Understanding Humor: Master Jokes & Comedy in English | Complete English Course

hello and welcome to your next lesson we are going to comprehend comedy today which is going to be a lot of fun you're going to see a lot of media from American culture and in the next lesson we are going to practice applying this knowledge so let's get into it things to remember when you are comprehending comedy you need to think of what is funny and what are they laughing about and I know it's really hard to really get into the mechanics of Comedy but if you are going to comprehend it and understand why some is funny you've got to really break it down and this is true of humor around the world humor is one of the most difficult things to understand culture to culture because what is funny to one culture may not be funny to another so definitely take some notes on this one and then we're going to get into practicing it and it should be very enjoyable so number two is why is it funny you've got to think about why it is funny to the original audience who is it funny for that is what it is designed for written for spoken for so that's who they're trying to to convince that something is funny that's who they're trying to entertain so they are not trying to entertain you in your own culture when they are trying to address middle schoolers in America so it's very important that you note why it is funny to the original audience not to yourself that is a very important thing with any kind of comprehension is you've got to know who it was written for and why and that's where you can begin to understand the humor of another situation even if it is not funny to you and there's going to be some things that you are not going to find funny today and that's okay the point is that you work on practice comprehending to understand another culture it takes a lot of work honestly but here we go so you need to figure out kind of why address this group what elements are making it funny why is the audience laughing so let's get into a little bit here are different types of humor there are more than this but these are major ones in American culture that I just could not pass up so you've got 10 different kinds here you've got physical humor self-deprecating humor surreal humor improvisational wit word playay satire topical observational bodily and dark humor we're going to get into defining each of these physical humor is also called slapstick comedy in America this started with like The Three Stooges way back in the 1930s you've got clowns you've got times people who never speak they just act uh you've got falling hitting anything to do pain related humor those are physical humor items so I want you to watch this episode of The Carol brunette show this is a classic and one that everybody points to over four generations that was so funny has made them laugh ever since it was created a few decades ago so watch the dentist the full thing and then I want you to come back and answer these questions he's still here doctor he's waiting oh yeah oh boy well I thought we were just going to come in and practice today I didn't know we he'll be right with you [Music] yeah hello hello doctor U well I'll be $20 $20 you you haven't done anything yet 15 maybe look doctor please listen to me I I I have a terrible tooth AE I am in terrible pain I want you to do something to stop the pain either fill the tooth or pull it oh gosh uh why sees C's yeah see in dental school and filling and pulling I only got C's that was just kind of an average grade I got A's and cleaning though you want me to clean it for you will it stop the pain no but it look great boish your right give me the SE give me the SE SE oh boy gosh uh I cheated on my final and besides I had mononucleosis the last semester so I didn't get a chance to work on people like the other guys so most of my work was just done with animals I don't I don't care about animals just please fix this tooth yeah living the same working on animals and people I doctor I don't care please I'm in terrible pain yeah please well please give it a try [Laughter] what's this it's a doggy treat you want to go outside for a while no I'm fine thank you good boy good boy okay please St you please do something about this tooth yeah right well I guess you better wash up oh I better wash up no sense in you washing up you wouldn't be putting your hand in my mouth so I I'll wash up there we go uh uh [Music] [Laughter] say say did you hear the one about the guy who had electric toothbrush he used to brush after every meal then see his electrician twice a year brush brush brush your teeth brush them every day mother sister brother father brush him every way school song ah well let's just have an old look at that here excuse me a Mane just let's see now sry yeah oh and second thought I don't think I will take a look at it well well now what well my mother gave me these for graduation well so what well you're going to get them all icky no I won't no I won't okay maybe we could just wait till the falls out you know please please doctor okay mhm ah see I was right what well you got it all icky here you go better rinse out a little bit here you go just that out then mhm [Laughter] [Music] uh I don't have a bowl uh mama was going to get me that too but she just ordered it won't be here till Tuesday you want to wait till Tuesday you don't want to wait huh okay oh dror please please get this get this tooth out of my mouth now let's see now if we're going to pull her out we'll have to have those pulley things these pulley and let's see Pinchy things and the little picky things there Pinchy picky py see I'll get my manual just a minute on there right here okay now let's see you want to pull your tooth out to p p p u p l p l l pull tooth t t t T1 t o t o t