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?

Either way it sounds like a joke from a child in infant school

*To what extent does your disability give you a free pass, and to what extent do other people have a right to silence you because it offends them?

there's a lot of disingenuous twaddle on the thread and this is one of the worst. The poster said they made jokes about their own disability. THEIR disability which is personal to them. Other people may get their nose put out of joint, but they are not the butt of that particular joke. And that is the difference.*

Thanks for explaining this @Brefugee

YouSir , if that situation happened, I would apologise for upsetting the friend of a friend and explain why I sometimes make fun of my own disability, which is to help cope with it, and because it's my life and I can laugh at myself if I like. If someone was upset by a particular joke due to previous bullying etc, I'd stop immediately and apologise. It would probably actually spark an interesting conversation where we'd bond over being bullied for our disabilities. Although I can't see your hidden disability hypothetical friend of a friend situation happening, because I'm not making jokes about disability in general, I'm making it about my own disabilities, and if someone had a hidden disability they're unlikely to get upset about me joking about my very much not hidden wheelchair. An example would be me saying "oh yes haha, pop your bag on the back there, I'm just here as the truck after all" as a joke because my electric wheelchair can carry heavy stuff with no detriment to me, so i usually offer to carry stuff on daytrips

Anyway, I don't really have to think about a hypothetical situation where I might hang out with other disabled people (imagine!). 99% of my friends are disabled, we all joke about our disabilities and talk about them seriously, we've all been bullied, excluded, discriminated against for it. And we'd all 100% stand up for one another if a non-disabled person made fun of us. In this community it's acceptable to make fun of your own disability, not other people's. It's not a blanket situation.

I think that's exactly it. Bob Monkhouse was actually a very skilled comedian; it was all in the delivery, the pacing, the facial expressions (or lack of) and the tone of voice. A bit like Dave Allen, Marti Caine or Les Dawson.

His is also a style of comedy that was very in-fashion at a certain time, and fell out of fashion at some point in the 1990s.

Saw a policeman with a poodle on the lead. Asked him why he had a poodle, he said “It’s my police dog innit.” “Police dog? It’s a poodle!”. “yeh well ‘e’s plain clothes isn’t he”.

only inoffensive and funny joke I heard Jim Davidson tell.

Which Comedian told this joke?

”I once bought my kids a set of batteries for Christmas with a note on it saying, toys not included.“

You’ll get a shock but is that because of historical fashion, cancel culture or just people being judgmental?

What on earth is shocking about that joke? It's inoffensive to the point of being unfunny!

Me too. Mnetters would have a fit

Bob Monkhouse - I remember when it was all over the news someone stole his joke book - was it you op ? 😂

But comedy is designed to offend. The heart of it is that it parodies or satirises society. Knock knock jokes and jokes about dogs might be ok for 9 year olds, but adults need something a bit more than that. I remember Daisy May Cooper saying they deliberately didn’t use offensive humour in This Country because ‘if you need to do that, you’re not very funny’. But the series pokes fun at terminally ill people, the elderly (in a big way - ‘load of old stinkers’) and Christianity etc.

Whether or not you find something offensive just depends on the affinity you have with the group being mocked, because there always is one.

Still plenty of humour and jokes round where I live and work.
Me too. Mnetters would have a fit

Me too. Mnetters may love it if it's their type of humour. What it is (at home) is mostly puns. At work - it could be anything.
What they have in common is they don't belittle people (the work people did tell a few jokes when the Queen died - and my boss actually messaged me to ask if i wanted him to pull them up on it, he knows me well, i didn't) and they don't punch down. The other thing they have in common is that not all of us find all the jokes hilarious or even amusing all the time.

But in ‘this country’ aren’t we laughing at Kerrie and Kurtan for how they’re behaving? Rather than at their targets?

Well yes but Mners wouldn’t agree with that if the jokes were about the disabled or gay people, would they?

There was a thread about The Office on here a while ago, most people responded to say the jokes had aged badly and were racist/homophobic/ableist etc. Which baffled me as I thought it was clear we were laughing at Brent and his tragic lack of self awareness in thinking he was an enlightened renaissance man.

It seems people can see the ‘real target’ only if the joke isn’t about a certain list of groups.

I agree that in the office we are laughing at Brent - it’s actually quite slickly done. Same in regard to extras - he quite deftly pokes fun without punching down or resorting to racist jokes

I just made one up!

Which world leader was the most relaxing?

Nelson Mandala 😂

What I don’t like is comedians like Frankie Boyle. He’s so cowardly it’s embarrassing - he’ll happily pick on a disabled/missing child (Harvey Price, Madeleine McCann) but won’t joke about trans people as it’s ‘lazy’ (aka he needs to stay in with his woke Guardian following). Just a cowardly bellend really.

Yeah he’s rubbish - just a bit try hard and doesn’t follow through his own reasoning - plus he’s really not funny

I’m a bit surprised to hear people think the office is poking fun at minorities - it really isn’t. It’s a comic tragedy poking fun at an entitled middle aged white man, who hasn’t much self awareness, whilst also managing to humanise him.

He’s obsessed with Ricky Gervais as well - he can’t seem to move his lips without saying why Ricky ‘isn’t funny’ or ‘isn’t a comedian’. He’s so transparently jealous

He’s a poser liberal - pseudo comedian

Unlike stewart lee who really is part of the metropolitan liberal elite, but hilarious too 😂

Well put

comedy is designed to offend

No it isn’t, not specifically. It varies with different types of comedy but I would say the most important element is incongruence.

Go on then, tell me a funny joke that doesn’t make something it’s specific target, that isn’t at the mental level of an eight year old.

MORE BOB MONKHOUSE:

“I'd never be unfaithful to my wife for the reason that I love my house very much.”

“My wife said: 'Can my mother come down for the weekend?' So I said: 'Why?' and she said: 'Well, she's been up on the roof two weeks already'.”

“Silence is not only golden; it is seldom misquoted.”

“Real happiness is when you marry a girl for love and find out later she has money.”

“A tom cat hijacked a plane, stuck a pistol into the pilot's ribs and demanded: 'Take me to the canaries'.”

I don't think comedy needs to offend in order to be funny. I think the cleverest and best comedians are those who don't need to be at all offensive in order to be funny.