Online comedy Posted Fri Jun 23 09:38:10 BST 2000 by dr_hackenbush

The vast majority of people are not funny. Maybe they are when they're winding up their mates but they couldn't do it on stage or in writing.
That includes the "mighty" Boosh and Reeves and Mortimer, IMHO. Their acts are comedy for people without friends because they consist mostly of in-jokes or stupidity.
Lee and Herring are so much better than, say, R&M as the running jokes are always part of carefully constructed sketches, and the stupidity is always mixed with intelligence.
The fact that most people can't be funny is amply demonstrated by the comedy website situation. All you need is access to a PC and maybe £30 for a domain name - and what is there out there? The Onion, TVGoHome, Brunching Shuttlecocks (maybe) and ... er, that's it. Everything else is derivative, badly written wank like The Gusset, The Mushroom, Mediapill etc.
Or have I missed some good funny sites?


Subject: Re: Online comedy [ Previous Message ]
Posted By Jon on Mon Jun 26 16:02:54 BST 2000:

"Everything else is derivative, badly written wank..."

Although I agree, I cannot resist noting the irony that this comes from someone who chooses to post under the name of the Groucho character from a Marx Bros film... (the one where he's a bogus psychiatrist, forgotten the name).

What's the address of Brunching Shuttlecocks? I've never heard of it. Also, what's the address of Gusset, so I can judge it for myself (haven't seen it yet).


Subject: Re: Online comedy [ Previous Message ]
Posted By dr_h on Tue Jun 27 08:46:35 BST 2000:


>Although I agree, I cannot resist noting the irony that this comes from someone who chooses to post under the name of the Groucho character from a Marx Bros film... (the one where he's a bogus psychiatrist, forgotten the name).
>

A fair point, although I don't expect anyone to be amused by my plagiarism. Full marks, er, credit for getting the reference though. I believe it's A Day At The Races. The name seems to have been chosen entirely so that Harpo could mime it about 3/4 of the way into the film - this is part of one of the 3 funny Harpo sequences.

>What's the address of Brunching Shuttlecocks? I've never heard of it. Also, what's the address of Gusset, so I can judge it for myself (haven't seen it yet).
>

They're both at www.google.com ...

No, OK, www.brunching.com and www.gussetweekly.co.uk.

BS is patchy but often quite good. It has a sort of "David Letterman on the Web" feel - but in a good way. The regular features such as Ratings (rating different things in a certain category e.g. Computer Input Devices) are somewhat amusing. They also have Toys which would only work on a computer such as acronym generators, song lyric generators etc. The best stuff is in the archives - try the "Sarcasterizer" and The Blair Family Circus Project.
It is updated every day and is probably the site that takes advantage of the Web best, although it's not as funny as The Onion.
Any comedy sites I've missed?
I forgot to mention: www.landoverbaptist.org (parody of Christian fundamentalists) and Fade to Black (www.fadetoblack.com) which are both good.


Subject: Re: Online comedy [ Previous Message ]
Posted By Jon on Tue Jun 27 11:37:09 BST 2000:

I've just looked at Gusset Weekly for the first time.

What a load of shite.

Reminiscent of one or two moments from The Day Today, however....


Subject: Re: Online comedy [ Previous Message ]
Posted By Jon on Tue Jun 27 11:41:36 BST 2000:

Now I've had a brief look at Brunching Shuttlecocks.

Looks a bit like the kind of unfunny computer-nerd in-jokery that you get too much of in the IT business (which is what I do for a living).

I won't bother with the fundamentalist parody site, because the authentic ones are depressing and ludicrous enough in themselves. Now, what's Fade to black all about?


Subject: Re: Online comedy [ Previous Message ]
Posted By Jon on Tue Jun 27 11:50:19 BST 2000:

I've seen a bit of 'fade to black'. I turned to the 'hate mail' archive. It read like a review page in Amazon.com, giving reader's responses to a book in favour of atheism. Ie. bigoted incoherent fury from religious extremists, interspersed with meandering phoney expressions of pity and baffled liberal hesitations.

I find US atheist sites generally as tedious and objectionable as the Christian sites they do battle with... anyhow I can't be bothered with the rest of 'Fadetoblack'.

Americans will just have to face the fact that British people are funnier than they are, or at least SOTCAA and Fawlty Towers are.


Subject: Re: Online comedy [ Previous Message ]
Posted By Jon on Tue Jun 27 11:55:25 BST 2000:

I haven't seen The Onion though. Is that the one that does spoof headlines for real events in 20th century history? I think I read about it in NME.


Subject: Re: Online comedy [ Previous Message ]
Posted By dr_h on Tue Jun 27 13:46:15 BST 2000:

OK, you haven't seen Fade To Black until you've seen the "Where's Christ?" pictures. I hope they have them archived. It doesn't seem to be as good as it used to be though.
Are you kidding about not having seen the Onion? www.theonion.com, and they have a book of fake news reports through the 20th century which is just fantastic:
http://books.theonion.com/odc_page_kennedy.html


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