Unfunny Funny

Lame jokes.

Sometimes I love them. They can make me howl with laughter these days - but I find it's important to be careful with them.

Where was the first place I heard and ENJOYED bad jokes? David Brent of the original "The Office" is the first guy that comes to mind, but he certainly wasn't the first. Some of the "bad comedian" pieces on Seinfeld, with the lame guy "Banya" or whatever his name was, made me laugh (but in the correct way, where I KNEW the jokes were bad and laughed at the badness).

Some of my favorite Simpsons and Futurama jokes were the "on-purpose-boring" pieces and failed jokes…

…maybe Fozzie Bear was my earliest experience with this appreciation of the Funny Unfunny. I knew his jokes were bad, and that many of the variety show bits were failures-on-purpose.

There were some bad jokes (along with brilliant subversion) in MAD Magazine, but I don't think I fully understood what was what when I first read those.

Anyway, some of my biggest laughs in recent times have come from 'bad' comedy.

Bad jokes have to be done in the right way. I've tried doing "bad on purpose" jokes and they've gone okay sometimes, but sometimes they just come across as BAD. And some people are laughing at the surface level joke, which horrifies me. No judgment of my "audience" - they could just be laughing because they're nice. Or they appreciate the effort.

Or maybe they DO understand the badness is on purpose. But I regret the image I might be creating of myself - that I'm a lame, "dad-joke"-telling so n' so.

By the way, I believe that Dads take up "dad-jokes" because they're trying to make their LITTLE KIDS laugh! Stop slamming the dads! And when the tykes get old enough to start rolling their eyes at Dad's puns, they don't realize that their patriarch ruined his awesome sense of humor years ago for THEM. Ungrateful little–er. sorry. Tangent.

Apologies for the rambliness of this post. This is what I've been thinking about lately, anyway…

Do you feel what I'm saying? Do you find the unfunny, funny? If so, when is it awesome with deep levels, and when is it…just lame? Or is it something you just have to 'feel'?

Have a fine Thursday, and remember, my lame jokes are actually brilliant!

-Banes