Best Humour

[Nacho]

I´ve realised hat many of the Adventure games we made are "spiced" with good humour... Which is your model?

I really love English humour, specially Monthy Python´s. They are believed to be absurds, but I don´t think so, absurd humour simply don´t make the people laugh, I´d rather preffer to call it Surrealistic.

My favourite Sketch is that of the dead parrot.

Which is your favourite humour style?

[n3tgraph]

hmm interesting thread.

I can't really tell, I can tell that humour differs from person to person. I always laugh my arse off seeing the simpsons for example. I also love parody humour. Just like hot shots / men in thights / spaceballs.

Monty Python is hilarious too, but another thing I'd like to add: Black Adder - fantastic

[remixor]

As far as the humour in the game I'm making goes, it's inspired by the humour in other classic adventures, such as the LucasArts ones and the Broken Sword series.  As far as the type of humour I go for in general, it's mainly satire.

[Captain Mostly]

what ARE you talking about? "absurd humour simply don't make the people laugh"?!?!


That's gibberish. Monty python is totally about absurdist gags. And the whole point of absurdist jokes is the fact that a situation is so surreal it's ABSURD you plonker!

I don't like the way people try to dress monty python up as something more than it is. It's not MEANT to be a terribly clever surrealistic tour de force. It's just meant to be silly and funny.

Also, if it "don't make the people laugh" then it's because it's being done baddly. Not simply because it's absurd.  

I don't want to sound grumpy (that's helms job isn't it?) and I used to like monty python when I was younger (indeed, I still like the films... although the TV seriese has lost it's magic in my eyes) but the idea that it's not absurd is absurd.


Sorry about that.
As it stands though, I'm always deeply frustrated that I can't make my games as funny as I'd like them to be. I always have such high hopes when I start out, but end up having "comedy" comments for when the player picks things up and stuff, instead of the well thought through running gags that I'd dreamed of.

It's amazingly difficult to make a game funny when you're also having to think about putting it all together and stuff. I admire all of those people who manage it (except Phil Reed, because ANYONE can make poo and boob jokes. I admire him for his tight ass instead).

[n3tgraph]

* N3TGraph pats captain mostly on his shoulder

someday you will manage my friend

[Nacho]

Eeeer... Well, captain, I am not in disagree with you, it´s just a matter of the value you give to the words... For me absurd was the Yoko Ono´s art. For me absurd are most of the "hidden camera" sketches because I see how absurd is that these people don´t realise that they are being hinted. Also, in my country, there is a program where this "hidden camera" sketches are made by amateurs... It´s absurd, they don´t make my laugh, I´m sure they won´t make you laugh neither.

On the other hand, I really like Monthy Python Because I´m not an easy-laugh man... I often smile when I see something funny, but making me laugh is really difficult. The best roar of laughter I had whas when John Cleese hit a slap in Michael Palin´s face because Michael said a bad line. The legend says that the slap was real and all the rest of the sketch was an improvisation. Maybe it´s  a legend, but seeing Michael´s totaly shoked face is something that I´ll never forget.

As you see, I felt in love with Monty´s humour by a simply moment of laugh, that´s the only think I demand to the humourists, no more.

The other roars of laughter I had were reading a PG Woodehouse Book,  the NBC´s TV series Ed, and the Marx brothers movies.

As you can see, I am a hard man to make me laugh, and I can´t leave the opportunity to defend that people  

There is an intellectual wave whose mission seems to be to put the classics down: "The beatles were just an average pop band" "Monty Python Series Suck!" "Ron Gilbert was just a programmer"...

Well, you may be right, but sometimes the way this "wave" says that things can bother many people.

So, please, if you don´t agree with me, don´t post a so ungry post. Rage is not a good partner  

[Nacho]

P.S. to previous post: On the other hand, I really agree with you that absurd humour can make laugh, and if it don´t makes laught it´s not because it´s absurd, it because it´s bad done. It is just a matter of what you consider "absurd" or "surrealistic".

There is a famous sketch by an Spanish humourist. A man enters in a bar, totally drunk, and demands a pint. the Barkeeper is close to refuse, but he finally accepts. The man starts to drink the pint, and then another one, and another...

After seven pints the man is totally sober, and perfectly dressed. For me that´s surrealistic. It´s very funny for me because it´s surprising.