h here we are pull your tooth out boy this is going to hurt doctor if it's going to hurt please give me something to kill the pain yeah okay well got some novocaine right here just uh hold on that M see how this works here okay Nova cane here we are Nova cane take a firm hold of the hypodermic needle right there'll be a little bit of pain and then numbness will set in oh I guess we'll get right to it [Music] [Applause] uh I'll just give you a little uh little shot here we'll be right with you C [Applause] wow [Applause] this just f [Applause] better better look at a little question with the light sorry I I didn't uh just oh well now that'll be [Music] [Applause] $20 okay that was hilarious I love this episode this is the my go-to skit for that entire decade um but yeah this is one of those things now we let's break it down why is it so funny what is so funny about the skit and why is this an example of physical humor and why did people find this funny it's funny because there's a lot of physical movements right there's a lot of pain there's a lot of actions here and notice too that there's physical elements that the guy who has a hurt tooth a toothache he's doing lots of physical communication as well his body language is that of I'm in pain my tooth hurts but that's not funny the funny thing is the dentist who is supposed to be super uh good at what he does he's supposed to be competent and cool and collected like a dentist to do work on human beings and he's completely not able to and he loses his cool and he's just not able to keep it together and winds up hurting himself this is physical humor it's ridiculous guys this is why it is so funny is because it is absolutely ridiculous a dentist would not act like this and if he did he would lose his job and his practice very quickly right and number three why did people find this funny in America it's a very common thing for people to fear the dentist it is a very common fear to have problems with your teeth and it hurts and to have your teeth cleaned and have these Hooks and stuff I have in the picture here put into your mouth and it's just a very uncomfortable situation and they picked up on this people's greatest fear with the dentist is getting hurt in the mouth right and so what they did is they designed a skit where the dentist is the one who gets hurt not the patient so it's playing on fear and then turning it into a really funny situation so this is a great example of physical humor self-deprecation okay so self-deprecation we most often see in standup comedy this is when one person is standing up there and he's joking about himself in our society today it is common to not want to make fun of other people for fear of offending them unless they're political figures for some reason we think that's fine in our culture but you don't typically want to stand up and talk about fat people or you don't want to talk about racist jokes or something like that because you're going to offend somebody so a s safe bet for any comedian is to stand up there and make fun of themselves so you also get this in internet memes you guys probably know plenty if you are comfortable with the internet at all so making fun of yourself or making yourself the butt of the joke I want you guys to watch Samuel J comose performance on America's Got Talent this guy and all of his acts on America's Got Talent became incredibly famous he is a very successful comedian now because of his debut here on America's Got Talent so go ahead and give it a listen so like I said I have Tourette Syndrome it's while my head flops around I blink real fast it's weird it always looks like I'm trying to tell you a secret this twitch gets me in trouble my roommate came home from work I was like do our neighbor died he said did you kill him I was like n yo this is a true story when I was 10 years old my parents sent me to Tourette's Camp yeah that's where the joke should end it's a real place and I didn't realize it till this moment but I found out that when other people twitch it makes me Twitch more so on the first day they put us in a circle with the 100 kids oh the kid next to me did a shoulder roll and my Tourette saw that and took that as a challenge and I threw him a head flop the girl next to him did a full body twitch and everybody saw that and all hell broke [Laughter] close that is funny kids were rolling on the ground I was in the corner like why' they send us here our parents were on top of a hill like oh they're break dancing okay what is Samuel joking about in his performance and how is it considered de self-deprecation humor let's take a look he's making fun of his disability to R syndrome right I mean there's he's got a lot of twitches and stuff and that makes things super awkward he can't control the Twitches he can't control the eyeem Motions or his head flopping or anything like that that is a well-known disability right it's considered self-deprecation humor because he's making fun of really awkward situations that his disability puts him in whether that's him sharing serious news with his roommate or whether he goes to a camp and different people with the same syndrome tend to feed off of each other a little bit so it makes for really awkward situations and it's funny to the rest of the audience because though this is a serious syndrome it's a serious problem it is also one of those things that we can kind of understand how awkward that could be and if he's laughing about it and he's making jokes about it then it makes us feel it's okay to think about the implications of what he talking about how funny that could be and so in our society though it is not okay to make fun of other people it is okay if they're the ones doing it until it gets to the point where they are really just hurting