Look what I found to rant about ;)

This weeks edition of The Villanova (my school's attempt at a newspaper) had a very interesting article about the downfall of MTV that was making some good points (not all good points - the reporter did like Kurt Loder) until I came to the last paragraph (I'd link to it but they haven't updated their site in more than a year)

excerpt from MTV taking turn for the worse... By Kevin Jakubowski The Villanovan 10/3/99 "...MTV still has its good qualities. 'The Tom Green Show' is great; it is impossible not to laugh at a guy who does impromptu interviews with poop on his microphone.... However, in my book, until Serena Altshul gorws her hair back or MTV realizes that 'Daria' is the worst show in television history, I'm sticking with VH1."

Someone just doesn't get it ;)

Rereading it quickly, makes it think that it may have been a bit sarcastic or exaggerated in tone but I don't know for sure.

If you want to make a comment to the editors, let me know.

Mike Quinn wrote in message news:7tl6k9$qko$[email]...

newspaper)

making

Any school that publishes a paper in which ANY writer thinks that Tom Green is good television and Daria isn't can't possibly have any educational value. Call administration and tell them you want your money back.

On Fri, 8 Oct 1999 14:30:32 -0400, "R. K. Henry" wrote:

Umm. People aren't allowed to have differing opinions and still be considered intelligent?

I happen to like both Daria and Tom Green, in different ways.

In article , [email] (Howling Lunatic) wrote:

Even worse - a differing opinion about a comedy. This seems to be heading in a similar direction to a debate in my university's newspaper over the quote-unquote Death of South Park. Poeple are taking sides, accusing others of not being "true comedy fans", accusing the show of going "mainstream" and what-not.

My attitude to the whole thing is stolen from PJ O'Rourke: "Laughter is involuntary and points are not". Or, as a reviewer of the South Park movie said: "Unfortunately, some people, myself included, just find this sh*t funny and there's not a lot you can do about it".

If something makes you laugh, then watch it. If it doesn't, then don't. And either way, don't hassle the other guys. *Nobody*'s written a definitive text on what's funny and what isn't. (Aristotle, maybe, but the last surviving copy of that got lost in a monastery fire).

IK

(Is "Tom Green" anything like the "Red Green Show"? The first season of that was hilarious!)

[email] (The Insomnia Kid) wrote:

No, the only thing they have in common is that both come from Canada, IIRC. Tom Green's style is a lot like Andy Kaufmann's style, except he hasn't gotten involved with wrestlers... yet... it's a very much "in your face" style that is pushing the boundaries of just what is funny, and what is "offensive" to the viewer, from the viewer's point of view. I don't really go for that style, myself, but that's me. It's the sort of style that makes you laugh because you can sort of sense the tension, and you can't really tell if it's really nasty, or just play nasty, so if you're not a big fan of it, you'll get too uncomfortable with it and switch channels.

Red Green, for those who don't know anything about him, has a much drier sense of humor-- it's a sort of self-parody about rural life in Canada, I guess. US residents can usually catch him on their local PBS affiliate.

Frankly, my humor tastes lie somewhere in-between. To paraphrase, "I don't know much about comedy, but I know what makes me laugh." The SP movie was funny, but recent eps of SP have left me going "Huh?" and not laughing once. The writing has really been slipping over the past year or so.

rich.

Max: We're criminales!

In article , [email] wrote:

      "It is Spring.
      Time to fix the lodge roof.
      We have a lot in common, that roof and I:
      We both leak;
      We both have shingles;
      And we both end in a gutter."

(Didn't even *try* to resist the temptation to quote that one.)

I think that attitude to comedy is the only one anyone can reasonably have. I mean, has anyone in the history of the world ever been convinced by argument that something they thought was not funny actually was? To the point where they would laugh at it spontaneously? It can work the other way - you can be shamed into not laughing at something if you've been chewed out by someone who found it offensive, but that doesn't invalidate your original reaction of laughter. It's a *purely* subjective experience. Even a joke which you would find funny but had to have explained to you isn't as funny as if you'd got it straight off the bat.