After that imagine the Film "Dude, were is my car?" (I don´t konw if that´s the original title, i am translating...). Three guys go to a Chinese food Auto restaurant. The main character demands the food. A voice from the microphone says "And theeeen?" and theeeen? and theeeeeeen?" Afther 10 or 11 "and theeeeeeeeeeeeeens?" the guy gets annoyed and breaks the microphone. That´s absurd for me, because a sane person should go into the restaurant and broke the face of that stupid chinese restaurant-employee. All the cinama was laughing and I was annoyed... Maybe it´s a problem with me, I think I made a mistake when I wrote that "absurd humour don´t make the people laugh"... Absurd humour make the people laugh, but not me...

Eeeeer... What a mess... So, have a nice day  

[GarageGothic]

First of all, let me say that I like Monty Python a lot, and I enjoy watching the old shows and movies from time to time. But I don't really think their kind of humor works in games. Maybe for a single, highly annoying npc (voiced by John Cleese of course ) that you somehow have to get past. But not for a whole game. But then again, I never was a huge fan of LucasArts "funny" games except Zak and the original Maniac Mansion.

I think the adventure genre relies too much on logic to work really well with absurd humor (I still haven't forgiven whoever came up with the monkey wrench puzzle in MI2, and Sam & Max I had to play with a walkthrough just to hear all the cool dialog and see the animantions).

The kind of humor that makes me laugh out loud is mostly dialog-based. I LOVE clever and witty dialog a la Tom Stoppard (Rosenkrantz and Guildenstern are Dead) and the movies of Kevin Smith (Clerks, Mallrats (my favorite comedy of all time), Chasing Amy).
Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas is among my favorite comedies as well, partly because the narration is so well written, but also because it's a highly subjective story, showing a skewed view of the world and letting the characters do things that are obviously very inappropriate, but somehow make sense to their drug-crazed minds. In fact that could be a pretty cool idea for a game - having the player character respond to his perception of the world, while letting the player know that it's a hallucination.

Oh yeah, I like the Simpsons too, and Frasier. But I'm not sure that kind of situation comedy, which relies heavily on you knowing the characters in advance, would work for any games except series like RON.

[Nacho]

I agree with garage that bringing humour to the Adventure games could be very difficult. My post was not about graphic adventures, but I´m open to discuss about that. I also agree that the joke in MI2 with the Monkey wrench was a failure, specially when translatiing, because for example, in my lenguaje, the literal tranlstion to Mankey wrench should be "English key". Making a graphic adventure of Monty Python should be even more complicated.

I like also Frasier, and the Simpsons, but lemme remind that "Cheers" was the first series of Frasier "franchise". It was also lovely. And, talking of Ted Danson... he´s got a series called "Becker" of a Doctor in Bronx with very bad humour... If someone know the series rate it. (I like them)

[DGMacphee]

I dig satire.

As a personal example, Ultimerr used a lot of satricial references to other stories, games, movies, and famous people, such as: Psycho, Jack and the Beanstalk, Indiana Jones, Prince of Persia, Ultima, Monkey Island, Calvin Klein, Sigmund Freud, and Bruce Campbell.

I especially like news satire because it mocks current events, and most of the time showing the hypocrisy present in this day and age.

For example, there was a show on TV here called CNNNN, which parodied news and cable services, such as (obviously) CNN.

I also like war satire, like MASH -- I own the book, the DVD movie, and several TV episodes.

Hawkeye Pierce is one of my many idols.

And like Altman directing MASH, I also like the use of visual elements to tell a joke -- for example, when he did that last supper scene.

I tried a "visual pun" similar to Altman in one of my puzzles in Stickmen -- the puzzle where you have to movie the large monkey out of the way and you have to spank him with the boat paddle.

I also dig stand up comedy -- my favourite artist would have to  be the late and great Bill Hicks.

Others include Lenny Bruce, Rich Hall, Judith Lucy, Robin Williams, Richard Pryor, Eddie Murphy, and Denis Leary.


And the rest of my humour I pull from my arse -- it's as good a place as any.

[SSH]

Fry and Lawrie are a great combination. They haven't been too hot in films (becuase they didn't write the material), but Stephen Fry did a great joke at the BAFTAs this year:

"I see that Micheal Douglas and Catherine Zeta Jones are here. They're a lovely, friendly couple and they're happy for you to come up to them and take a photograph or just say Hello!"

