Anti-humor

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Anti-humor is a type of indirect humor that involves the joke-teller delivering something which is deliberately not funny, or lacking in intrinsic meaning. The audience is expecting something humorous, and when this does not happen, the irony itself is of comedic value. It is considered to be very postmodern.

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[edit] Common examples

The most common example of anti-joke is "Why did the chicken cross the road?" with the answer, "To get to the other side." This joke is so common that it has passed into regular humor, but it illustrates that punchlines in anti-jokes can achieve their effect by being mundane. Another example is:

"What do you get when you cross a muffin with chocolate chips?"
"A chocolate-chip muffin."

In writing, it is common to put a fullstop after the punchline of the anti-joke rather than an exclamation mark to reflect its dry and superficially non-humorous tone. Anti-jokes may rely on deconstruction of the joke, deriving comedy from the unexpected or inappropriate use of technical or circumlocutional language (crossing into meta-joke):

"Three blind mice walk into a bar. They are unaware of their surroundings, so to derive humour from their predicament would be exploitative."- Bill Bailey

The no soap radio joke, often used as a prank, is a common example of anti-humor.

Another form of anti-joke is commonly called a shaggy dog story after the joke which exemplifies it. It involves telling an extremely long joke with an intricate (and sometimes horribly grisly) back story and surreal or incredibly repetitive plotline, but ending the story with either a weak spoonerism (e.g.'Better Nate than lever!'), or abruptly stopping with no punchline at all. Versions of these jokes may take up to several minutes to tell. The Aristocrats is an adult version of this formula.

Some anti-jokes are humorous because they involve shock humor or dark humor — unexpectedly blunt and graphic punchlines which often reference death, infanticide and terminal illness.

"What did the little boy with no arms or legs get for Christmas?"
"Cancer."
"Knock, knock."
"Who's there?"
"The police. I'm afraid there's been a serious road traffic accident; your partner is in intensive care."

[edit] Anti-humor in stand-up comedy

Anti-humor jokes are often associated with exaggeratedly bad stand-up comedians. One legitimately successful stand-up comedian, Andy Kaufman, had his own unique brand of anti-humor, quasi-surrealist acts coupled with performance art.

Ted Chippington's act contained non-jokes delivered in a Midlands monotone. Jimmy Carr is noted for his anti-humor style, anti-jokes being told with a straight face and very precise delivery. Bill Bailey is also noted for his particular brand of anti/meta-humor. John Thomson's stand up character, Bernard Right-on, would deliver set-ups to un-PC jokes (in the style of Bernard Manning), but confound the audience with tolerant, deliberately unamusing punchlines, eg. "A white man, a black man and an Indian walk into a bar. What a wonderful example of an integrated society".

[edit] Subversions of traditional jokes

These anti-jokes rely on using widely known jokes which the audience is likely to have heard before. Instead of ending the joke in the usual humorous way, a mundane substitute is used, resulting in an anticlimax.

Q: Waiter! What's this fly doing in my soup?
A: Oh, I'm terribly sorry sir, I’ll replace this with a fresh bowl of soup and I’ll have a word with the manager to see if we can deduct a sum from your bills for the inconvenience we have caused you. (Usually 'the backstroke'.)
Q: What's the difference between a chicken and the Kyoto Protocol?
A: One is a domestic fowl; the other is an international convention on climate change. (The "one is an x, the other is a y" response structure usually implies a Spoonerism.)
Q: What did the farmer say when he lost his tractor?
A: "Where's my tractor?" (A "what did the ... say" joke usually implies a humorous pun involving the person.)
Q: What's worse than finding a worm in an apple?
A: The Holocaust. (Usually 'Finding half a worm'.)
Q: What do you call a fish with no I's?
A: Blind. (Usually 'Fsh')
I was sitting next to a man with jelly in one ear and custard in the other, so I turned to him and said "Are you a trifle deaf?" and he said "no, I'm mentally ill as it happens" ~ Paul Merton
Q: What did Batman say to Robin to get him in the car?
A: "Get in the car"

Some jokes derive humor from wordplay and puns. They are subverted through substituting the pun with an equivalent phrase with no such linguistic device, creating a cognitive dissonance with the superficial resemblance to the original.

Q: When is a door not a door?
A: When it is half-open. (usually 'When it is ajar')
That mushroom is a really charismatic person (usually 'fungi')

Other jokes rely on parts of a joke told in the wrong order or parts of different jokes told together, creating an effect similar to non-sequitur.

Knock Knock
Come in.
My dog's got no nose!
Terrible.
Knock Knock
KNOCK KNOCK
KNOCK! KNOCK!

[edit] Nonsense jokes

A nonsense joke is one that lacks any coherent meaning, becoming funny simply because it is absurd. A classic example of a nonsense joke is:-

Q: What is the difference between a duck?
A: One of its legs are both the same.

[edit] See also

[edit] External links

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