Katherine's comedy blog

About a year ago, I had the privilege of seeing my all time favorite comedian live and in person- Jim Gaffigan. He came to my hometown of Cincinnati with his 2017 stand-up tour titled 'Noble Ape'. Gaffigan's main style of comedy is self-depreciation mixed in with relatability. He utilizes a style of observational comedy, which is the actions and events that occur in his day to day life. He's best known for taking on a variety of different voices along with his many different impressions, which range from his wife to famous celebrities. To describe Gaffigan's style of humor, he frequently pokes fun at himself, a tragic situation he's been in, or makes fun of society. Therefore, in my opinion, his comedy style best relates to the superiority theory of humor. The best example of the superiority theory at work in Jim's shows is the frequent references to his weight. In almost every single set, he talks to the audience about the daily stresses parenting, eati...

The interesting thing about comedy, in general, is that it's all subjective. What I find hilarious may not even register with someone else as humorous. This same principle is applied to comedy tv shows as well. In response to Jake's blog post, I found some of the points that he raised as interesting. He explained how the show Seinfeld has no overlying plot, and that's what makes it so exceptional. In a way, I agree with him. There is always a time and a place where we just want to laugh, and not worry about keeping up with a detailed plot or keep track of attributes we need to remember in order to understand the show. Seinfeld is definitely that kind of show where you can turn it on and just enjoy the singular episode for what it is. The humor in Seinfeld is a sort of observational comedy, where the premise of the humor is based on going through the motions of everyday life. But referring back to my original point, someone may not be interested in that type of show or hum...

I think Alex's blog post does a fine job with relating the three main humor theories to the hit show Friends. I personally found it helpful that each character from the show matched up with a particular theory of humor. This helped me remember the theories in a more in-depth way by relating them to something I already have knowledge about. For Instance, Phoebe aligns with the incongruity theory because of her sporadic jokes and personality, combining concepts and things that normally would not go together. There is one particular episode I remember watching a few weeks ago where Phoebe is playing her guitar alone in the subway station singing "Your love is like a giant pigeon, crapping on my heart". I found this line exceptionally funny because no one would think to associate a giant pigeon and a broken heart. Phoebe's constant use of incongruous ideas as such make her a prime example of what the incongruity theory is all about. The show Friends is an easy comparison...

I personally find inherent and perceived incongruities to be the most persuasive explanation as to why people tend to find humor in incongruities. This theory states that the reason some may find incongruence funny is because of the societal background and stigmas that may lie behind the joke. The example in the text was how a man and a women are in bed together and the husband of the woman walks in and goes, "What's he doing here" making a reference to the stigma surrounding homosexuality. The contrast between what we thought was going to happen in that scenario and what actually happened created humor through complete incongruence. As I continued to read deeper into the passage, a great example that pertained to this theory popped into my head. One of my all time favorite episodes in all of TV comes from the hit series The Office. In season 5 episode 13, Dwight creates a simulation of a real fire, because his co-workers wouldn't listen to him during his fire safety ...