Gilbert Gottfried: Funniest man alive

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EdbElWMnkyY

it's really hard not to turn this into a zing fest after all the shit jon was talkin bout me during my ban

let the jury know, i'm trying to take the high road. or at the very least a higher road than i would usually take

I don't hate you at all have liked you as a poster.

Also, why to be a total clueless dick.

Lol, yeah, remind me again why I shouldn't be taking some of this personally?

bc rite now u r not only a client of the butt hurt club for men u r also the president

whoah that stern clip is o_O

Oh no, that was totally personal because on this thread you are, in fact, being a dick and needlessly singled me out.

Jesus

I mean seriously this thread is worse than the gottfriedgate thing itself. Everyone go find a corner to sit in for 15 minutes.

i wonder if whiney is really sitting on a fest's worth of zings.

xpost no one puts ENBB in a corner

hey asshole i live in a yurt, my house doesn't even HAVE a corner

x-post u got that right

Oh no, that was totally personal because on this thread you are, in fact, being a dick and needlessly singled me out.

I called you out for not even reading the thread you were commenting on, which seemed a pretty fair call to make. But feel free to keep calling me a dick.

FUN FUN FUN FUN

bergson said that comedy is ultimately about recognizing "something mechanical encrusted on the living"

the man's body failing to avoid the lamp-post reminds us that his body is a machine, and that it has failed; jokes guide us towards mental lamp-posts and when we smack into them we laugh.

the entire grand repertoire of "tasteless" jokes (challenger jokes, dead baby jokes) is no different, but provides another meta-level of smack - we know we're reading a joke, we're prepared to laugh but then our laughter runs into the lamp-post of the fact that laughing at something so grim is really not the done thing - but this very recognition of the inappropriateness of laughter itself completes the essential operation of comedy, which is that we recognize how mechanically we've been following the structure of comedy, how we are laughing at the wrong thing

if that makes any sense

kinda

man this thread

http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y176/edwardiii/managainsttheworld.gif

• What is happening in Japan is really, really and awful
• Making jokes abt it is a) sometimes a coping mechanism b) sometimes someone being a total asshole c) sometimes both
• I bet if you argue enough abt this you will actually change ppl's minds, so keep doing it, ok?
• I guess I'm a pathetic spineless mushy cuddleking for finding it kinda gross to laugh at this sort of thing, but I can on some level at least *appreciate* the idea of a really fucked up joke, and these really aren't even funny. I mean, they could've been funny with more effort but when 95% of the lulz come from it being taboo w/o any real semblance of wit, it kinda falls flat.

Um actually I read the first couple and decided not to read the rest because I got bored and I've read every other single post on the thread.

It seems to me like you're the one not doing the reading.

i actually like TH's post a lot, so i say we sally forth

like stevie d's post a lot.

I actually once thought ENBB was a pretty cool poster, but now I'm starting to think she's kind of a bitch.

wtf man

when tracer first mentioned a "lamp-post" i thought he meant a post Lamp made itt

if that makes any sense

nope, not at all

okay I never would have guessed that the "Sally Forth" GIS would be NSFW

jokes are like magic tricks...if you explain why something is funny, it really stops being so

wtf man

Yup. Exactly what I thought. No one bats an eye when she repeatedly calls me a dick, but its not cool for me to call her a name.

Yup. Exactly what I thought.

http://teslastaging.com/forums/images/smilies/Gestures/userArmsCrossed.gif

bergson also says that sympathy is the natural enemy of comedy; you have to suspend your natural sympathies for the victims of the tsunami in order to laugh at these jokes - and that suspension itself is cathartic, i think (for some)

The comic, we said, appeals to the intelligence, pure and simple; laughter is incompatible with emotion. Depict some fault, however trifling, in such a way as to arouse sympathy, fear, or pity; the mischief is done, it is impossible for us to laugh.

it really is worth reading the whole thing, it's beautifully written - http://www.authorama.com/laughter-1.html

remember this thread when you get suggest banned, jon

I will. I just think its kind of hypocritical that beloved poster ENBB can call me names, but suddenly its crossing the line when I do it.

How old is that, Tracer?

Hope your family gets wiped out by a tsunami.

so who are they going to get to replace him? they're "casting" for a new duck but can you really replace that voice? i mean if his voice was easy to imitate is there any way he'd get the kind of work he did? he only has one voice!

― frogbs, Tuesday, March 15, 2011 11:35 AM (29 minutes ago) Bookmark

they should just go in a completely different direction, maybe Ben Affleck since that's who everybody references anytime Aflac comes up in conversation

if that makes any sense

nope, not at all

laughter is the recognition of an inelasticity or rigidity in something - the absent-minded professor whose brain is so inelastic that it's not alive to the memory of where he put his glasses (they're on his head); tasteless jokes make us recognize that even the structure of comedy itself is a kind of inelasticity - a clock-work mechanism of setup and punchline - that temporarily makes us un-alive to the real fact of suffering or sympathy - which is ITSELF funny, because it follows the same structure

JimD i'm thinking around 1900 or so

They should hire Fran Drescher

they should hire diane rehm

I'm not really reading into that too deeply but I guess I kind of see what you're saying, though there is a zillion ways to interpret that

thanks for the link, TH!

i know ~talking about humor~ is something that is Not Done on ILX, but i'm actually sorta fascinated by how humor functions, particularly in the midst of tragedy.

and yr totally right about suspending sympathy---the only joke i thought was actually funny was the real estate/school joke, and that's, i think, because it appealed to me a comic image like "hey school's aren't supposed to do that!" this was followed immediately by the crushing realization of what that image actually means (children may have been in that school), and it's harrowing. and, fwiw, i think that's actually something humor is actually good for---it can serve both as a means of removal or sublimation or w/e (i shall avoid the truth by laughing at it) and as a means of entry (hahahahaha oh god)

xp

that temporarily makes us un-alive to the real fact of suffering or sympathy - which is ITSELF funny, because it follows the same structure

like this

hate the Aflac spots except maybe for the one w/ Yogi Berra in the barbershop

i know ~talking about humor~ is something that is Not Done on ILX

wait what?

yeah they're not great but they are kinda cute. I think there is definitely a trend towards more obnoxious commercials like the Progressive one with the hyperactive salesman or the Miller Lite "Man Up" ads that everyone tends to hate

I will. I just think its kind of hypocritical that beloved poster ENBB can call me names, but suddenly its crossing the line when I do it.

― 'what are you, the Hymen Protection League of America?' (jon /via/ chi 2.0), Tuesday, March 15, 2011 12:12 PM (8 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

if only there was some difference in calling someone a "dick" vs calling someone a "bitch."

good job getting the thread back on track WGW

well i mean we actually do it all the time but p much any time ppl start talking ~about~ humor, a bunch of ppl show up and say "hey man w/e it's comedy, you either like it or you don't, there's no accounting for some tastes, etc."

which is all fine and good, but sometimes i like to unpack it, you know?

xp to some dude

nothing like a comedian's twitter huh

((Yeah. I mean thanks WGW but let's drop it. I don't think I said anything that was particularly out of order and it's not my problem if he chose to single me out and provoke me. Sorry to further derail what is now an interesting conversation.))

estelaaaaaa

does humor belong in tragedy