Anti-humor

Short description: Style of comedy that is deliberately awkward or experimental

Anti-humor is a type of indirect and alternative humor that involves the joke-teller's delivering something that is intentionally not funny, or lacking in intrinsic meaning.[citation needed] The practice relies on the expectation on the part of the audience of something humorous, and when this does not happen, the irony itself is of comedic value — humor can be, and often is, about unexpected contrast (see Theories of humor § Incongruous juxtaposition theory).[citation needed] Anti-humor is also the basis of various types of pranks and hoaxes.[citation needed]

The humor of such jokes is based on the surprise factor of absence of an expected joke or of a punch line in a narration that is set up as a joke. This kind of anticlimax is similar to that of the shaggy dog story.[1] In fact, some researchers see the "shaggy dog story" as a type of anti-joke.[2] Anti-humor is described as a form of irony or reversal of expectations that may provoke an emotion opposite to humor, such as fear,[3] pain, embarrassment, disgust, awkwardness, or discomfort.[4]

## Contents

* 1 Examples
* 2 In stand-up comedy
* 3 See also
* 4 References

## Examples

The yarn, also called a shaggy dog story, is a type of anti-humor that involves telling an extremely long joke with an intricate (and sometimes grisly) back story and surreal or repetitive plotline, before ending the story with either a weak spoonerism, or abruptly stopping with no real punchline at all, or no soap radio.

The obvious punchline involves narratives that are structured like a traditional joke including a set-up and punchline, but whose punchline is the most obvious to the narrative. Some examples of this would be the Why did the chicken cross the road? and the "What did the farmer say/do" set of jokes, which include various situations where the joke teller asks the listener what the farmer did in any given situation:

A: What did the farmer say when he lost his tractor?
B: I don't know, what did the farmer say when he lost his tractor?
A: "Where's my tractor?"

## In stand-up comedy

Alternative comedy, among its other aspects, parodies the traditional idea of the joke as a form of humor.[5] Anti-humor jokes are also often associated with deliberately bad stand-up comedians. Stand-up comedian Andy Kaufman had his own unique brand of anti-humor, quasi-surrealist acts coupled with performance art; one of his best-known manifestations of this was his act as the fictional persona of Tony Clifton, an untalented lounge lizard entertainer.[citation needed] Norm Macdonald was another comedian sometimes associated with performing anti-humor, although he objected to the characterization.[6][7]

## See also

* Philosophy:Anti-art - Art rejecting prior definitions of art
* Unsolved:Koan - Short instructive text in some Buddhist practices
* Non sequitur - Conversational literary device

## References

1. ↑ Warren A. Shibles, Humor Reference Guide: A Comprehensive Classification and Analysis (Hardcover) 1998 ISBN 0-8093-2097-5
2. ↑ John Henderson, "Writing Down Rome: Satire, Comedy, and Other Offences in Latin Poetry" (1999) ISBN 0-19-815077-6, p. 218
3. ↑ Nachman, Steven R. (1982). "Anti-Humor: Why the Grand Sorcerer Wags His Penis". Ethos 10 (2): 117–135. doi:10.1525/eth.1982.10.2.02a00020. ISSN 0091-2131. https://www.jstor.org/stable/3696960.
4. ↑ Lewis, Paul (1986). "Painful Laughter: The Collapse of Humor in Woody Allen's "Stardust Memories"". Studies in American Jewish Literature (1981-) (5): 141–150. ISSN 0271-9274. https://www.jstor.org/stable/41205641.
5. ↑ Andrew Stott (2005) "Comedy", ISBN 0-415-29933-0, p. 119
6. ↑ "Norm Macdonald: 'Worthless' anti-comedy 'is for the weak and cowardly'". Twitchy Entertainment. May 12, 2014. http://twitchy.com/2014/05/12/norm-macdonald-worthless-anti-comedy-is-for-the-weak-and-cowardly/.
7. ↑ "Norm Macdonald, Still in Search of the Perfect Joke". The New York Times. August 31, 2018. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/30/magazine/norm-macdonald-still-in-search-of-the-perfect-joke.html.

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