Frank J. has a post up right now addressing one of my favorite questions:
Why are certain things funny? Why is it funnier when a certain word is used as a punchline, when a synonym just would not work as well?
This is obviously a topic for people who are not tone-deaf when it comes to comedy.
He uses this as one example:
There was a radio ad for Steven Wright who is appearing at a local auditorium. If you don't know Steven Wright, he's a comedian who speaks in a monotone, bored voice and makes a number of funny statements instead of doing a coherent routine. One of the sound clips in the radio ad was of this joke of his: "Do you think when George Washington was asked for ID, he'd just pull out a quarter?" Now, you could replace "quarter" with "dollar" and the joke would still work, but why is quarter funnier?
For the sake of debate - let's all agree that quarter is funnier. (I do agree with that, by the way.)
You could insert a million other jokes in for that one, and still have the same question. Some things LAND, in terms of comedic potential - other things do not.
I was hanging out with my friend Ann Marie who is, to put it mildly, NOT tone-deaf when it comes to comedy. If there is a comedic moment hovering at the edge of its potential somewhere, she will leap in, pull it out, and make it far funnier than you could ever have conceived.
Anyway - we were talking to someone - some random person - and this person divulged that he had never seen "Willy Wonka".
Ann Marie said, point-blank, "What - did you grow up in Chad?"
Now:
The point is not whether or not there are movie theatres in Chad. Okay? Let's not be literal here. We are talking about comedy.
Ann Marie got an ENORMOUS laugh for that line, and rightly so. Why is "Chad" funnier than ... say ... Angola? Or ... Burma?
Basically, the point was - she randomly chose a 3rd-world country - which brought up all kinds of associations in all of our minds (a desert land, cut off from modern society) - and everyone ROARED.
In my opinion "Chad" is funnier than "Angola" because it is a funnier-sounding word to begin with, with its blunt one syllable. "Chad" lands, in a funnier way, to sensitive ears. The punchline of the joke was just that - a punch.
This is just my opinion, though - the whole thing is a never-ending mystery - and it is a GIFT. People who can make you laugh like that have a GIFT. Nathan Lane came and did a seminar at my graduate school - and it was like he had super-natural powers, in terms of comedic sensitivity.
My stomach ached for 2 days afterwards.
Every joke was explored. If one fell flat, he then would find, in the next moment, a way to make it land. He was like a scientist, a well-tuned instrument, a MACHINE. He was a comedy machine.
But he did it all with fluidity, grace, and a measure of desperation. Comedians NEED to make you laugh.
I find that to be one of the most beautiful things about them. 80% of the guys I have dated have been stand-up comedians or improv comedians for that very reason. It can get a bit old, at times, true. You want to say, "Okay, champ, drop the routine. Let's talk seriously." But for a girl of my sensibility, that rarely occurs. I am more interested in laughing for 3 hours straight than sitting down and having a heart-to-heart.
And so: Why do you think "quarter" funnier than "dollar"?
Posted by sheilaIf you think of everything that makes poetry work, like sound, syllables, tone, ryhme, symbolism, word flow, etc., these things probably have as much to do with the reason why certain words make something funnier than others might.
Then again, I could be full of it.
Posted by: Emily at February 5, 2004 1:28 PMI definitely think it has something to do with the actual sound of the words.
Not to over-analyze comedy or anything ...
If it's funny, it's funny.
Did you ever see Crimes and Misdemeanors? Alan Alda is HYSTERICAL in it, as this pompous absolutely insufferable film director, and Woody Allen (who hates him) is hired to do a documentary about him. Alan Alda's character has this whole theory about comedy, and he keeps saying it, as though it is as brilliant as E=mc2.
"If it BENDS ... it's funny!!! If it BREAKS ... it's not funny!"
By the 10th time he says it, Woody Allen is about ready to strangle him.
Posted by: red at February 5, 2004 1:31 PMi think a quarter is funnier than a dollar because you kind of have this image of george washington slouching on the corner rooting through his pockets for a coin, pulling out a handful of change, searching, you know...maybe him looking for a wallet wouldn't do it...