Their TV series was great and had a surreal humour that combined Oscar Wilde with Monty Python with a little bit of Mark Thomas thrown in.

[Nacho]

And One of Hugh Lawrie and Stephen Fry´s Series was "Jeeves and Wooster", by PG Woodehouse, the English writer who I like so much!

[Mats Berglinn]

My humor taste is mixed. I like classic cartoon humor, absurb humor, some Python (but those with blood makes me sick), some adult humor (like South Park), American humor, Swedish humor (I am swedish, and it's quite funny some times, especially if it's Robert Gustafsson), some English humor and of course humor from the MI-series, Grim Fandango and Day of the Tentacle (haven't played Sam and Max yet).

[Barcik]

I love clever humour, but it really in the end is what Farlander said: If it makes you laugh, it's good humour.
One of the things I love most about Monty Python is how they blend silly gags with interesting and smart jokes ("I am not an individual"  ).

[Scid]

I can only laugh at things that made the person who came up with it laugh. With monty python, you could see that they did what they thought was genuinely funny, and amused them immensely. That sort of thing always makes me laugh.

With "the fresh prince", good as all the punchlines may be, they're fabricated. It's a technique. I can't imagine the writers laughin at their own jokes. I've gotten good enough at spotting the "tricks" behind those jokes to not laugh at them anymore as well. I easily see the punchlines coming.

That is, to me, the difference between humor and jokes. Jokes are not funny - they're clever. Humor is funny - and how clever it is doesn't make any difference to me. The most I ever laughed at something in my entire life was when me and a friend drew a stupid penis on a piece of paper, and then put that on a desk in school, or our pencil, so as to make it seem as though it belonged to the object. Very tasteless, very immature... incredibly funny. To us.

The bottom line being: if something is meanth to be funny, but the person who came up with it - because of his longtime experience with humor, feels it's not longer funny - I feel cheated.

The best jokes I put in crime time are, invariably, the ones that made me laugh. All the other ones, which I've put in just because there had to be one joke there, don't amuse me. And - as I've grown to discover - also don't work on the player.

[Jimi]

I like any humor that isn't taccy. Preferably, I love british humor. It normally varies depending on what contry you live in.

[Rincewind]

Well, there are a lot of things that really makes me laugh. Monty Python is one of them, which probably isn't much of a surprise to anyone here...
To be honest, most of my best laughs come from British comedy series: Fawlty Towers, The Young Ones,(Superb show - If you haven't seen it, do give it a try! Perhaps even more addictive than Python!) Red Dwarf, Big Train, Goodness Gratious Me!, and Bottom. (Although it is not nearly as good as the others, I still enjoy its rather crude humour very much...)
I'm sorry to say that I don't find american comedy shows as funny as british, but there is one that I really like - That 70's Show. Great music, great and original jokes, and some superb parodies and guest-actors... (The Halloween-episode with the Hitchcock-theme was amazing.)
Animated series such as Simpsons, Futurama and South Park are also sources of big laughs...
And just like mats, I also have some Swedish favourites, which probably will be unnessecary to mention here...

If we are talking books, Terry Pratchett makes me laugh - All the time.
I've never read any other books that can make me laugh so hard.

[Trapezoid]

I too find all sorts of humor funny. Stand up comedy's great. Sketch comedy, like Kids in the Hall, Mr. Show, and SNL reruns. MST3k, Monty Python, the Daily Show, Simpsons, Futurama, most of the stuff on Sunday Adult Swim, Discworld and Hitchiker's Guide type novels, Somethingawful.com. I'm kinda famous for my Animutations, which are completely absurdist humor, I think. Suspico will be full of dry, subtle humor and wit, closer to a sort of gothic version of Full Throttle's humor than Monkey Island. There's hardly any "genre" of humor that I don't find funny in some way.

[Jimi]

I used to watch the fast show with the...

"Do you want it sir?"
"Do you really?"
"Ooh"
"Ooh"
"Did you tie her to a tree and give it o her sir?"
"Did you really?"
"Ooh"
"Ooh"

And I love fawlty towers. I also think Ant and Dec are quite funny.

[Las Naranjas]

Satire is almost absurdist. Nothing's more absurd than reality.