{"id":935,"date":"2011-08-01T21:17:46","date_gmt":"2011-08-01T21:17:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/tomsalinsky.co.uk\/blog\/?p=935"},"modified":"2011-08-01T21:19:41","modified_gmt":"2011-08-01T21:19:41","slug":"the-why-of-funny-6-sounds-a-bit-rude","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/tomsalinsky.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/2011\/08\/01\/the-why-of-funny-6-sounds-a-bit-rude\/","title":{"rendered":"The Why of Funny #6: Sounds-A-Bit-Rude"},"content":{"rendered":"

In Chris Morris\u2019s Jam<\/i>, a plumber is informed by a housewife that her baby is right upstairs. \u201cDid I say boiler on the phone? I meant baby, sorry.\u201d As the plumber\u2019s confusion deepens, the housewife explains. \u201cThe doctor says he\u2019s dead or something, but I know he can be mended, it\u2019s just tubes really, isn\u2019t it? I\u2019m sure you could have a go\u2026 for a thousand pounds an hour.\u201d Just daring to deal with the taboo topic of cot death in the context of a comedy show makes us giggle nervously, and the dark juxtaposition plus the shift in status occasioned by the plumber\u2019s greed keeps this groundbreaking sketch just<\/span> the right side of sick.<\/strong><\/p>\n

The previous theories have all dealt to a greater or lesser extent with structure. This time, we are\u00a0looking entirely at content, for which reason Sounds-A-Bit-Rude<\/strong> can be added to any of the\u00a0preceding elements at almost any time. The extent to which you use it depends largely on your\u00a0target audience and the mood of the times.\u00a0Comedy has always pushed at the boundaries of acceptability. Recently, a screening of Jerry Springer\u00a0\u2013 The Opera<\/em> created protests outside the BBC. In the 1970s Monty Python\u2019s Flying Circus<\/em> was\u00a0prevented from presenting a sketch about an undertaker arranging for the deceased to be cooked\u00a0and eaten, unless they also filmed the audience walking out in disgust. And the last word of a quiz-show\u00a0contestant\u2019s list of hobbies was cut altogether (\u201cGolf, strangling animals and masturbation\u201d).<\/p>\n

In the 1960s, radio show Round The Horne<\/em> delighted in filling its scripts with filthy double-entendres\u00a0and then denying the fact (double-entendres of course, combine Sounds-A-Bit-Rude<\/strong> with Oh-I-See<\/a><\/strong>).\u00a0Hence, Julian and Sandy (one of radio comedy\u2019s first depictions of homosexuality), posing as\u00a0barristers, could turn down a case commenting \u201cWe\u2019ve got a criminal practice that takes up most\u00a0our time,\u201d without being taken off the air.<\/p>\n

In America, however, on his radio quiz show You Bet Your Life<\/em>, Groucho Marx was faced with a\u00a0woman whose only excuse for her prodigious brood of children was to say \u201cI like my husband\u201d.\u00a0Groucho responded \u201cI like my cigar too, but I take it out once in a while.\u201d1<\/a><\/sup>\u00a0The remark was never\u00a0broadcast.<\/p>\n

In the theatre, of course, there was somewhat less restriction (notwithstanding the Lord\u00a0Chamberlain\u2019s best efforts). Max Miller would walk onstage and stride directly towards the most\u00a0attractive woman in the front row of the stalls, while peeling a banana and counting the peelings\u00a0aloud: \u201cOne skin, two skin, three skin… here, lady, want a bite?\u201d And no doubt the same testing of\u00a0the boundaries can be found back through the ages. Swift\u2019s A Modest Proposal<\/em> also springs to mind,\u00a0as do some of the easy-to-miss death jokes in Alice\u2019s Adventures in Wonderland<\/em>:<\/p>\n

\u201cWell!\u201d thought Alice to herself, \u201cafter such a fall as this, I shall think nothing of tumbling\u00a0down stairs! How brave they\u2019ll think me at home! Why, I wouldn\u2019t say anything about it,\u00a0even if I fell off the top of the house!\u201d (Which was very likely true.)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Most comedians know this, which is why material about sex, death, disease and so on is so popular.\u00a0Faced with a dog, Larry David doesn\u2019t get bitten on the hand or the ankle, he manages (through\u00a0some contrivance) to be bitten on the penis. And then treated by the gay Doctor his choreographer\u00a0is trying to set him up with.<\/p>\n