themselves and hurting their own emotions right right here this was one of the classics of standup comedy surreal humor okay these are this is weird all right it's weird it's strange illogical nonsensical it's absurd we're going to get into surreal humor and surreal stories with postmodernism in the next um section of your course uh talking about short stories and postmodernism but surrealness surreal humor comes from postmodernism we'll get into that in the future but for now I want you to take a look at an example of fire drill from the office okay so now that you're back you can see some elements of other types of humor in here that you already know you see a little bit of self-deprecation where somebody's making fun of themselves you kind kind of see a little bit of physical humor with how much action and movement is happening that's hilarious but I the reason I put this in surreal The Surreal humor category is because it's completely nonsensical who is going to act like this in an office setting who first of all who would set it up to wear such a serious and scary fire drill and number two why are none of the people thinking to use the fire extinguishers very obviously placed around the room right that's part of the humor the situation who would act like this and who would do it so it's a prime example because no one would actually do this or act like this people know better than to climb into the ceiling during a fire and fall out afterwards or to smash things out the window they can't jump out of like people know better elements that contribute to it is just so over the top Dwight the guy at the beginning who sets all the the fire up it's very over the top and there's a lots of fire extinguishers around there's people just destroy roing office materials like the printers and stuff smashing into things nobody thinks like to just open the door with like a shirt or something on the handle it it's just ridiculous and why would the original audience find this funny it's because working the office is one of the most Bland jobs in our opinion in American culture like they're very important jobs but they're also just incredibly ridiculous honestly it's really it's really weird and Bland and just having something over the top like this happen is like a dream comedy thing that just sounds hilarious and ridiculous and is really fun to picture in your mind so that's why this is a good example of surreal comedy improv or improvisational comedy this is when somebody gets up there in front of the camera or in front of a crowd of people and they just make things up on the spot like there's no planning ahead of time this could be accents it could be question and answer where the audience gives them things or maybe have props or items that are just thrown to them and they're supposed to do something with it spur of the moment just on the spot humor and it's takes very talented people to do because it is very difficult so I want you to give uh Give a listen to Jonathan Winters improvising here he is the king of improv and Robin Williams is another well-known person in our American culture who is also amazingly talented with improv and he looked to Jonathan Winters so go ahead and give it a listen Jonathan is Jonathan Winters the acknowledged master of improvisation you know you have come to the Temple of the unusual I am Chang cha welcome Ed Ed Bradley Bradley I knew i' to have it right or wrong doesn't make any difference you're in my charge you're a very attractive man I hope you will stay with us until the film is developed oh see CBS Sports hand him a hat and you'll get a two character play Hello sport fans an incredible day today Bob uh here's uh Bob Davenport Bob is our color man and uh Bob of course you played ball for almost 18 years both in the National and the American uh gosh and you've just joined us here at CBS uh must be a great thrill it's a joke I supposed to get some more money than I got I don't care what O J Simpson got he don't mean nothing to me you understand no man I've been shafted somebody has has stroked me do you understand yeah and that man down there from the Dominican Republic I don't identify with him I'm from M Indiana gu vomos vomos do you understand tell me something else got no business okay even if you did not understand a thing Jonathan said you can see he is pulling up just characters he's making them up on the spot he is acting in character just on the spot and has two characters going against each other the interviewer gives him a hat and he goes into a completely different thing it is amazing it is amazing talent so these are the questions I want you to answer here what does Jonathan do that Americans find humorous he's just so witty he's so good at doing this he comes up with a whole skit complete with characters on the spot and number two how was improv unique from from other forms of humor it's not planned at all just totally random genius wit word play this one is a personal favorite of mine it's really fun you're twisting the language you're playing with the language a bit you're making puns you're making tongue twisters the way you say something how you apply one definition of a word that is also another definition of a word because for example console and console game console to play like Xbox but then console means to comfort your friend who is sad so you can make a pun there because it is a very similar word with two different definitions very fun so witty sayings that you could do these are some quotes that are taken completely out of context they are very famous quotes go ahead and read them and then answer the questions all right I'm going to read these out loud to you if you tell the truth you don't have to remember anything Mark Twain by working Faithfully eight hours