Jokes - are they a thing of the past?

[WhenDanMetHelen]

Growing up in the 1960’s … humour was all around but nowadays it’s difficult because it’s based on different parameters that can’t touch on stereotypes etc …

Modern day examples sound funny but apart from the World’s Funniest Joke (as told by Monty Python) it was so funny that everyone who read it, allegedly died laughing, a lot of comedy we’re told is funny - just isn’t -

I read a joke online last week;
If you go into a bathroom as an American and Come out of the bathroom as an American … What are you while you’re in the bathroom?

ANSWER:
European!

What kind of jokes (these days) make you laugh?

In my local pub there are loads of jokes banter piss taking
Anyone who is anyway pc would hate it
We love it

so what are these hilarious jokes? Banter and piss taking are FINE if the target of the banter and the piss taking are also ok with it. Look, i used to be a woman in a branch of the army that had very very few of us. Nowadays in the fb groups we will often see "oh the bantz were so great, eh, Bref[" and i say "you mean all the tit jokes? or the cunt jokes? or the racist ones aimed at X, Y and Z? No we didn't enjoy those at all"
which gets followed up with "well, you never said" So fuck that shit. we did say. And were called the 80s equivalent of snowflakes and it got worse.

So i say again: what are these great 70s jokes that you can't say now. Let's have a look at them?

Forgot about Billy Connoly - he was great without punching down. the aforementioned Jasper Carrot, Dave Allen (also a great one for poking gentle, but also scathing, fun at the Catholic church), even acts like Little & Large, the 2 Ronnies, Morecombe & Wise etc did sketches and jokes that were just laugh out loud funny without being mean or punching down. As a kid i hated the Ronnie Corbett bit in that huge chair - seeing them as an adult, i can recognise how clever they were.

Blackadder is bloody genius (Series 3 and 4 anyway, I'm not so keen on the others). The delivery was just always spot on - Baldrick's absolute belief that his dad was a nun.

Private Baldrick : You know my dad was a nun.
Captain Blackadder : No he wasn't.
Private Baldrick : He was too, sir. Cause whenever he was up in court and the judge asked "occupation", he'd say "none".

That made me LOL. Brilliant.

I imagine comedians are nervous as who knows which way the wind will blow.
I never found Little Britain funny - I thought it was crude and coarse and awful, but plenty of people did like it.

I find most people dull & lacking in fun & humour these days. So I tend to gravitate to the few left that aren’t offended at everything.

I really like Ricky Gervais because he doesn’t conform as much as the others. I’m getting in lots of Only Fools & Horses, Faulty Towers, Benidorm & Extras before they’re banned!

Me too. Everyone seems to be anxious, serious or ‘quietly spoken’ aka withdrawn.

My favourite was ‘Georgina’ romancing Stephen Fry. We all know who would be objecting to that these days…

Ricky Gervais
Jimmy Carr
Alan Partridge

I find these all funny.

Some are but not all of them. None in our family anyway.

I don't think there are fewer jokes around these days. There are just fewer shitty jokes around, and people actually have to make an effort to be funny. Jokes based on race, sexual orientation, ethnicity, misogyny etc. were never funny in the first place.

Straight male White comedians will be a thing of the past .

I can't think of any racially sensitive Monty Python material. A few things that might be considered sexist or homophobic....would have to watch again. (The skit with all the soldiers doing a somewhat effeminate dance and making the commanding officer uncomfortable for reasons he can't articulate.

I think that a fair few of jokes along these lines (remember The Work That Turned in the 2 Ronnies?) make fun of the way society stereotypes people rather than of the people. Althogh the Lumberjack song is a bit close to offensive, if you read the mounties' reaction as surprise at a lumberjack being a cross dresser it's a lot more palatable.

What about Hyacinth Bucket? It was very funny, actually, poking fun at her middle-class pretensions -but i don't notice many people complaining that it was punching down on a middle aged woman who might have been many things but grew up in a time when women gave up jobs on marriage, couldn't get a mortgage even if they did have a well paying job, and couldn't open a bank account without a male's countersignature. And not to talk about the shitshow that happened to their pensions. Even so: it was clearly poking gentle fun and the things that happened to her not life-changingly awful.

The comment about Alf Garnett above equally so: he was clearly the but of the joke, the racist old git. Same with Rigsby in Rising Damp: in a way that was very subversively telling people to stop being classist racist twats among other things.

