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Infamous Scribbler  Posts: 676 Joined: 7 Nov 2007     | |
Gone Gonzo  Posts: 1017 Joined: 16 Jan 2008     | We are funny. The mainstream isn't. I guess that would be the answer. I hope it is anyway. |
Copy Clerk  Posts: 62 Joined: 10 Apr 2008    | Of course we're funny! And even if we're not, if we keep believing we're funny, it'll come true one day. |
Pulitzer Laureate  Posts: 701 Joined: 1 Jan 2008    |
Maybe this will cheer ya up? A little bit of lowly 4chan humour! |
Copy Clerk  Posts: 105 Joined: 14 Feb 2008  | Family guy isn't funny. It's retarded. |
Infamous Scribbler Posts: 676 Joined: 7 Nov 2007 | That pic did cheer me up, I have some that make me into a good mood'd person, but i just watch the IT crowd. Incidently, my favourite tv quote "You wouldn't steal a handbag, you wouldn't steal a car, You WOULDN'T steal a baby. You wouldn't shoot a policeman, then steal his helmet. You WOULDN'T GO TO THE TOILET IN IT, you wouldn't then send it to the policemans greiving widow, THEN STEAL IT AGAIN!!!!!"<--- The IT crowd, series 2, episode 3., and here's a link to that long quote, http://youtube.com/watch?v=MTbX1aMajow |
BANNED  Posts: 99 Joined: 9 Apr 2008 | LMAO |
Gone Gonzo  Posts: 1162 Joined: 29 Dec 2007 |
Yeah listen to the social reject! Ok joke, I agree. Sorry to go all jedi on you but "funny" is a view point. So it isn't us not been funny, it's you becoming jaded/changing your intrests. |
Gone Gonzo  Posts: 1490 Joined: 29 Dec 2007  | Yeah, humor is pretty relative. I doubt that our culture is getting humorless, it's just that to some it seems like the jokes now common have lost any edgyness or nonsensical humor, they've become cliched to a certain degree. Take Monty Python and the Holy Grail. When I first saw this, I thought to myself, "Sweet Jeebus! This is the best!" However, it's reused shamelessly and now has the humorous quality of bad puns. |
Press Junketeer  Posts: 363 Joined: 21 Nov 2007 |
You ask why we aren't funny anymore but then you list 3 current TV comedies. So you've kinda contradicted yourself there. |
Muckraker  Posts: 289 Joined: 22 Dec 2007 | My theory is that they do what they do with everything else on TV; Take something that works and uses it again and again. The thing is, humour isn't meant to be safe; it's meant to be bold. |
Gone Gonzo  Posts: 1537 Joined: 5 Dec 2007   |
No, its meant to be funny. Wich sometimes equates to bold. But boldness for the sake of boldness normally just comes across as immature. |
Muckraker Posts: 289 Joined: 22 Dec 2007 |
Meh, I suppose. But when people try to dimly imitate good humour without understanding what makes it funny, more often then not falls flat on it's face. |
Beat Writer  Posts: 181 Joined: 13 Dec 2007 |
"MY EAR'S GETTING HOT!" Moss freaking rocks. My favourite type of humour is usually really stupid/surreal. I love dark humour, and as such, a lot of British humour appeals to me. Some of my favourite comedies are The IT Crowd, The Mighty Boosh, Black Books, The Catherine Tate Show, and The Vicar of Dibley. |
Pulitzer Laureate  Posts: 870 Joined: 8 Apr 2008  | If you're simply looking for a new comedy to watch, then wait for Season 2 of Pushing Daisies to start up this fall. You have to sophisticate your sense of humor beyond Family Guy and all those kinds of shows (not ripping on FG, by the way). However, once you do, the show is hilarious, and brilliant in every other way as an added bonus. |
Gone Gonzo  Posts: 1885 Joined: 14 Sep 2007  |
Whoa, hold up. I don't recall entering an alternate dimension where Family Guy was comedy gold. The show started off as a half-decent Simpsons ripoff, with some nice non-sequitor humour. Now, it's all about the non-sequitor segments, to the extent that it alienates the plot. An example seems necessary. Stewie has taken over the world and is writing up the new laws. One of them is the prohibition of Disney animated movie sequels. "I mean, look at this," he explains, "Aladdin 4: Jafar Might Need Glasses." And that's funny. It's so true. A delightful parody of popular culture. But then, McFarlane treats us like a bunch of post-lobotomy patients, and shows us what that would have been like. We're treated to a minute-long segment of Jafar getting his eyes tested. Nothing interesting happens. No references to lamps or whatnot, it's seriously sixty seconds of Jafar getting his eyes tested. How can this be called wit? Pop-culture reference in a mundane situation! How WACKY! I think I need to kill someone... |
Beat Writer  Posts: 190 Joined: 9 Dec 2007 | all i need is the back catoulge of bill bailey and billy connoly dvds some cider a lasy and a pocket full of dreams(i would settle for just the lady;) |
Paperboy  Posts: 49 Joined: 4 Mar 2008 |