Remember the Steven Wright line "My girlfriend once asked me, 'Would you like to know the exact time and place that you die?' I said, 'No', and she said, 'Oh, well forget it then'"? My father and I busted a gut over that one, but everybody else I know who heard it just didn't laugh *at all*.

(As regards SP, we've only got the first four episodes of Season 3 here in Australia. Based on those, I think Stone and Parker were smart enough to realise that hardcore offensiveness wouldn't be funny for much more than a season, and Waugh- or Celine-style satire works better in a movie. What they're coming up with to replace it - this bizarre arachy thing - works for me, but like I said ...)

IK

[email] of Australian National University writes:

Yes. After all, jokes are often things we don't laugh at instantly, sometimes it takes us a while to "get it". Sometimes you might not laugh at a joke until several seconds -- or even several years! -- later. Although we usually find the humour in it for ourselves, sometimes someone else can provide the crucial insight which causes us to re- evaluate our experience and see the funny side of it. If you slip on something and hurt yourself it probably won't seem very funny to you at the time, but others may manage to persuade you otherwise by arguing that you should look at the incident from an observer's viewpoint.

The thing is, our reactions to things aren't fixed -- they're susceptible to change. There have been comedy series which at first viewing didn't strike me as very funny -- Red Dwarf and the Fast Show spring to mind -- but on being persuaded to take a closer look I ended up liking them. In the case of the Fast Show, it at first raised only a wry smile, but by the end of the first series I was convinced that its creators, Paul Whitehouse and Charlie Higson, were geniuses who had discovered the secret heart of comedy.

It's like, you might listen to an album and not think it's great music, or look at a work of art and not think it's great art. But someone may persuade you otherwise by arguing that you have mistaken the genre or the intention of the work. You then re-examine the work from that perspective and suddenly its greatness becomes clear. Indeed in art, this seems to be the main way of establishing a work's credentials - the art world nearly always takes an unremarkable piece of tosh as their starting point and then sets about persuading viewers by detailed argument that the thing is actually an inspired work of art. Whilst such a laboured process is unlikely to make people laugh at a joke they didn't get, the basic principle still applies.

-Shez.

In article , Shez wrote:

I would agree that you can *recognise* humour in a situation by having someone explain it to you, but I think that's a very different situation to *experiencing* it - having something "strike you funny". You can realise on an intellectual level why a joke is funny ("Oh, I see - 'pickled herring' sounds like 'Hermann Goering'") but to me that's not the same at all as having a joke zap your humour centres directly. And some people won't find some things funny no matter how well you explain them - I find a lot of over-the-top gangsta rap music *hilarious*, but even if I was Clarence Freaking Darrow I couldn't get Charlton Heston on side.

My main point in this thread was that I don't believe there are "standards" for what's funny in the way that (you can argue) there are standards for art. Laughter is something special, which makes a comment like "Tom Green/Daria is the best/worst show on TV" ridiculous on its face. Of course, in so far as "Daria" is not just a comedy, people can attack it on other grounds and argument can be useful, but when it comes to "funny", you're on your own.

... which was nice. (Sorry.) I absolutely agree sense of humour can change over time, but I also believe that change is unique to the person involved and wouldn't be influenced by any outside influence on an intellectual level.

I would argue that this *never* works for jokes, and that's the main difference between humour and "art". There are multitudes of theories on what constitutes "great art" but no-one has *ever* written a widely-accepted book on "what's funny and what isn't". (Except for Aristotle. And that got a monastery burned down ...)

IK

Shez wrote in message ...

Shez, i respectfully disagree. well, technically, i agree with everything you said, but i think [email] was more concerned with the situation in which one fully understands and "gets" the joke at first instance, and sees the humour, but doesn't find it funny.

this is as opposed to the situations which you reffered to, such as those that are analogous to hearing a song many times before you really like it.

what i'm saying is, if someone does fully understand and "get" the joke, and simply doesn't find it funny, i don't think someone else can persuade them that it's funny, due to the subjective and highly personal nature of humour. however, i do accept that there are times when it takes someone else to open your eyes to the real meaning, subtext or irony of a joke that u missed originally, and this leads to you finding it funny. But this is due to your realisation of new facts, or a new point of view, NOT you being convinced that the original unfunny joke is now funny by way of being "convinced".