So no, not everything about past comedy and jokes was bad at all, far from it.

Which makes me wonder exactly WHICH of these old jokes and sitcoms people think they can't mention now? when clearly so many of them still stand up today. Which are the jokes they can't possibly tell now? GO ON? Which ones?

@girlfriend44 there are still comedians that specialise in one liners. Go and see someone like Tim Vine, Milton Jones, Masai Graham, Mark Simmons etc

Since when?

I like quick one liners.
Comedians don't tell jokes anymore it's all stories which aren't even funny by the time you get to the end?

@girlfriend44 we've mentioned the king of One-Liners several times already: Tim Vine (yes, Jeremy's broher)

as for the 2nd part: Dave Allen was very funny, and took a whole half hour show to get to his punchline. It's not that it was half anout without a laugh though, plenty along the way. Observational comedy works like that, and it's fine if you don't like it. As we have seen from this thread there are lots of different types of humour, you have to find the good ones that appeal to you.

My favourite joke (the Thor joke - if you know it you know it) is a bit of a piss take of people, but it is bloody hilarious.

Another one interested in why blackadder is so problematic?

Same with the faux outrage around friends - yes it's ridiculous to not put it in the context of when it was produced and expect a comedy show from the 1990s to magically have the same values as if it was made thirty years later. But nobody's saying that it wouldn't get made today - just that if it was made today SOME of the jokes like the homophobic/trans/weight related ones wouldn't be included because they are offensive. But then those ones were never particulalry funny anyway - 90% of the jokes are perfectly fine and are still enjoyable (including teens who were too young to enjoy it first time around) - the fake tan episode, eating Ross's sandwich, moo point etc.

So no suggestion that people under 40 don't have a sense of humour- they just don't like comedy that punches down.

But nobody's saying that it wouldn't get made today - just that if it was made today SOME of the jokes like the homophobic/trans/weight related ones wouldn't be included because they are offensive

that's a very good point. And now i want someone to come along and say "but they're the BEST part of the show". Because from what I'm reading there was, and still is, plenty of diverse comedy around that wasn't/isn't problematic.

I am having a hard time wondering what all these fabulous jokes are that can no longer be told. Is it the Jim Davidson stuff about his mate Chalky? They were cringeworthy then and they are cringeworthy now. HTH

They cant make kljoke without someone being offended .

yOu CaN't JoKe AbOuT aNyThInG aNy MoRe 😆

If all these humour-filled over 40s literally can't think of anything to joke about that doesn't insult someone then that's on them, and maybe they're not as funny as they think they are. 🍵

Under 40s laugh at memes and daft stuff all day long. We just don't like lazy stereotypes 😊

WHAT ARE THESE OFFENSIVE JOKES? Don't keep them all for yourselves. I have a hugely warped sense of humour, i feel i'm missing out

It would be reported then deleted

OP I agree I think humour is such a mine field these days as everybody gets offended and pc culture is rife. The days of sitcom like Cheers and Friends on mainstream tv are gone now as if you watch them now so many would get offended by their jokes now. I be very careful who is around when I make jokes or talk about anything controversial.

Even the story lines that were seen as endearing back in the day like desperate housewives and Gabrielle with her underage gardener wouldn't go down well these days.

I find people under the age of Forty to be humourless and dour.
They look for offence in absolutely everything.
Can't say this, can't joke about that. Oh fuck off!
Drives me mad

mn is like this and I'd say many of the posters are over 40.

The days of sitcom like Cheers and Friends on mainstream tv are gone now as if you watch them now so many would get offended by their jokes now. I be very careful who is around when I make jokes or talk about anything controversial.

what? what is it you can't say? I am very confused. I say a lot of stuff, apparently 99% of what i say is utter tripe. But it doesn't offend anyone (unless they're not telling me). so what is it you can't say?

Generally - so you don't get reported and the message deleted. You can DM me the good jokes, i promise not to report you.

I am fascinated by the idea that people can't say liTerAllY AnYthInG because the snowflakes have made all speech untenable. As though we all flap our arms round like seals to communicate.

OK so on MN I'm most likely to complain about ageism on a thread. There is a lot of it.

I will report insults, especially racist, homophobic or ableist. Or comments of that ilk. Is it this kind of thing that people want to tell jokes about so badly? OUT WITH IT