" @VinceNotVance said:And that's why you always leave a note."I wouldn't mind kissing this man between the cheeks. "Not to harp on you, specifically, but this is a major part of the problem with the show, its fanbase, and a large portion of modern comedy. Pointless references and callbacks are lazy, hackneyed crap. This thread is brimful with people just quoting unfunny lines; the use of "unfunny" being fairly objective. It's one thing to quote or re-tell a joke, but just throwing out orphan lines is rather dull. Granted, the line you've gone with resembles a joke (incidentally a joke that was worn out by the early '90s), but it's still nothing more than a poor grasp at demonstrating that you once saw a TV show.
By no stretch is the problem limited to this show. The aforementioned Family Guy consists almost entirely of this trope, and anything that a Giant Bomb crew member says gets similar treatment in the forums. Not once has this approach been funny in any respect. It always boils down to "Hey, remember that show/movie/video/podcast that almost all of us saw?... I saw it, too." With recent media, the dolts quote for years and eventually figure out that it isn't amusing when a backlash occurs. People do this left and right while failing to recognize the pattern. Everyone who quoted Wayne's World in the early '90s was an unfunny twat. Everyone who quoted Austin Powers a few years later - unfunny twat. Everyone who quoted Office Space - unfunny twat. Family Guy- unfunny twat. Want to take a guess what those who quote Arrested Development now will be considered in five years? Whether one enjoys a movie or not, repeating a line just so that people who have already heard it will wink and giggle is an obnoxious trait. If you disagree, just wait a few years.
Referential humor is somewhat difficult. The referenced material as a subtle in-joke cannot work with popular media (like a recent network program) without at least some contextual effort. I've seen instances in which even references to Jaws and Star Wars have been made slightly amusing because they were framed in a way that added a novel perspective; however, very few references even try. The same goes for the incessant, humorless juxtapositions of established media with different characters. Sorry, but having your characters act out Star Wars just isn't funny. Swapping a few premises and copying everything else (e.g., damned near every South Park episode from the last five years) is also insufficient. Self-reference is even worse: "Hey, remember this gag we did two years ago? Well, we're too fucking lazy to write new material, so we're just going to re-use it. But, we're postmodern, so our laziness is actually intelligent humor."Internet memes have set the comedic bar so low, that just about anything post-modern, self-referential, or in-group affirming is praised. Wit, intelligence, and originality need not apply. They've been replaced by mindless repetition. Can't be arsed to write an actual joke? Don't worry; you can just write "facepalm," "cool story," or "kill it with fire" on top of a random picture. Not smart enough to do something clever? Just misspell words on a cat's picture. I wouldn't say that comedy is dead, but it's harder and harder to find. The bullshit that passes for clever these days is to comedy what auto-tune is to music and paint-by-number is to art. They're all lazy fucking shortcuts that bank on an audience without the sophistication to demand better. That so many people complain about these other shortcuts (especially auto-tune) on message boards using memes without catching even a whiff of the irony doesn't bode well for our culture. "
Anyone here is an Arrested Developement Fan?
" Yeah, I love it. "
Love it, for anyone who doesn't know there's a double bill of it in the UK on FX Tuesday's from 10pm to 11pm. Series link it, it's funny as hell.
Well written and incredibly clever.
best show ever on TV.
EVER.
" @drbendo said:OK, that was just perfect. I think I just blue myself." @VinceNotVance said:And that's why you always leave a note. ""I wouldn't mind kissing this man between the cheeks. "Not to harp on you, specifically, but this is a major part of the problem with the show, its fanbase, and a large portion of modern comedy. Pointless references and callbacks are lazy, hackneyed crap. This thread is brimful with people just quoting unfunny lines; the use of "unfunny" being fairly objective. It's one thing to quote or re-tell a joke, but just throwing out orphan lines is rather dull. Granted, the line you've gone with resembles a joke (incidentally a joke that was worn out by the early '90s), but it's still nothing more than a poor grasp at demonstrating that you once saw a TV show.
By no stretch is the problem limited to this show. The aforementioned Family Guy consists almost entirely of this trope, and anything that a Giant Bomb crew member says gets similar treatment in the forums. Not once has this approach been funny in any respect. It always boils down to "Hey, remember that show/movie/video/podcast that almost all of us saw?... I saw it, too." With recent media, the dolts quote for years and eventually figure out that it isn't amusing when a backlash occurs. People do this left and right while failing to recognize the pattern. Everyone who quoted Wayne's World in the early '90s was an unfunny twat. Everyone who quoted Austin Powers a few years later - unfunny twat. Everyone who quoted Office Space - unfunny twat. Family Guy- unfunny twat. Want to take a guess what those who quote Arrested Development now will be considered in five years? Whether one enjoys a movie or not, repeating a line just so that people who have already heard it will wink and giggle is an obnoxious trait. If you disagree, just wait a few years.
