Comedy FYW

I have been a fan of The Good Place since it first aired a few years back. This sitcom does an excellent job of having comical character who balance each other in the perfect way. The main character, Eleanor is wrongly placed in the good place, due to amix up in her true identity..Eleanor’s life on earth was a tad of a problematic one, and very much has a sarcastic and comical edge. Eleanor often just says things that make the audience do a double take as in the scene Abby discussed. Despite being the troubled one of the group, Eleanor is a problem solver and actually quite smart.  Eleanor’s “soulmate” in the good place is Chidi. Chidi is a man of extremely high morals and ethics; he is constantly debating upon what is the right thing to do, which contrasts Eleanor as she will do whatever it takes to keep herself out of trouble. This contrast often results in many arguments between Chidi and Eleanor,as they decide what to do next to avoid Eleanor being caught. There is also Jaso...

Growing up as it got colder, and closer to Christmas that meant it was time for everyone to start making Elf references, and begin begging to watch the classic holiday comedy. It’s a film one could find laughable at any age. The movie Elf follows the journey of Buddy the elf as he leaves his home in the North Pole to find his father in New York City. Buddy, being raised as an elf and not a human, is completely unaware of social norms and the way things works. Buddy’s absence of knowledge about American cultures, leads him to do things the audience would find crazy and hilarious. As Kaitlin said in her initial blog post, this creates an incongruous and benign violation type humor. Buddy is doing wild and problematic things that create a laughable chaos, but it all ultimately harmless. When Buddy first find his father, he goes into his father’s works and creates quite a scene, that is extremely embarrassing to his father, but comes across hilarious to the audience as the entire situati...

Beyond the world of memes, and iconic tweets, Vine is certainly one of the modern ages greatest assets to humor and social media comedy.  Like all great art, Vine was not appreciated it’s own time nearly as it is now. After the death of Vine, some of its greatest products resurfaced all over social media. Thousands tweeted their favorite vines, and Youtube was filled with Vine compilations. Vines are all only 6 seconds long, so they are extremely quick humor. A vine never has to worry about losing the viewer’s attention, because just like that the clip is over. The Vine’s success is all about its quickness. They are often sharp, which leads to their quotablity. Quotability is was driving force in the lasting success of a Vine. Due to them being so quick, vines are easily memorable and catchy, leading the audience to continue thinking about the content they've just watched. Vines wiggled their way into the culture through this process. They become ingrained in the mind of the viewer...

Although I personally have never see the film, The Big Lebowski, I have certainly heard of it and come in counter with it’s spheres of influence. The movie is certainly memorable to most who have come into contact with it. In preparation for this blog I was speaking to some friends of mine about the film, and every single one had something to say about it even if it was just “yeah that’s my dad’s favorite movie”. Now what is it that makes a somewhat silly drama like this so impactful on a culture? As Zach said, the film is extremely quotable. The “take it easy man” has become a common saying in a sense and even has been used in other works. There’s a quite memorable episode of Drake and Josh , where Drake gets a part in a movie saying the line “take it easy man”, this entire episode was likely a reference to The Big Lebowski. The film is undeniably hilarious, even in the little moments I’ve seen. The whole idea of Jeff Lebowski referring to himself as the dude is laughable in itsel...

I remember many times scrolling through Netflix and coming across Crazy Ex-Girlfriend . I considered watching the show many time but it’s musical elements have me flashbacks to my middle school theater days, and that’s too much for even me to reflect on. Despite it hitting a little too close to home for me, the musical element of the show does add to its dramatic and comic effect. Musicals are often intentionally overdramatic and somewhat spunky, but in all my years in theater I never saw someone laugh at a song from Grease .   Crazy Ex-Girlfriend recognizes the often awkwardness of the musical drama and lightens it up and creates something so strange yet it works. The random break into song not only matches the somewhat insanity of the lead character, but it’s adds a comic element to the show many modern works of television don’t take advantage of. We’ve seen the music and comedy combo work before with The Lonely Island and Bo Burnam, but never directly in a sitcom outside of Di...

One hour and twenty-seven minutes later and I still can’t answer exactly what it is vampires do in the shadows, but  whatever it is, you’re bound to laugh a time or two. The first thing I noticed when watching this film was “The Office” like format. I think being shot as a documentary and making it seem more as if these events were actually accruing added to the absurdity of them, therefore making them funny. I agree that the humor in this film is best described by the incongruity theory. Something about these almost geeky vampire frat brothers living in the age of Myspace and Eggo Waffles, while they continue to wear blouses one can not even purchase anymore, creates a sense of pure absurdity that one cannot help but find amusing. This idea of combining moments in time that would never actually intermingle has been used endlessly in comedy, and here we see it at work. Beyond outdated wardrobe, the expired thought process of these now literally brain dead men is unbelievably bel...

In the modern age of Twitter, Vine and Youtube, still The Office is certainly one of the most iconic pieces of modern comedy. With the colliding of such stand out, yet relatable personality types, The Office allows the viewer to feel both a part of yet superior to its characters. Narcissistic yet almost embarrassing characters, such as Dwight truly explicate the Superiority theory. In their idea of their own superiority, as well as our personal feeling of superiority over him.  For example in one particular episode, Dwight starts a fire in the office, in an effort to teach everyone the importance of fire safety. This act displays Dwight’s idea that he is the one to teach and lead the others, as well as the viewer seeing how ridiculous the whole idea is. One could also look at this exact scene and make the argument that it falls into the category of the incongruity theory due to the pure chaos of the fire. I personally read into the cause of the fire more so in watching this scen...