a day you may eventually get to be the boss and work 12 hours a day Robert Frost right this one is genius because it's true bosses have to work so much and they have so much responsibility so if you work really hard as an employee you might finally get to be the boss and actually have a much heavier more difficult workload uh Richard P faman the first principle is that you must not fool yourself and you are the easiest person to fool this one's great you are the person who will fall for yourself but you also must not fool yourself it's a great parallelism here where where it the second line undoes the first great type of Comedy right there it's very witty comedy and then one of the keys to happiness is a bad memory that means if you forget often you're likely to be more happy and then the advantage of growing up with siblings is that you become very good at fractions so maybe there's a piece of cake your parents say you can split it three ways so how do you evenly divide that into three parts into one-thirds right that's very uh witty and relatable in terms of family so what is humorous about these quotes they're funny even without context all of these were delivered in some kind of context yet taking them out of context they're still funny and that's because they are often true it's kind of like principles but not really they're not really Universal PRP principles but they're still funny even outside of their context another type of witty humor or witty word play are puns and puns are very difficult to appreciate cross-culturally because you're playing with words that you should have mastered you're playing with language that you should be a master of very difficult so I want you to try to try to watch these dad jokes this video here between a couple of famous actors and just see what you think okay hey hey good to see you how are you wa a second hold on turn that off um what are you doing what's up go ahead come on what do you got what do mermaids wash their fins with [Music] tide the first part was funnier you should have never throw the punchline that was terrible did you know in King Arthur's time one of the knights at the round table collected taxes his name was sear charge yeah top that what did the fried rice say to the shrimp fry your rice don't walk away from me is that what it says yeah that's pretty good yeah did you hear Steve Harvey and his wife got into a fight that's not real is it yeah it was a family few did you hear about the superhero with a lisp that always worked out he's Thor bad ending again what are you talk how can you not what kind of car does an egg Drive a y vagon what y yeah get it what do you call someone who gets mad when they don't have any bread lack toast intolerant okay so we call these dad jokes because they are just chilly cheesy and funny and Goofy and something that dads like to do in America is embarrass their children it's like a favorite pastime so they're called Dad jokes question number two because it's it's just embarrassing it really is but it's so funny at the same time why are they funny because they're cheesy and Bland and honestly a lot of times they get a Pity laugh which is just like ha that was funny instead of like actual genuine laughs but sometimes it does just happen to be perfectly timed and really get some solid laughs out so they're really cheesy and pretty funny and they're a really common thing for Americans on YouTube to get together and do like Dad jokes but don't laugh challenge like this was so it's pretty fun satire satire is a very type uh very common type of high humor it's lofty and witty it's on a high level it's usually about something political or something that uh is very serious and then you just kind of spin it to make it kind of funny and it's not serious in that it's a serious or deadly or dark humor type of thing although it could definitely become dark humor it's just one of those things it's just like you know what here's the problem and here is my educated twist response on how to solve that problem in a very funny way you're using sarcasm you're making fun of somebody while you're doing it so it's it's very interesting a prime example of this in America is the Babylon B they have a whole website with articles and stuff but they also have a published paper and I believe a book as well but this is really common like satirical humor now that happens daily now so go ahead and listen to me read this and then try to read it yourself as well if you would like to pause now that was a good time and I'm going to read it aloud as well just to give you a sense of the words and the reading aloud part of our steps for comp comprehension number one try foregoing expensive medical care for your dog cat or spouse sometimes you have to make some tough calls I wanted to give you some context real quick this is designed this article is designed to combat people that in America to make a decent Living For The World standards but not by American Standards and so there's a lot of Americans right now that are really complaining about high inflation and prices going up and because of covid-19 and so this is making fun of people who are really upset about the whole thing they're super upset about having to pay these Rising prices but honestly in the rest of the world's eyes you're American you have a house you have a car you have a computer you have all of these things and these opportunities how dare you like complain you know and so this is what this is for so ways that you can save money if you're an American making lots of money in the world's eyes but not in American eyes try forgoing expensive medical care for your dog cat or spouse sometimes you don't have you you'll have to make some tough calls number two try not eating a 365-day fast can do