Referential humor is somewhat difficult. The referenced material as a subtle in-joke cannot work with popular media (like a recent network program) without at least some contextual effort. I've seen instances in which even references to Jaws and Star Wars have been made slightly amusing because they were framed in a way that added a novel perspective; however, very few references even try. The same goes for the incessant, humorless juxtapositions of established media with different characters. Sorry, but having your characters act out Star Wars just isn't funny. Swapping a few premises and copying everything else (e.g., damned near every South Park episode from the last five years) is also insufficient. Self-reference is even worse: "Hey, remember this gag we did two years ago? Well, we're too fucking lazy to write new material, so we're just going to re-use it. But, we're postmodern, so our laziness is actually intelligent humor."Internet memes have set the comedic bar so low, that just about anything post-modern, self-referential, or in-group affirming is praised. Wit, intelligence, and originality need not apply. They've been replaced by mindless repetition. Can't be arsed to write an actual joke? Don't worry; you can just write "facepalm," "cool story," or "kill it with fire" on top of a random picture. Not smart enough to do something clever? Just misspell words on a cat's picture. I wouldn't say that comedy is dead, but it's harder and harder to find. The bullshit that passes for clever these days is to comedy what auto-tune is to music and paint-by-number is to art. They're all lazy fucking shortcuts that bank on an audience without the sophistication to demand better. That so many people complain about these other shortcuts (especially auto-tune) on message boards using memes without catching even a whiff of the irony doesn't bode well for our culture. "
Now I can't defend whether arrested development was genuinely funny or not because I have forgotten almost everything about the show, but I don't consider arrested development or family guy to be a comedy show first anyways. The theory behind how an individual finds something funny/interesting/intriguing is that when we are able to connect two seemingly distant ideas we get a rush of dopamine, thus making the experience inherently pleasing. But the problem now a days is that we live in a world that is so complex that it is almost impossible to make new and interesting connections between distant ideas."Internet memes have set the comedic bar so low, that just about anything post-modern, self-referential, or in-group affirming is praised. Wit, intelligence, and originality need not apply. They've been replaced by mindless repetition. Can't be arsed to write an actual joke? Don't worry; you can just write "facepalm," "cool story," or "kill it with fire" on top of a random picture. Not smart enough to do something clever? Just misspell words on a cat's picture. I wouldn't say that comedy is dead, but it's harder and harder to find. The bullshit that passes for clever these days is to comedy what auto-tune is to music and paint-by-number is to art. They're all lazy fucking shortcuts that bank on an audience without the sophistication to demand better. That so many people complain about these other shortcuts (especially auto-tune) on message boards using memes without catching even a whiff of the irony doesn't bode well for our culture.
Consider this. There is more information stored at my local library than the amount of knowledge that was generated by people in last 2000 years combined, and yet a person from present age is not that much smarter than an individual who was alive 1000 years ago. One way to deal with this level of complexity is to use social networks as an anchor point. The notion of power rangers wannabes wrestling a monster is not that interesting or amusing, but two or more people discussing this idea in the context of movie "Big man japan" would find the idea quite pleasing. In this instance wrestling and power rangers are two distant ideas that are being anchored by the above mentioned movie.
Similarly, shows like family guy, arrested development, internet memes, etc. are all things that connect two or more distant ideas that usually are not funny inherently, but people are attracted to them because they enable us to satiate our hunger for social experience and simultaneously make some sense of our otherwise unpredictable and complex world.
" @drbendo said:Oh you...making my day like that. Good job!" @VinceNotVance said:And that's why you always leave a note. ""I wouldn't mind kissing this man between the cheeks. "Not to harp on you, specifically, but this is a major part of the problem with the show, its fanbase, and a large portion of modern comedy. Pointless references and callbacks are lazy, hackneyed crap. This thread is brimful with people just quoting unfunny lines; the use of "unfunny" being fairly objective. It's one thing to quote or re-tell a joke, but just throwing out orphan lines is rather dull. Granted, the line you've gone with resembles a joke (incidentally a joke that was worn out by the early '90s), but it's still nothing more than a poor grasp at demonstrating that you once saw a TV show.
By no stretch is the problem limited to this show. The aforementioned Family Guy consists almost entirely of this trope, and anything that a Giant Bomb crew member says gets similar treatment in the forums. Not once has this approach been funny in any respect. It always boils down to "Hey, remember that show/movie/video/podcast that almost all of us saw?... I saw it, too." With recent media, the dolts quote for years and eventually figure out that it isn't amusing when a backlash occurs. People do this left and right while failing to recognize the pattern. Everyone who quoted Wayne's World in the early '90s was an unfunny twat. Everyone who quoted Austin Powers a few years later - unfunny twat. Everyone who quoted Office Space - unfunny twat. Family Guy- unfunny twat. Want to take a guess what those who quote Arrested Development now will be considered in five years? Whether one enjoys a movie or not, repeating a line just so that people who have already heard it will wink and giggle is an obnoxious trait. If you disagree, just wait a few years.
Referential humor is somewhat difficult. The referenced material as a subtle in-joke cannot work with popular media (like a recent network program) without at least some contextual effort. I've seen instances in which even references to Jaws and Star Wars have been made slightly amusing because they were framed in a way that added a novel perspective; however, very few references even try. The same goes for the incessant, humorless juxtapositions of established media with different characters. Sorry, but having your characters act out Star Wars just isn't funny. Swapping a few premises and copying everything else (e.g., damned near every South Park episode from the last five years) is also insufficient. Self-reference is even worse: "Hey, remember this gag we did two years ago? Well, we're too fucking lazy to write new material, so we're just going to re-use it. But, we're postmodern, so our laziness is actually intelligent humor."Internet memes have set the comedic bar so low, that just about anything post-modern, self-referential, or in-group affirming is praised. Wit, intelligence, and originality need not apply. They've been replaced by mindless repetition. Can't be arsed to write an actual joke? Don't worry; you can just write "facepalm," "cool story," or "kill it with fire" on top of a random picture. Not smart enough to do something clever? Just misspell words on a cat's picture. I wouldn't say that comedy is dead, but it's harder and harder to find. The bullshit that passes for clever these days is to comedy what auto-tune is to music and paint-by-number is to art. They're all lazy fucking shortcuts that bank on an audience without the sophistication to demand better. That so many people complain about these other shortcuts (especially auto-tune) on message boards using memes without catching even a whiff of the irony doesn't bode well for our culture. "
Please Log In to post.
Log in to comment