Including taboo material can make the audience start giggling even before the real comedy begins,\u00a0and thus is a very powerful tool. Also, Just-A-Flesh-Wound<\/a><\/strong> can make it possible to deal with\u00a0important issues more honestly in a comic form than in a dramatic form.\u00a0Doctor Strangelove<\/em>, a\u00a0brilliant black comedy, tells the truth about nuclear deterrence: that in all likelihood whichever side\u00a0launches a nuclear attack first will exterminate the human race. Sidney Lumet\u2019s Fail Safe<\/em>, a tense\u00a0drama released in the same year, for all its committed acting, leaves the audience with the weak reassurance that one almighty act of contrition will bring us back from the brink. Many doctors have\u00a0commented that, despite its surrealism, Scrubs<\/em> is a more accurate portrayal of hospital life than the\u00a0overwrought ER<\/em> or the soapy Grey\u2019s Anatomy<\/em>.<\/p>\n

However, just as surprise, bathos and surrealism on their own can lead to weak comedy, so including\u00a0shocking material for its own sake can drag a piece of comedy down rather than elevate it to new\u00a0heights. Constantly including taboo material has a deadening effect.\u00a0If it\u2019s the truth that your characters would swear and curse, then you should include that and hope\u00a0your intended audience understands what you are aiming for. But if you think a joke about a bunch\u00a0of flowers will automatically become funnier if it\u2019s a joke about a bunch of fucking flowers, then\u00a0you\u2019re mistaken. Pushing the boundaries is about more than choice of linguistic register. American\u00a090s comic Bill Hicks certainly set out to shock, but he also wanted to provoke thought as well as\u00a0make his audiences laugh.<\/p>\n

By the way, if anyone here is in advertising or marketing, kill yourself. Just a little thought.\u00a0I\u2019m just trying to plant seeds. Maybe one day, they\u2019ll take root. I don\u2019t know. You try. You do\u00a0what you can. Kill yourself.<\/p>\n

Seriously, though. If you are, do. No, really. There\u2019s no rationalisation for what you do, and\u00a0you are Satan\u2019s little helpers, okay? Kill yourself. Seriously. You are the ruiner of all things\u00a0good, seriously. No, this is not a joke, if you\u2019re going: \u201cThere\u2019s going to be a joke coming.\u201d<\/p>\n

There\u2019s no fucking joke coming. You are Satan\u2019s spawn, filling the world with bile and\u00a0garbage. You are fucked, and you are fucking us. Kill yourself, it\u2019s the only way to save your\u00a0fucking soul. Kill yourself.<\/p>\n

Planting seeds.<\/p>\n

I know all the marketing people are going: \u201cHe\u2019s doing a joke.\u201d There\u2019s no joke here\u00a0whatsoever. Suck a tail-pipe, fucking hang yourself, borrow a gun from a Yank friend \u2013 I\u00a0don\u2019t care how you do it. Rid the world of your evil fucking machinations.<\/p>\n

I know what all the marketing people are thinking right now too. \u201cOh, you know what Bill\u2019s\u00a0doing? He\u2019s going for that anti-marketing dollar. That\u2019s a good market, he\u2019s very smart.\u201d Oh\u00a0man. I am not doing that, you fucking evil scumbags! \u201cOh, you know what Bill\u2019s doing now?\u00a0He\u2019s going for the righteous indignation dollar. That\u2019s a big dollar. Lot of people are feeling\u00a0that indignation, we\u2019ve done research. Huge market. He\u2019s doing a good thing.\u201d God damn it,\u00a0I\u2019m not doing that, you scumbags. Quit putting a goddamn dollar sign on every fucking thing\u00a0on this planet!<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Hick\u2019s refusal<\/span> to release the tension here is key to the routine.<\/p>\n

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  1. This story has attained the status of myth, and every telling of it is slightly different. Sadly the tapes of the show in which it is most likely to have occurred have been lost, although as noted it would have been cut before transmission in any case. ↩<\/a><\/span><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    In Chris Morris\u2019s Jam, a plumber is informed by a housewife that her baby is right upstairs. \u201cDid I say boiler on the phone? I meant baby, sorry.\u201d As the plumber\u2019s confusion deepens, the housewife explains. \u201cThe doctor says he\u2019s dead or something, but I know he can be mended, it\u2019s just tubes really, isn\u2019t […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[11],"tags":[233,234,230,226,43,237,231,232,196,235,192,180,236],"class_list":["post-935","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-culture","tag-alices-adventures-in-wonderland","tag-bill-hicks","tag-chris-morris","tag-curb-your-enthusiasm","tag-doctor-strangelove","tag-fail-safe","tag-jam","tag-max-miller","tag-monty-python","tag-round-the-horne","tag-scrubs","tag-the-why-of-funny","tag-you-bet-your-life"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5JY5l-f5","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/tomsalinsky.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/935","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/tomsalinsky.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/tomsalinsky.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/tomsalinsky.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/tomsalinsky.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=935"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"http:\/\/tomsalinsky.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/935\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":953,"href":"http:\/\/tomsalinsky.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/935\/revisions\/953"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/tomsalinsky.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=935"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/tomsalinsky.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=935"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/tomsalinsky.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=935"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}