wonders for your weight problem notice how this one number two is so ridiculous because I mean obviously if you don't eat you're going to die in a probably 40 days or more right so this is one of those things it's just ridiculous cut out non non-essentials like Netflix internet gas clothing housing take a look at the family budget and see if you really need food shelter and clothing after all so starts with some things that are pretty etty pretty common to cut out when your budget is tight and then progresses to something just nonsensical like going without food water shelter or clothing at all number four remember that you only really need one kidney some of your lymph nodes and just most of your liver technically you just need one I too so you could sell those is the idea number five if you struggling to afford a $7 gas buy a $60,000 Tesla instead it's the obvious call so this is so that you get an electric car instead of paying for gas because you know buying a very expensive item is better than you know paying $7 for gas for every gallon of gas that you get number six get the budget versions of things instead of the name brand ones like transmorphers or Transformers marshmallow mies instead of Lucky Charms and Christian music instead of real music they're almost as good in half the price so get the cheap knockoff versions of things basically number seven try pulling off a daring Heist of three Vegas casinos in one night it's just crazy enough to work this is a movie they're making fun of a movie idea and number eight just die if all of this fails you're too poor to live so what's the point talking about people being so tied to their money that they'd rather just not live than be poor so obviously ridiculous this is a great piece of satire so what's the context inflation inflation in the American economy is the context here and people just complaining over and over and very publicly about how expensive things like their TV and their gas bill and their Communications subscriptions and things that are very luxurious to have being too expensive to get anymore what elements make the satire sarcasm exaggeration there's a lot of that what is it making fun of Americans complaining about first world problems this is what we call this when somebody complains about something that really doesn't matter and the rest of the world doesn't have we call it first world problems and a good example of this would be if your Netflix is not working it's pretty funny and then why would somebody find this funny in the American audience this is relatable we all know somebody like this who's just very high maintenance and just feels like they can't go without things like Netflix or they can't go without driving their car they can't go without their name brand Cal we all know this kind of these kind of people in the American audience so this is written for an American audience we understand it however in the rest of the world I don't think they would find this funny because it's really hard to understand this kind of sarcasm if you don't directly know people who are just very high maintenance like that all right topical humor this is based on current events or Trends they required knowledge of world events so a lot of these are like Saturday Night Live or late night talk shows like um The Tonight Show staring Jimmy Fallon or Jimmy kemel or maybe The Daily Show with Trevor Noah these are very common things what they do is they often take politics and just make fun of them but they also do other things like this one here go ahead and watch okay so this is a great example of topical humor tell me why answer the questions here how does the speaker make this video humorous and how do you know this is topical humor hi I'm Michael Costa and before I started covering the news on cable TV I was a successful professional athlete what sport tennis duh I was ranked 864 in the world so I was a natural to investigate the newest sport sweeping the nation video games competitive video gaming known as Esports is booming there's even a training center with five Training rooms and six locker rooms the Olympics are considering adding Esports I went to California to a so-called Training Center in someone's garage to talk with these athletes about why video games isn't a sport what the hell is this this was the Alienware training facility for Esports Team Liquid complete with scrimmage stations a war room PR department a team coach and even an inhouse Chef the team star whose name is Taco was acquired from Brazil's top team this is a Rio sport you call yourself an athlete yes of course we compete we go to tournaments we travel a lot we got some money what is an esport athlete Mr Taco do every day just practice Yeah I'm a former professional tennis player that's what I would call like a real sport there is an opponent and you would relish the opportunity to defeat them with your racket what do you actually have to show for what you've doing come on I have a a really strong finger a finger yes this finger I killed at least 1 million people that finger's killed 1 million people at least Taco is referring to his kills in Counter Strike a game where guys shoot other guys before a bomb goes off apparently how is this a sport I won the Ann Arbor Jr open at 11 years old how hard could it be to pound on these dorks he makes fun of his hard work for an unsuccessful tennis career versus the successful gamers so the guy he used to be a tennis player and now he's interviewing these guys for Esports who sit down in an air conditioned place with a chef who feeds them and it's very nice and highend you're not outside sweating and training and beating your body into submission you're just sitting in your computer playing video games which is largely a hobby but here he's