this morning." She pays no attention and walks further down the hall. Another nun sees her and says "I see you got up on the wrong side of the bed this morning." She gives the nun a quizzled look and continues on. She sees the Mother Superior at the end of the hall and the Mother is just about to speak when she interrupts her and says " I know, I know, I got up on the wrong side of the bed this morning."
The Mother says "I wasn't going to say that. I was going to ask you why you are wearing the Bishop's slippers."
Nowadays it would be written:
"Whats with fidelity nowadays? This morning I go to work and there this girl , and she's like walking all funny, So Im thinking that was a good night ya slut! (laughter) so I sez to her as we're waiting for a customer's order, don't get me started on them (pause for laughs) any way waiting for the 'barista', dont get me started on THEM sluts neither (pause for laughter) shes like walking funny, not drunk funny (mimes) just funny. So I look down then I says...hey have you seen my BAE? He was out with his mates watching footie last night. not even home yet. So she just sniffs at me like"whatever" and goes off with the order. I take mine and follow her to the table and I say wassup? Get out of bed on the wrong side? You know like I was her mother or something ( pause for laughs), she just gives the hand again and then she asks why? So I says, cos your wearing my boyfriends Vans. ( Pause for laughter) I slayed that bitch. (more laughter)
Gotcha!
A young priest was summoned by the head priest. The head priest tells him "My son, you must take over at confessional for me today. I have an important meeting with the bishop." The young priest answers "Okay father but how do I do it?" The elder priest explains "It's easy. On the inside of the box is a list of sins and right under it is what I have them do for penance." The young priest nods in understanding and enters the box waiting for the first confessional. He hears the first confessional and is confused so he looks outside the box and sees an altar boy and says "Hey kid, what does the father give for a blowjob and anal sex?"
The boy answers "Usually a Snickers and a soda."
I actually think the great comedians are all dead Carlin, Pryor, and Dangerfield, being the last. I watched Gafagin and others but I don't get a belly laugh from them merely a smirk.
The female stand-ups all reference their pussies. Okay HAHA let's move on. The black comics all imitate white guys with a particular bland accent. Okay Pryor did that once a long time ago and it was funny then but it is so passe. The Latins say they are mistaken for Arabs, the Asians all talk about the mom driving, nothing is original.
And the "christian" comedians are just fucked up not funny crazy.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UP50ISr7KXc
Christian comedians shtick is a failed attempt at irony. They think it is ironic that atheists don't believe in their myth. They tell jokes like
" I was on an airplane and it looked as if we were going to crash. Most of us began to pray except this one atheist guy. He looked at me and said..."I don't know what to do"..."
That is supposed to be funny but it is just so fucking stupid.
On another thread, this young guy says "Thanks, have a nice weekend" I think to myself "Weekend? I don't have weekends. I have weak knees but not a weak end!"
Now that is a classic Dad joke....
I always get the young kids I play basketball with when I tell them "You'd play better if you didn't have that tramp stamp on your lower back."
I'll explain why that is funny if you ask.
Like Keith Olbermann, I am a big fan of James Thurber. Most people don't get him at all but he is the funniest writer I have ever read.
This happened to me on a long-distance train journey. I went to the toilet, but in the first cubicle there was a lump of shit floating in the pan. I tried to flush it, but the damn cistern was broken, so I decided to use the next cubicle. As I came out, another man started to go in. "That's not mine," I told him. "Oh. Do yours have your name on them?" he replied.
IMHO
The funniest books:
The Sot Weed Factor, by John Barth
Joseph Andrews, by Henry Fielding
The Miller's Tale by Geoffrey Chaucer
Genesis, by God
The funniest movies:
Animal House
The Money Pit
Clockwise
Roxanne
Crocodile Dundee
The funniest TV series
Blackadder
Dad's Army
One Foot in the Grave
Monty Python
M.A.S.H.
It's not enough to be funny. You need to join with your audience. If you just try to say something witty or turn a phrase in a situation you will be reprieved as a jerk at best or what you say will not be funny at lease. The desk on fire example is funny, not because it is funny but because of the rapport Johnny cultivated with his audience. "We are just friends talking and having fun together." Any comedian will tell you, timing is everything. What works with one audience will not work with another. The magic comes in your ability to bond with others and be perceived as "one of the guys."
Is a guy who is too serious about comedy oxymoronic?
Or just regular moronic?
@Cronus
That is a seriously funny question.
The funniest person I ever saw was Mort Sahl!
i'm not a funny guy. but i got very contagious laugh..
i have a very strange and weird laugh....
its sounds like you're pooling a wet string attached in a can
that's how my laugh sounds
I did standup for a year a few years ago and I got blacklisted and banned from ever doing standup in clubs in glasgow and Edinburgh.
The audience laughed. Well some tried to attack me and some even launched glasses at me.
I don't think im funny either. People have always laughed at what I have to say because out of nerves of speaking to people especially strangers I tend to make everything i say sound exaggerated or comical.
My humour stems from a very horrible childhood which is thanks to certain things but I never heard someone laugh or see someone smile until I left my family farm at 15 so hearing people laugh is what I like to do. It's self healing and does psychological wonders for me and I believe it does it for others.
If I were to answer your question, I would say that I have not been funny since the death of my family. If you were to ask those who have and do know me, they might say, "Yes." However, I don't truly know. I have said things that were NEVER meant to be funny, but people find hilarious. Then I am left wondering, "What's so funny?"
In my honest opinion, I am nothing more than a sorry, old, sourpuss, cynical curmudgeon. However, I have been known to sometimes get an old-fashioned belly-laugh out of people, even though I never try to be funny. I had one friend tell me that is the reason I can be funny at times. And I still don't see it.
For me people like Red Skelton, Milton Berle, George Carlin, Rodney Dangerfield (amongst many others) are hilarious. However, like me, it seems only us old curmudgeons find them funny. I definitely agree with Grinseed about "getting old." And yes, gravity doesn't help any.
Loved the one about weak knees. For me it is both funny and not funny. I need to have knee replacement surgery in both knees and one hip replacement. Just ain't decided on when.
rmfr
A guy goes to the hospital for a physical. Doc tells him to get undressed and he will be right with him. Guy sits down and takes off his shoes. The Doc looks over and says, "What the heck happened to your toes" ? (guys toes we're all crooked and twisted) The guy says, Well when I was a kid I got tolio.... Doc asks, Don't you mean polio ? Guy says, No, tolio, it only affects your toes...
So the guy stands up and pulls his pants off. Doc looks over and says, "What the heck happened to your knees" ? (guys knees are crooked and tweaked) So the guy says, well as a kid I got the neasles... Doc asks, Don't you mean the measles ? Guy says, No, the neasles. It only affects your knees.
By now the Doc is thinking, this guy is tripping, as he had never heard of tolio, or the neasles.
Finally the guy pulls off his boxers...
The Doc looks over and says, Wait a minute, don't tell me.... You had small Cox ;-)
Ah come on guys... What's the matter, does that joke hit too close to home ? ;-) lol
it's too darn funny bro that they can't even post something...
that's how funny it is....
yeah.. even i.. im laughing now..
can't you see it?
peace out bro..hahah..
just trippin
I will be telling that joke Fishy!
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