[PJ-Comix]

Argentines are notorious for having the worst sense of humor in South America. I visited there once and I can tell you that they won't think your Evita jokes are the least bit funny. Don't joke in Argentina about Evita, Juan Peron, escaping Nazis, or any other subject. They just won't laugh.

[2 Kool 2 Be 4-Gotten]

Reminds of the John Cleese routine from Faulty Towers where Basil tells all of the staff to be sure and not bring up "the war" with the German guests as they are very sensitive about it. And by the end of the sketch Basil has mentioned the war a dozen times and ends up goosestepping around the restaurant with this index finger as a fake handlebar mustache. A truly great moment.

[rpage3]

I'd say the Brits as evidenced by the sheer number of ORIGINAL sitcoms they've made (and continue to make). Hell, on my tour of the Tower of London this past summer, even the Beefeater was a riot...(with a well-honed act, presumably).

[gaspar]

Argentines take themselves much, much to seriously. To sneer is to demonstrate a sense of humor in Buenos Aires. In that city much of the population seems stuck in some sort of Stalinist time-warp where a good bellylaugh would mean the Gulag.

On the other hand, Mexicans are devilishly good comics, and Cantinflas was a veritable genius in the way he handled the Spanish language. Slapstick now seems to be the preferred genre on U.S. Spanish-speaking channels, but wit is occasionally employed, thank God.

[RedWhiteBlue]

Maybe that is because the Argentines are the subject of so many jokes in South America? I didn't realize that until I went to dinner one night with several people from Latin America - some from Mexico, Brazil, Venezuela, and Argentina. One of them got on a role, telling one "Argentine joke" after another. I even felt uncomfortable. Apparently, the rest of Latin America thinks that Argentines think they are better than the others (more European blood), and all of the jokes center around this self-assumed superiority. As an example:

Argentine son: "Father, when I grow up, I want to be just like you!" The father swells up and says "Oh, why is that?" The son replies "so that I can have a son JUST LIKE ME!"