Although, Brittany could probably be persuaded, but she's an isolated exception to the rule.

Bert Newton.

"Bert Newton" wrote:

Interesting point, Bert, but I'm afraid I have yet another point of view to further muddy the waters. From a sociological point of view, laughter is considered a shared group experience. How so? Well, consider this-- most people tend to associate themselves with people who share their sense of humor-- group laughter serves to strengthen the bond between group members. Therefore, a person who wishes to identify more strongly with a particular group may laugh at things s/he may not ordinarily laugh at, and may do so subconsciously, even. It would be an interesting experiment-- see what a person laughs at in private, and then see what that person laughs at when s/he is with a group of people that s/he is either a) good friends with; b) works with daily; c) is trying to impress. I'm not too sure what the precise results would be, but I'd be willing to bet that people will laugh at very unfunny stuff in order to "fit in" with a group that that person either emotionally or financially needs to fit in with. The only question that remains would be to find out if the person knew it wasn't funny, or somehow rationalized the humor.

Hey, anybody want to fund my study? ;-)

Tossing another grenade on the bonfire, rich.

Quinn: I can't be a brain! My friends will hate me!

ok, but we just switched independent variables. i was talking about what someone actually finds funny. you are talking about laughing. that's kinda an important distinction. But yeah, "from a sociological point of view" you seem to be quite correct.

interesting point, rich. re-runs of The Nanny could be shown. surely everybody knows Fran Drescher just isn't funny.

B. Newton. (but i gotta admit, the witty discourse between CC and the butler does crack me up.)

"Bert Newton" wrote:

Well, yes and no. Since laughter is often used as an external manifestation of "finding something funny," it could serve as evidence to an observer as such. The real point, though, was about the subconscious rationalization of unfunny stuff as funny, IYKWIM.

That goes without saying. ;-)

rich.

"This is Precious Roy, and I just ate a handful of honeybees!" -- Precious Roy.

Hey, I love that show... I watch it almost every day... Oh no, did I just reveal that I have bad taste in TV shows or that I have a twisted sense of humor?

Marie "And since I am dead, I can take off my head to recite Shakespearean quotations... " Jack Skelligton

Marie said:

I like the Nanny too, because the show reminds me of my childhood. My dad was a businessman with a lot of upper-class contacts; my mom was a classic Bronx Jew. Many of the situations in that show are like scenes from my childhood :)

Sincerely Yours, Jordan

"Man, as we know him, is a poor creature; but he is halfway between an ape and a god and he is travelling in the right direction." (Dean William R. Inge)

[email] (Marie) wrote:

It's okay-- it's just that Fran Drescher's voice gives me a very sharp, very painful headache. *Shudders*

rich. (who has his own Guilty Pleasures.)

Jake: The horror, the *horror* ...

On 21 Oct 1999 19:53:59 GMT, [email] (Marie) wrote:

Both, plus a hearing deficiency.

I couldn't make it past her voice long enough to even glimpse the humor.

In article , [email] writes:

While it's true that I have notoriously bad taste in movies and sitcoms... I must defend myself and say I also appriciate some of the finer offerings of tv and film... I am an enigma... ;)

Yes, I agree that her voice can be irritating but I have known people with worse voices... Who were worth knowing, anyway... And after a short while I stopped noticing her voice altogether... I actually find the voice of a certain air-headed cheerleader more annoying... But I certainly won't avoid "Daria" because of it. But I can see how it could turn some people off. :)

Marie

Indeed it could, but as you eluded to earlier, rich, it would be an interesting experiment to compare incidence of laughing vs. incidence of understanding and appreciating humour. So, in the context of "using arguments to convince" someone else that something is in fact funny, the occurance of laughter probably would correspond directly with finding humour, but that doesn't mean the two are always mutually inclusive, i.e., that if one's present, so must the other.

So, e.g. you tell them it's funny and they laugh, obviously doesn't necessarily mean they understood and appreciated the humour. But:

On the question of subconscious rationalization of unfunny stuff; i accept your point here, but really, if one convinces one's self that something is funny cos that's more convenient or appealing (even subconsciously), is that the same thing as "being convinced by argument"? I don't think so, do u? i mean, i know it's all academic, but i'd still like to draw a distinction there, so getting back to the original rant, i don't think you're really "being convinvenced" at all.

and what does IYKWIM mean?

