From: fairrosa
Date: Tue, 07 May 2002 00:08:26 -0400

I've enjoyed keeping a record of the lists of books members supplied here in the past few days and will seek out certain titles that I have not read. Thanks for all the suggestions.

However, for some reason, I am not satisfied. I want to discuss and figure out WHAT makes humorous words, sentences, scenes, characters, stories, etc. HUMOROUS?

Let's not discuss those controversial titles -- whether Snicket or Pilkey are funny -- but dissect and discuss works which brings MOST people giggles or laughters.

I just started reading Mick Harte to my 5th graders again today and sure enough, the same scenes and same sentences and same words created the same reactions from these 5th graders as from those before them.

The father wearing a shirt and tie but boxer shorts and socks at breakfast time because he is not going to ruin the creases before leaving home for work; His habit of pinning a pair of socks together in the wash so they are not going to get separted; Mother sewing name tags on all of Phoebe's underwear when Phoebe has never been to a camp; Henry the VIII being the gluttony King that is always shown on TV shows and movies with food dangling out of his mouth...

Words like "doofus" and "Thomas Crapper" of course brought laughs.

And the whole story of F.A.R.T. engraved in the driveway because when Phoebe and Mick were 5 or 6 and just learned to spell and print, they did it with a stick and then later blaming it on a Monkey whose name was Zippy and was chased
"all the way back to Africa" by the two siblings...

All these were in the first 24 pages.

And almost all of them are sure-firedly humorous.

What makes them work?

My ideas:

1. Outrageous situations that poke fun of authority figures -- Mom, Dad, and Santa Claus (who was told that his break stank by a young Phoebe) -- usually are popular. But how far can one poke fun without being unbelievable or unacceptable is where the line lies. Everything in these 24 pages are completely plausible. If the father's eccentricity is "My father eats a life-rat for breakfast every morning because he believes that the rat is nutritious and he is contributing to the pest-control effort." Then, many readers will be turned off.

2. Taboo words are funny -- fart, crap(per) -- and the "unnamed" cuss name that Phoebe called Mick on the morning of his death, describe only as "the name that the comedian on HBO used over and over again" when Phoebe and Zoe watched the show despite forbidden by Zoe's mom. (And her describing it as "you only hear it on HBO and school playground" also brought chuckles amongst my listeners.) So, in this instance, the Unspoken taboo word(s) are even funnier because the reader is left to figure out the WORST possible choice without any limitation to his/her imagination.

3. "Cumulative" effects create a tidal wave of laughter: F.A.R.T. is funny to start with, then they say that "a Monkey did it," and, having gotten trapped into a lie, need to give the Monkey a name and, then, most outrageously naive,
"chase the Monkey back to Africa."

4. Familiar "troubles" bring sympathy and humor to situations -- a lie, a fight, a missed-homework, etc., all are scenarios that the reader can identify and yearn to laugh at from a safe distance.

5. A sense of "I know better" also can make the scene funny -- Mick super-glued a fake beard when he was in Henry VIII costume and had to go to school in beard and the whole lie about a "monkey did it" -- the reader is laughing at a more innocent or naive "possible" and "younger" self.

These are what I observed in the first 2 chapters of Mick Harte.

Can I hear what others see in, for example, The Cat in the Hat, or the first chapter of Watson, or the Princess Diaries, or Goose Chase -- and maybe we can finally come up with a "list" of elements that answer this month's discussion title: "What's So Funny?"

-- fairrosa
Received on Mon 06 May 2002 11:08:26 PM CDT