talking about it being in an esport now and how do you know it's topical humor because it's all about Esports all about that and making fun of this phenomenon so there you go observational humor is making fun of something that happens in everyday life we have a saying in America that says when life gives you lemons make lemonade all right so sometimes things happen in life and it's just funny because it happens at that moment in time I'm thinking of kids and animals things kids say daily life happenings that can be funny just because of the timing of it just there's just really funny things that happen happen throughout life we all know something like this it's really hard to get these on camera because it just doesn't it just happens spur of the moment so I don't actually have a direct example for you but these are great examples bodily humor this is when you get your things like fart humor toilet humor burps goofy laughs things that people do that they can't control because they're human and their bodies are weird and so this could be something like you're just moving things maybe somebody's actually able to lick their elbow how amazing would that be it would also be kind of funny because most people cannot do that dark humor this is something humorous in a situation that should not be funny a really common example of this in American culture is a TV series called mash and I couldn't find an example to give you from YouTube but this is a great example of dark humor it's in the midst of a war and these doctors are losing their minds so to stay sane they just play pranks on each other they goof off they say lot of funny witty things they pun each other the setting is very dark and very serious but then you have light silly humor for adults and doctors acting like adults and doctors should not act right so this would be dark humor there are lots of comedy and horror movies anti- jokes there's just all kinds of things with dark humor so go ahead and watch this video on ASDF it's a very short clip but go ahead and give it a listen dye potato M yum why would you do this I have a wife and family the pain it's unbearable what have I done tell my children I love them Daddy no okay so this is very very strange animation and everything like this why would someone find this funny and who is the intended audience the reason people find this funny is that it's for a specific audience so people in high school or young adults college students would probably find this pretty funny however younger people might be a little weirded out by it older people would look at this and be like why are you wasting your life why did you waste your time on something like this it is so ridiculous and stupid is what a lot of people would think however to the specific audience it was designed for meaning high schoolers to young adults this is hilarious so it's unexpected it's dark I mean the kid gets stabbed and then cries about his children and then kills himself that that is messed up it is very dark however Americans there's a huge population in America that enjoys elements of dark humor like this so here is an example it is odd but a lot of people like it it's very strange so why are these things funny why is humor funny and how is anything funny in any culture you've got to consider the context you've got to consider the culture the time period the politics and place in which something is produced something that is funny now will not be funny to my grandchildren something that my grandparents found hilarious in the 1950s I'm not going to find that funny right now because I am in a different time I'm at there different politics there's different things going on I might not even know the situation in which something was hilarious to them but not to me I might not be aware you've got to consider the intended audience and that means the age group the demographic something that elderly people find humorous is not something that middle school students find humorous there are some things like observational humor where something in life will happen like your cat will stand up and do something really weird or your dog will sound like he's saying a word that might be really funny to any anybody however not to everybody so when you're generating media when you're taking in media from standup comedy or you're looking at a movie that's supposed to be funny understand that you might not find it funny because the jokes are meant for an American audience very important to remember the intended audience in order to be able to comprehend it you've got to also consider the elements of humor what type of humor is it what is the situational context and what is the par language if you're watching humor you got to look at the body langu you've got to listen to the tone of voice what is made a question what is what is their facial expression what is the setting that they're in what is their body language maybe they're too uncomfortably close or maybe two guys are holding hands that'd be a little weird in American culture if they're using their voice in a funny way or just start talking in a funny way or somebody who's a really big strong man with big muscles starts to talk like a little girl those things are really funny because they're unexpected it's situational context so make sure you take those things in to understand what is funny and why we find it funny all right I'm going to stop this lesson here our next lesson when you come back is going to be identifying different types of humor I'm just going to give you a lot of different types of media things to read and to listen to and you're going to analyze them that's going to be your job is to analyze the types of humor you see within each example and comprehend it all right I'll see you in the next lesson