Will.

PS: Oh, and people, Bert "ol' moon-face" Newton is a great Australian celebrity. In fact, he's a living national treasure, but it's sadly not my real name. And don't think i'm going to change my alias, one day Bert's going to drop in on ATD and be very grateful for my homage. maybe.

I wouldn't exactly call him a treasure. Antique maybe :). Ya know you've lost it when you host an infomercial show! - Jaymz

"If You Know What I Mean"

DJ

[email] wrote:

Actually, ISTR that several researchers have put forth the theory that humor actually serves an important sociological role-- we identify with the people we share a laugh with, and when we laugh together, we strengthen that social bond. I vaguely remember them saying something about solitary laughter, but I forgot what it was. Ah, well.

Hey, I laughed when I read it.

Yup, diff'rent strokes fer diff'rent folks.

rich.

Jane: You're a twisted little cruller, ain't'cha?

In article , [email] wrote:

Uh oh. I better find a cave and a bunch of canned goods, then, because I was the only one in the theatre not laughing at "The Waterboy". (And I was the only one - in a full theatre - I'm not joking - laughing at "The Big Lebowski". This isn't a really helpful post, I just had to say that because I *still* find it unbelievable.)

IK

In article ,

Absolutely. For example: some of us here liked B&B, others didn't, yet we are all Daria fans, so we all must be intelligent as well.

I tried to watch Tom Green a few times,but never could watch it for more than 10 min. because all of the humor comes from the sewer, and I can't stand most of it. You do, thats fine, for me MTV's best shows are their animation and thats it.

A.J.

On Sat, 09 Oct 1999 05:38:00 GMT, [email] wrote:

Um, no. There are plenty of stupid Daria fans. More than people like to admit, imnsho.

In article ,

I somehow forgot to reply to this the first time through this thread, but I agree with you and I like Tom Green and Daria on different levels too. My problem with this article (and the Villanovan in general - which I doubt anyone else here has ever heard of, let alone read) is that it used the worst possible example of Tom Green's comic talents. The way the whole thing was written made me feel that the author didn't really know the subject he was writing about (which I'm guessing isn't a good place to write articles from) or had a very limited knowledge and padded it with stuff he made up. It's like if I wrote a rant about how bad the Nashville Network is - it just can't be a well formed opinion because I've never really watched it. Also, I'm not one for making blanket statements about such large subjective area like the quality of television. Who is anyone to say that any show is the best or worst in "television history." At best all anyone can tell you is their favorite or least favorite of what they've seen, because it would be hard to believe that anyone could possibly know about every show that has ever existed.

Sorry about that tangent, I was like butter.

In article , Mike Quinn wrote:

Or that you could have a meaningful conversation with anyone that *had*, given that they'd be hopelessly, irrevocably insane by now. Think of it - all the television in history in one human brain ...

IK

R. K. Henry wrote:

Maybe the guy who wrote it is angry because he thinks one of the dumber characters is a parody of himself.:)

Len

Mike Quinn wrote:

<snip really ridiculous excerpt>

Well, anyone who thinks Kurt Loder is all right has a few screws loose in my book. My advice is to set this guy straight. Perhaps a tersely-addressed message to the author explaining that (a) Kurt Loder is a bozo and should be shot and (b) "Daria" is the smartest show out there. Just a suggestion.

Diane

In article , [email] wrote:

I've already written a letter to the editors that I will send as soon as I'm done here. This particular article is part of a trend in the campus paper that shows me (and I'm sure, countless others) that the columnists don't think about their articles too much before they right them. I agree with Kyle here, if you like Loder and hate Daria that's none of my business and it's OK, but the tone of this article made it seem to me that the author barely had a clue about what he was talking about (i.e. hasn't actually watched MTV for a while) and should have at least taken the time to think about his opinions before putting it in the paper. They seem to start out with interesting premises that run out of steam about half way through an article and they end up just filling up the rest with anything that comes to mind.

That, or the whole thing was sarcastic and I totally missed the point ;)