Friday, August 30, 2019
Best recent piece of comedy 8/30
The best piece of comedy I've seen recently is from one of my favorite television shows: How I Met Your Mother. This TV show is similar to other sitcoms like The Office, Friends, Parks and Rec, and other similar shows. How I Met Your Mother has five main characters each with different personal problems. It follows them as they go through their daily lives in a funny take all leading up to when the narrator reveals to his kids, who he is narrating the story to, how he met their mother. While watching it, I found myself laughing often, but I never stopped to ask myself why that was. After reading about the different theories of humor, I definitely better understand how the comedy in the show works. Throughout the show, I believe that all three theories of comedy are used at different times. The audience laughs at Barney, one of the main characters, because he is always messing up and finding himself in awkward situations in which case the audience is laughing at Barney as they look down upon his shortcomings. This is an example of the superiority theory of comedy. Furthermore, the relief theory is often used when confronting issues such as sleeping around, excessive drinking, and family problems in order to bring people comedic relief when the tension and discomfort that comes with such topics are released. I also feel incongruity theory is used at points, but I have not yet fully grasped how this theory looks in works beyond the definition.
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I've never watched this show before but, after reading your post, I might just have to check it out! It sounds really interesting. I find it fascinating how you were able to find ways to make all three theories of comedy apply to the show. You gave really great examples of how each theory is used by the show in varying situations. Great post! I look forward to reading more.
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ReplyDeleteI've never seen How I met Your Mother, but I know its known to be funny. It's interesting that you tied all the theories into your post to the best of your ability.
ReplyDeleteI also have never seen this show before, but I found the examples to be very clear and interesting. As far as the Incongruity theory, I feel a good way to look at it is whenever disperate ideas or thoughts are connected unexpectedly. So it's almost more of spontaneous but connected set of events than anything else.
ReplyDeleteOne of my favorite shows to binge watch. I also never gave thought to why I found it humorous. I think it's very cool to see how the different theories tie into the show.
ReplyDeleteThat's a great point that often individual characters embody different types of comedy. This tradition goes all the way back to ancient and medieval comedy, in which different characters were models of different types of behavior.
ReplyDeleteI also have not seen this show but it sounds interesting and funny! It's cool to be able to reflect back on the show and connect it to the theories to understand why it was funny. I like how you used Barney as an example and explained why it was the superiority theory.
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