The answer is you're not watching the actual funny stuff that is made perhaps. Family Guy has lost the humour the early seasons had by repeating the same tired formula. Scrubs has it's moments, but it's a very broad and mostly nothing special show. The I.T crowd can be pretty good, but again lacks that special something. Recent and brilliant comedy of the last few years; |
Gone Gonzo  Posts: 3377 Joined: 23 Dec 2007    | it's called the death of good television. I think it died in 1973 and like all dead things cannot be revived. |
Infamous Scribbler  Posts: 678 Joined: 14 Dec 2007 | I love it when stuff like this type of thread happen. Guy 1: There needs to be more shows like (insert shows here)! Those are the only good ones! Guy 2: Those shows suck! (Gives subjective reasons why said shows are shit). Me: Guys, comedy, like any other form of entertainment, is completely subjective. You giving reasons why one show is "good" or "bad" does nothing to sway the other party to your way of thinking. Saying that a show is good with no reasons given aside from saying "it's the best!", or saying a show is bad because "it's retarded" does nothing to convince anybody anything. Humor is only funny if the viewer says it is. I for one like Family guy, and there's not a damn thing anybody here can say that will change my mind. And there is not a damn thing I can do to convince somebody to like it if they just do not find it funny. To attempt to do otherwise is pretentious and puts you on the same intellect level as the common troll. Guys 1 and 2: Shut the fuck up!1! WEs trying to have teh smart conversations! Me: "Gives a sigh and walks away". |
Beat Writer  Posts: 222 Joined: 14 Nov 2007 | Eh, for me random humor does little to be funny. 4Chan, Family Guy, youtube- not for me. I think it's a waste of time and brain cells. I like jokes to have a meaning, no matter how trivial, or a relevance to a situation. I like satire more than farce, and irony more than shock, is what I mean to say. |
Gone Gonzo  Posts: 2896 Joined: 29 Nov 2007 |
Seconded. The problem with "comedy" shows is they assume ignorance is funny. |
Beat Writer  Posts: 155 Joined: 25 Mar 2008  | Real wit and comedy that's smart and isn't revolved around the word "Fuck" is pretty rare, although I love ZP, anything by Noah Antwiler, and Photoshop Phriday - which all happen to be littered with more vulgarities than a tragic car accident. No one really cares about new intellectual properties in the internet comedy realm, most people just put mention things that have already been said before, but in a new light. I like to call it the elementary school book report method. But most comedy on the internet really does follow a Parametric formula: Comedy = X + Y + "curse words" Look, here's an application: a 1920s gangster stuck in a middle American high school. Or this: Bruce Lee's high pitched "fatality" scream dubbed over some scene from Die Hard. It's not hard, it's pretty much the formula that the writers of Family Guy have written on their folders when they're making Manatee Gags. |
Muckraker  Posts: 328 Joined: 4 Jan 2008 | The odd thing is that when I look at TV these days, I see a quality of humour that far surpasses a lot of what I grew up on. When I watch shows like House, Scrubs, and Corner Gas, and even going back to shows like Futurama, Clone High and Undergrads, I see a lot of comedies that are finally starting to exercise cleverness and giving me something witty and often unpredictable. Sure, every generation had its gems, from Cheers to Simpsons to Seinfeld, but maybe I just don't watch enough TV, but what I see is pretty good quality. The only thing I lament is the current cartoon offerings. Now that Clone High and Undergrads are gone, I don't really see anything that particularly makes me laugh. I've tried watching Aqua Teen Hunger Force, and I've watched a bit of Metalocalypse, and I just don't find them biting enough, or at least not as frequently as I hope. Family Guy amuses me the first time through, but has no re-watch value for me. But as far as some of the new series are concerned, I find that quality has improved a bit, overall. And, as much as De-Rez might be improving, they're still far from the quality that would put them on a level that I actually enjoy watching them, let alone anticipate the next one. And ZP is great because it's short and to-the-point. I think that it will really lose a lot of its impact by trying to spread itself to full length, as much as I love Yahtzee. EDIT: I take back some of what I said in my last paragraph. I tried watching the new De-Rez films about Mortal Kombat and had to stop. They need to take a page out of Yahtzee's book, rather than Tim Buckley's. They have good ideas for premise, but they drag their bits on for so long that I completely lose interest, especially since they don't do or say anything that is actually funny, and the acting is atrocious. I can't even watch a full minute of their show without skipping ahead to see if they decided to start being funny, and quite often I find that even after I skip ahead, they're still on the same scene. They need to improve at a MUCH faster rate if they plan to amuse me within the next five years. |
