Which Countries Have The BEST, WORST, STRANGEST Sense Of Humor?

Self | December 24, 2002 | PJ-Comix

[IamHD]

"So how high over her roof has her grass grown?"

Grass? LOL What grass? Her backyard has turned into trees. When the city came out, they opened her gate, shut her gate and left. LOL They are pigs. I'm thankful that they live 400 yards from me. :) When her husband, (I think he left) would throw the trash out on trash day, he would fling it from the front door to the road, in the hopes that it would land in the right spot. From the door to the road is about 90 feet. (he missed, a lot.) LOL

[Mr. Mojo]

It could be simplified into two categories.

Best: U.S. and England.

Non-existent: France and Germany

[PJ-Comix]

It was the movie where the prison warden asked the prisoners if they had any questions and Woody Allen asked:

"Do you think couples should have premarital sex?"

[PJ-Comix]

Has there EVER been a comedy movie from Germany? If so I would like to see it just out of curiousity.

[RepoGirl]

On the whole, I'd say you're probably right--but I still maintain that Kids and SCTV were absolutely sublime stuff.

As for German comedy, you sure ain't kidding. I was once in a hotel room in London when I came across the German translation of the Simpsons on Sky TV--very, very, very odd.

[Squawk 8888]

Compare that to the French who have--what--Jerry Lewis? Anything else?

The French do occasionally come up some priceless movies that get remade by Hollywood. One of the best is La Cage aux Folles (remade as The Bird Cage), also Trois Hommes et un Couffin (Three Men and a Baby, not to my liking but still a hit) and Mon Père, ce Héros (My Father the Hero). The funniest French film I ever saw was Les Ripoux (My New Partner), which was about an old-timer vice cop in Paris breaking in the rookie.

[Allan]

Has there EVER been a comedy movie from Germany?

I saw one a few years back, but I forget its name.
It was about an up-tight business man
whose wife has an affair with a hippy.
The business man looks up the hippy
to find out what his wife sees in him
and ends up trying to reform him.
In the end, the hippy becomes a business man and gets the wife
while the business man becomes a hippy.

It had its funny moments.

[PJ-Comix]

The funniest TV show was Russian by way of Canada's SCTV. It was a satire of My Mother The Car where Nikita Khruschev comes back reincarnated as a tractor on a commune. Anyway, Khruschev as the tractor was giving romantic advice to a lovelorn communal farmer. Absolutely the most HILARIOUS skit I've ever seen. It was part of C3P1 TV which was the SCTV satirical Russian TV channel.

[Squawk 8888]

Oberst Von Scherbach: How do you expect to win the war with an army of clowns?
J.J. Sefton: We sort of hope you'd laugh yourself to death.

Wenn ist das Nunstruck git und Slotermeyer? Ja! .. Beiherhund das Oder die Flipperwaldt gersput!

http://www.graphicszone.net/monty_python/scripts/Series_1/7.htm

[my right]

you vill eat it and you vill enjoy it..

[Allan]

By the way, amongst the continental Europeans,
I think the Hungarians have the greatest sense of humour.

[Revolting cat!]

I don't know about the Germans' sense of humour and I'd probably agree with the prevailing sentiment. But the French and the Italians produced what this country hasn't produced since the early Chaplin, Keaton and Lloyd (and others to be sure,) great talkies comics, Fernandel, Bourvil (France,) Toto, Alberto Sordi (Italy.) There were others too.

I'm talking 1950s and 60s, past the era of vaudeville comics like the Marx Brothers, and similar acts. We never seemed to develop (I think) decent sound movie comics. One liners, like the quoted above lines from early Woody Allen? That's television, radio stuff. Big screen requires physical comedy like that of Laurel and Hardy or of the Honeymooners. Fernandel and Toto had mastered it! Check them out!

[Revolting cat!]

I think that the Eastern Europeans, as far as I know, excel at cutting satire, skits and such. When I was there this past summer I saw some of it on the tube, and I can tell you that our SNL, as good as it can get, has nothing on them. The politicians are mixed with dirt, totally contemptuous humour with no holds barred (Needless to say, I didn't quite understand most of it!) In any event, the years under communism helped them develop the most subversive kind of humour, that we can never equal.

[Jorge]

I think some English get the prize for the driest, most sarcastic sense of humor...with that subtle wit, that makes you think twice about whether they are really joking or not.

At the opposite end of the spectrum is a Vietnamese girl I work with, who laughs at the stupidest most simple-minded things imaginable. The boss actually had to tell me to try to tone things down a bit because nearly everything I said had her laughing all day long...and other employees complained that we were having too much fun.

[Revolting cat!]

Fernandel und Toto.

[ErnBatavia]

Laughing Japanese? Shittoobadjoe!

[Redleg Duke]

That is patently false! The French have absolutely no sense of humor...or sense for that matter!

[sushiman]

Funniest stuff I've seen/heard was Brit ...Benny Hill ( corny but funny nevertheless ) , Monty Python , Fawlty Towers ...with the exception of SCTV which is one of my all-time fave comedy shows .

[Revolting cat!]

Then, there is our strange relationship (relationship? Paging Dr Chopra!) to puns. English, being the richest, blah, blah, language on this whatchamacallit planet, has a high potential for puns. But do we love 'em or do we hate 'em? The routine is to boo puns and punsters. Is that just a ritual, and we really, really do luve 'em, or what? I never understood it. Seriously!

[hoot2]

"Que???"