Make Me Laugh: The Comedy Thread

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we like to make each other laugh on this fine forum. there’s the show me anything thread, wacky stories one might find in the goofy stuff from your life thread, the bits and banter of our fellow posters…

that said, i thought there might be enough space for a thread not only dedicated to laughing, but also to conversation about “comedy.” like video games, the world of comedy is very broad and it can be hard to sift through all of the garbage or find fellow discerning individuals for commiserating.

so i will kick the thread off with some things i find funny. given my age and general online presence, none of this should be too surprising.

the brian’s hat sketch is like…maybe the funniest produced sketch i’ve ever seen on tv. such an exact sense of humor.

unfortunately this isn’t the full clip, but if you want more tim robinson i urge you to watch his episode of the netflix show “characters,” especially for rog king of the slams.

i think most of us know frequent tim robinson collaborator connor o malley, but if you don’t let this be a fine introduction

@Garrett.exe and i once said that in another world, the birthday boys achieve a level of fame similar to ITYSL. in retrospect i don’t think this is true, but they are still very funny.

kyle mooney kinda feels like a time capsule from a very particular point in internet history, but i used to watch his videos on repeat. rewatching these now, they’re still funny, but also very 2012. sadly i think SNL kinda killed his momentum.

this doesn’t fit anywhere but i remembered it when searching around

on cinema at the cinema is probably the funniest thing both conceptually and in practice that i’ve ever seen. i don’t even know where to begin with it. honestly deserves its own thread.

need more be said?

this isn’t a comedy video but i think a pretty thoughtful video on why so much of comedy sucks now, especially the joe rogan scene

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For a masterclass on comedy, I recommend going into my post history

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I need to post at least one obvious thing before @MoH takes it all. Even got Mooney in here before me smh

Just watch this show if you haven’t yet. I just picked the first one that popped up on YouTube because it’s all gold

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I used to show Nathan for you clips in the creative writing classes I taught

Admin note: this user is no longer employed by any accredited university

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Also, I stand by this to an extent. Tim has something elemental that they don’t (doesn’t necessarily make it better or worse, it’s just a different energy) but they were ahead of their time.

You can’t tell me September Santa wouldn’t at least be Bozo dubbed over level if it was on ITYSL

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Got heavy into Tim Robinson and Conner O’Malley and Fred Armisen and Tim Heidecker last year. I am insufferable irl because of the way I construct and commit to jokes and I have never felt more seen in my life. A life-affirming, where-has-this-been type of big deal for me lol.

Right now I’m watching Detroiters and Joe Pera Talks With You, as well as the current season of On Cinema.

I cannot watch either of these without laughing so hard I almost sweat

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You know I love the birthday boys…but none of their skits explode a quote in my brain the same way I do with “Oh FUCKKK” at the mere mention of bozo dubbed over

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Fred Armisen is a guy I can’t help but admire.

Like this is a perfect example—funny for a general audience without dumbing things down too much for the real heads

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I contend that the funniest single episode of television that I can think of right now is Curb Your Enthusiasm, Season 1, Episode 5.

The funniest single season of television is Curb Your Enthusiasm, Season 4.

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I’m not denying your lived experience of course but I have a twin brother and before ITYSL it was our most quoted show to each other probably lol

Our favorite was the one where Mitch has the mountain dew bottle full of milk, so we would always say “I guess there’s nothing left to do but to drink this milk.”

And there’s this one too, which I urge everyone who participates in the politics thread to watch

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Also this has my vote for top 20, maybe 10 of all SNL sketches.

Number one is obviously caveman lawyer.

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Anyway I think my favorite ITYSL these days is Tim Heidecker as the older boyfriend playing charades.

Edit: not charades. Password or whatever. I don’t know if this is gonna help but he was also on the Colgate hour

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Dude this one is so funny lmao

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Cartwright? Cartwright?

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okay, one more fred armisen clip, this one with david cross. this little riff from the podcast is SO funny to me. the way fred armisen talks about getting on a plane is something i quote all the time. time stamped link but starts at 20:00. kinda keeps being funny from there:

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Here’s an intentionally controversial question: are movies actually really that funny?

I feel like I have laughed more at any 3 individual episodes of Nathan For You more than I have ever laughed at any movie.

Maybe a kinder way of putting this is that I think the medium of film doesn’t necessarily lend itself well to comedy. When I think of movies that are powerfully funny, I end up thinking of movies that are basically like really long episodes of television (think Jackass or Monty Python).

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i feel the same way. there is maybe one funny movie for ever 1,000,0000 “funny” movies. and that movie is step brothers.

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Movies are gold!! They just get bad reviews by critics where TV slips by

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Maybe it’s more, like, unfunny movies are so much more painful than unfunny TV, just based on runtime, especially when that runtime is devoted to a similar subject or the same overall tone or mood.

When I was still working at the harm reduction site, two of the most subtly affecting experiences I had there were when different coworkers on different occasions put on both I Love You, Man and Grown Ups 2. Spiritually withering experience to even just be in the same room as those things occurring…

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Some of my personal history – I was a super early adopter of podcasts (around 2008) so end of high school and throughout college I was big into podcasts. Comedy Bang Bang (or Comedy Death Ray for the old heads) was one of my earliest podcasts and the whole LA alt comedy scene was kind of formative to my tastes. Later on when I moved to LA it was a hobby of mine to go to shows, because on a random night you could see the Maria Bamfords, Chelsea Perettis, Hannibal Buresses, etc play small rooms and do experimental stuff. I was also lightly involved with the podcast scene before podcasts became a household word, I volunteered with the first couple LA Podfests and met a lot of those people and LA’s a small place when you’re in your 20s and I was friendly with some people who worked at Nerdist and Cracked and UCB and I was peripherally around that scene.

But a lot of that comedy lost relevance to my life after 2017, I had other shit going on and I think post-Trump standup comedy had no idea where to go. The Weird Twitter and over the top absurdist stuff took over. Even really mainstream stuff like Joe Rogan overtaking Marc Maron that the age of storytelling comedy was ending. Nanette was the coup de grace that killed alt standup. Then the whole pandemic thing.

I feel a little out of touch with modern stuff. Like, I can only take the Tim Robinsons and Connor O’Malley in like 5 minute chunks. I could never imagine a 45 minute set. Maybe Julio Torres tho, he’s great.

Post-Tiktok going to comedy shows is awful. The audience is no longer people in the room, now it’s people online. Now it’s just a race to do the worst crowdwork I’ve ever seen. I honestly don’t really know how comedy fits into my life any more, so I’m just gonna be a comedy boomer and still listening to Paul F Tompkins when I’m 80.

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