Copy Clerk  Posts: 99 Joined: 11 Apr 2008 | if you like it crowd try black books, or... pushing daisies which i find quirky, however i am female so by default my logic is flawed (it might be too girly for a gamer). |
Pulitzer Laureate Posts: 870 Joined: 8 Apr 2008 |
NEVER! Note my last post :p |
Infamous Scribbler Posts: 676 Joined: 7 Nov 2007 |
With a few exceptions, and there was 4. 2 of those shows are no longer being filmed (or about to stop). |
Gone Gonzo  Posts: 1789 Joined: 7 Feb 2008 | They cancelled Arrested Development and they keep funding the "movie" movies, there is no humor any more, humor is dead. Washed away by idiots who like Family Guy and Larry the Cable Guy. |
Anonymous Source  Posts: 10 Joined: 28 Mar 2008 | I don't think it's that funny things are turning less funny, I think it's that clever things are turning less clever. If you find that your day-to-day run-of-the-mill mommy-mommy-please-make-it-stop comedy gigs are steadily hiking into the dark and sylvan wilderness of stupid (which they are), cut on a typical modern Saturday morning cartoon and compare it to something like Darkwing Duck or Inspector Gadget (or Branston Pickle, maybe). That rotten taste you get in your mouth--and the accompanying desire for mercy from a higher power--is the same reason why American media shows up as a bunch of your "boring old farts". (Not your farts specifically, but you get the idea.) Media just ain't as clever as it used to be. |
Infamous Scribbler Posts: 676 Joined: 7 Nov 2007 |
I don't talk like that, I respect what others like, and expressing yourself (in an none gamespot way) is what the net was made for, that and yahtzee. Plus, family guy has ran it's course on reflection, and I LOVE south park, well, used to untill the first episode of this series. |
Muckraker  Posts: 236 Joined: 14 Jan 2008 | The recent Jud Apatow flicks (with the exception of Dewey Cox), are all pretty funny. Knocked Up, Superbad, etc. make me laugh and aren't just a bunch of gags strung along to fill out the length **cough Family Guy cough ** |
Red Guard  Posts: 1546 Joined: 16 Dec 2007  | I will address the title of your post, as the rest of your post seems a little, how do you say? Incomprehensible? I am sorry I don't make you laugh, but If I was to spend all my time online trying to get fifteen year olds on the internet to laugh I'd be a pretty sad man. Or, at the very least a likely candidate for that "To Catch a Predator" show. (Which to my dismay didn't feature predators with head slicing lasers and wrist blades at all.) There's a lot of humor on these forums if you look for it. I realize that most of it isn't your typical "skateboarding dog" and "Mentos-Coke rockets" but it does exist. I for one am glad that I don't have to sift through a mess of cat pictures, Rick Rolls, and sexy ascii art, every day while trying to find the stuff that really makes me smirk. I suspect you'll really appreciate the absence of these things until you've grown up a bit and gotten more irritable. I am guessing this isn't what you were asking about, but be this a lesson to you young'un, never tell your real age on a forum. |
Gone Gonzo  Posts: 1096 Joined: 9 Dec 2007 | Because The Big Bang Theory is more popular than The IT Crowd. Anyway, I'm not really out to stir anything here, but I think The Escapist's forum has made me laugh out loud only a few times, in all honesty. I'm a much bigger fan of PC Gamer UK's community - or at least their sense of humour. Those guys work more with themes of wit and irony (very British ideas, apparently?) rather than bland 'lol!' moments. Besides; that's not necessarily a problem. You've probably all realised (and agree) that I come here from intellectual discussion on the issues facing gaming culture in this day and age; not to be amused by STALKER puns. Edit: And everything end_boss said. |
Beat Writer Posts: 168 Joined: 5 Mar 2008 | The best humour is the stuff that comes up in everyday life. You know with co-workers, classmates, friends, and family. For TV, my humour needs to be either: weird, current, or pushing the limit of decency. Weird is Scrubs. Current is The Daily Show and Colbert Repor(t). And Family Guy pushes the limit. (Herbert the pervert? Dumpster babies? Stewie getting shot in the head by Lois?) |
Seriously people, occasionally you get a web sensation like everyone (inc forum members) of the escapist, but if you look at our youtube material, new tv shows, we really have become boring old farts. (Coming from a 15 year old). TV wise, I would like to see more comidies such as bottom, family guy, the it crowd and scrubs, and were ether possible, a full length yahtzee/ de-rez full length tv show.