Posted by: timmac at February 5, 2004 1:45 PMFor me it is definitely all about the sound and the rhythm working the visual. It's instinct. The right joke or line just feels right. You can sense the whole flow of it with the right words playing a melody. The sound of a word can adjust the visual a person gets, adding to the joke. Plus the proper word or words can inject multiple meanings or give cues to the listener/reader. Again with the sound, a slightly brighter word will punch the punchline just like what you said about "Chad". One of the advantages of "Quarter" just snaps in my head more than "dollar". Plus the visual is just better.
Fuck me if I'm not pretentious about this. I'm quitting while I'm ahead, but I had to do something to district from the guy in the cube next to me loudly smacking on his cheetos.
Posted by: Rodya at February 5, 2004 1:48 PMRodya -
There is nothing worse than being pretentious about comedy.
Sorry about the cheetos
Posted by: red at February 5, 2004 2:20 PMHeh. Thank you. Sorry for littering your comments. I shall attempt restraint next time.
Posted by: Rodya at February 5, 2004 2:31 PMIn addition to what the other folks said about brightness of word and scansion, remember that the dollar bill has a 3/4 portrait of GW - it might actually be useful for identification. The quarter has a profile which emphasizes the roman nose that GW's contemporaries admired about him but is not the view we are used to using when identifying someone.
So quarter is funnier because while GW is on the money, it is actually not a very good way to prove your identity.
I was wondering the other day about the word "pants." If you say it once, it is a word. If you say it out loud three times - "Pants, pants, pants" - you smile. Try it. Comedy is very strange.
Ted K.
Posted by: Ted K at February 5, 2004 4:22 PMOn the "Futurama" DVD commentaries they assert that the word "underpants" is 30% funnier than "underwear".
Posted by: Rodya at February 5, 2004 4:25 PMChad is just damn funny ... no idea why.
I was in Tokyo last May to help our editors out there, and was out drinking with one of them. He was going off about the fact that everyone makes such a big deal of him being an American, mostly because of the war and such, and how he's tired of people going "Oooooh, you're an American! Why do you people do [such and such]."
He looked at me and said: "I want to be from Chad. Nobody gives you shit when you're from Chad." I laughed for hours. It became the running joke (one of them) of my trip. To this day I e-mail him stories about Chad that come over the wire ... and he usually e-mails them back with a paragraph perfectly written in that quotes him as a Chad resident.
I don't think I would be cracking up as I think about this if he had picked any other country. Chad is just comedy.
Posted by: sid at February 5, 2004 8:27 PMI am officially forgetting the pretzel throwing and the tatoo. I am incapable of keeping those facts in my grasp in relation to a girl whose sensibility is interested in 3 hours of laughter. You win.
Posted by: David at February 5, 2004 8:57 PMQuarter is funnier because it has a K sound. Every good comedian knows this rule.
Posted by: Mark at February 5, 2004 8:58 PMRodya- Puffy cheetos, or those hard, gnarled ones? My husband has a theory that puffy cheetos are girl cheetos (i.e. only girls EAT them) and the gnarly kind are boy cheetos. I generally have found this to be true. I only eat the puffy ones- and they can't be cheese balls. eww.
Posted by: Beth at February 5, 2004 10:03 PMRodya- Puffy cheetos, or those hard, gnarled ones? My husband has a theory that puffy cheetos are girl cheetos (i.e. only girls EAT them) and the gnarly kind are boy cheetos. I generally have found this to be true. I only eat the puffy ones- and they can't be cheese balls. eww.
Posted by: Beth at February 5, 2004 10:04 PMI'd say Chad is a suffiently but not overly obscure choice, and it sounds just right.
With quarter, I think it has more to do with the fact that a quarter is a more insignificant item than a dollar. Even though a dollar isn't worth much these days, there is still a vestigal feeling that any amount of paper money is less-than-trivial. Plus, the physical act of pulling a quarter out of your pocket is simpler and more joke-enhancing than that of removing wallet from trousers, opening the wallet and pulling out a dollar bill.
Posted by: MikeR at February 5, 2004 11:09 PMDavid -
Thank goodness. I was hoping I would win.
The tattoo is really cool, though. I'm proud of it. Not like the pretzel-throwing.
Posted by: red at February 6, 2004 12:07 AM