Ansc.109
net.jokes
utzoo!decvax!ucbvax!menlo70!nsc!katic
Thu Dec 17 12:33:07 1981
joke theory
THIS IS NOT A JOKE.   THIS IS A DISCUSSION ABOUT JOKES.

Now that I've gotten that out of the way....  I and others spent
a few hours the other day discussing humor and what makes something
'funny' or 'sick'.  We came to the conclusion that there were two
basis for humor, surprise and pain.

--surprise

Most light bulb jokes, elephant jokes etc are in this class.  Why?
Because the punchline is not funny at all except in so far as it is
unexpected.
	(My favorite of this genre:
	   Q: Why don't natives walk in the jungle between 4 & 6 PM?
	   A: That's when the elephants are jumping out of the trees.
	   Q: Why are pigmy's so short?
	   A: Because they walk in the jungle between 4 & 6 PM.)

--pain

For all of you sick-joke-haters: have you ever watched a Three Stooges
movie and laughed at the way they act?  That is a lot of pain humor.
Ditto the skits about a person slipping on a banana peel.  Why is that
funny?  Probable because it is easy to laugh at something that:
	--isn't happening to me
	--isn't really happening to anyone!
A sick joke is just that-a joke.  It is not an incident in real life
and can therefore be laughed at without guilt.

--sick jokes

Where the problem comes in is in two cases, where the joke is actively
directed at one group through malice or where there is a definate
connection to some real life event.  For example, there was a spate of
Atlanta killer jokes going around which I refused to tell.  First, they
were (by and large) directed by white bigots against blacks.  (For info,
I'm white.)  Second, they were to close to the reality of the murders
actually taking place in Atlanta.

--conclusion

Now for the final question behind this diatribe: why am I doing all this?
To be able to bring up the point that a 'sick' joke is often sick only in
a person's context.  It may not be nice but if it doesn't fit one of the
two objections above, so what?  If you are offended--don't read the joke
and certainly don't tell it!

jim katic	(nsc!katic)

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