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?

I love jokes but I can NEVER remember them. Literally the only joke I can remember is not even funny:

• When is a door not a door?
• When its ajar.

Told you it wasnt funny.

(Also my computer doesnt do apostrophes on mumsnet anymore - sorry, fellow pedants).

@WhenDanMetHelen 😂

Well it's kind of subjective isn't it 🤷🏻‍♀️

You're right, a lot of comedy is about parody or satire. The key thing here is "punching up". That means only mocking people who have more power or are somehow more privileged than you.
So, your average joe satirising those in power - punching up. Someone wealthy parodying those living paycheck to paycheck or on benefits - punching down. The idea is you mock people in your own socioeconomic group (etc) or above, you don't mock people less fortunate than yourself, because that's just bullying. There's a lot more examples than that, but you get the drift.

All those Bob Monkhouse jokes are really lame and unfunny though. They're mostly typical 'dad jokes' that people groan at rather than laugh!

I disagree. If the joke isn’t ‘punching down’ for the comedian but it would be if you said it, can you still laugh at it? Why do jokes hurt wealthy people less? Would Caroline Flack have had the resilience as a wealthy able bodied white woman, to laugh at jokes made about her?

Am I the only person whose mouth didn’t even twitch at any of that?

Sorry, but those made me genuinely lol.
But then I prefer the old school humour of such as Jim Davidson, Benny Hill and Bernard Manning.

Davidson and Manning are racist.

These are all shit cliched gags.

I love jokes; I had a child at school laughing like a drain at thus one earlier...

What do you call a man with a seagull on his head?

Cliff.

The old ones are 😘

I never said they weren't.
I adore Alf Garnett too.

It's interesting how we all think we are the arbiters of what objectively is and isn't funny. Very little "this is my sort of humour and that isn't" and lots of definitive declarations that "this is funny" and "this is not".

It is quite unusual for people to admit they enjoy racism, most of their fans claim Davidson and Manning are not actually racist.

I really love old-school comedy, but I'm so sad that every time I try to engage with a show, there seems to be a joke where the punchline is "someone gets sexually harassed or assaulted, usually a woman". That's not to say that there aren't some amazing performances and writing in other material from the time - there's just so much "punching down".

My view is that these things always made people from the target groups feel bad, but until recently they weren't made to feel safe enough to talk about it.

I'd take a few overzealous woke people speaking on other people's behalf over the rampant discrimination and brutishness of the past any day. The values of the past may have made people like me (white British woman) feel as if they were more "free", but freedom at the expense of vulnerable groups is not real freedom at all.

“I use to spend my entire life talking in cliche’s … BUT NOW … I avoid them like the plague!”
Which well known comedian said that?

It's interesting how we all think we are the arbiters of what objectively is and isn't funny. Very little "this is my sort of humour and that isn't" and lots of definitive declarations that "this is funny" and "this is not".

most people who are engaging with this thread who aren't hankering for the halcyon days of Jim Davidson and Bernard Manning (both racist) are saying exactly the opposite: that tastes vary. But most are also saying that punching up not down is the way to go.

WHICH WELL KNOWN COMEDIAN TOLD THIS JOKE?
THIS Christmas I gave my children two packs of batteries with a label that read, ‘Toys not included!’

“I used to live next door to a midwife, I popped round to see her the other day and found her trying to wallpaper the hallway through the letterbox” (Bob Monkhouse)

It's ridiculous to say there are no jokes any more and no one has a sense of humour.
There is a lot of good comedy around now; and there was plenty of non-offensive comedy in the 70s and 80s. Delighted to see Dave Allen mentioned, and The Phantom Raspberry Blower of Old London Town!

Some old fashioned victimless jokes that have made me smile:

I entered ten puns in a contest hoping one would win.
No pun in ten did.

Two wind turbines are standing on a wind farm. One asks, ‘What’s your favourite kind of music?’
The other replies, ‘I’m a big metal fan.’

I took the shell off of my racing snail, thinking it would make him faster.
But if anything, it made him more sluggish.

How much space was freed in the EU after Brexit?
Approximately 1 GB.

I’ve been trying to make a sarcastic club, but it’s been really hard to tell if people are interested in joining or not.

And the Lord said unto John, “Come forth and you will receive eternal life."
But John came 5th and won a toaster.

To whoever stole my Microsoft Office, I'm going to make you pay!
You have my Word

What’s the most terrifying word in nuclear physics?
“Oops!”

I own the world’s worst thesaurus.
Not only is it awful, it’s awful.

If I had 50p for every maths test I'd failed, I’d have £6.30 now.

I can say it's a fascist state if I want to... it's a free country!

😁

Why do jokes hurt wealthy people less

They don’t but apparently they deserve it in some way and they can’t answer back as that would be ‘punching down’.

If this what you call comedy?

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-edinburgh-east-fife-62626292

Plus the entire genres of improv and physical comedy, for example.

Bob Monkhouse:
“that new M25 motorway has got serious problems … one very enterprising young man is offering motorists, while they wait in the gridlock, the opportunity to have their portraits painted in oils!”