Black Comedy: Difference between revisions

|'''[[Monty Python]]'''{{'}}s ''[[Life of Brian]]'', "Always Look on the Bright Side of Life"}}

 

 

It is not [[Toilet Humor]], which is just gross. It is not [[Refuge in Vulgarity]], which is just shocking. It usually does not actually crack jokes — a [[Bond One-Liner]], while it is a joke about death, is not black comedy. Movies that alternate between comedy and tragedy, like ''[[Full Metal Jacket]]'', are not black comedy, since by definition Black Comedy draws humor from the tragic parts. The trick is not to shock or disgust, but to use irony and fatalism like a scalpel, portraying the tragic in an absurd, dryly humorous light.

* [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WjVW6roRs-w "No Pressure"] featured, among other things, kids being [[Disproportionate Retribution|blown up]] for not signing on to 10:10's [[Hollywood Global Warming|carbon emissions reduction program]] as a [[Crosses the Line Twice]] joke. If you don't feel like watching, it's not some kind of cute, funny explosion effect; it's [[Gorn|very bloody]] and identifiable bits of human tissue can be seen coating the bystanders in this ad.

* [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f46kAiy5BPA This commercial] (for Hershey's chocolate, of all things) dunks the poor woman in lava to make the pitch.

 

== [[Anime]] and [[Manga]] ==

* In a comic that parodies [[Jack Chick]]'s ''Lisa'', a man who sexually abuses his daughter is suddenly overcome with guilt over what he has done to his child, and decides that only God can forgive him for his crimes. After having confessed to a priest, who bestows forgiveness on him, the man heads home, feeling like a new, happier person, ready to start completely over... with abusing his daughter again.

* The ''[[Witch Girls]]'' comics are big on this. One of the reasons the [[Tabletop Game]] ''[[Witch Girls Adventures]]'' is really, really creepy to people who don't get those elements are supposed to be [[Played for Laughs]], or don't find it funny.

* Many stories by [[Wilhelm Busch]], like ''[[Max Und Moritz]]''.

* ''Clarissa'', also know as ''Family Portrait'', is a comic about a young girl who is the victim of [[Parental Incest]] and whose family are a classic case of 50s [[Stepford Smiler]]s. It's not as amusing as other examples but can still be sickeningly funny.

* Icelandic playwright/cartoonist Hugleikur Dagsson's crudely-drawn cartoons include such savory topics as incest, coprophagia, bestiality, suicide, and adults intentionally putting children in harms way. [http://www.dagsson.com Check it out if you dare ].

* In ''Arkham Asylum: A Serious House on a Serious Earth'' Joker starts a joke "How many brittle bone babies does it take-" only for Batman to cut across him. Admittedly not dead babies but clearly the same pitch black comedy.

* The original ''[[The Mask (comics)|The Mask]]'' comics often bordered on this.

* "Hubba Hubba," a two-page comic by Arthur Suydam that appeared in ''Heavy Metal''. One of Suydam's trademark weirdos-with-snouts sees a beautiful naked woman and, hoping to impress her with a gift, kills and cooks what he thinks is a small animal. This turns out to have been the woman's baby, and we're meant to see her horror and his ignorance as to its cause as humorous.

* ''[[World War Z]]'', when two soldiers pick up human infant skulls and put on a small show for their troop. Would be going into [[Dude, Not Funny]] territory if the real subject wasn't about the [[Gallows Humor]] used for coping with... you know... a [[Zombie Apocalypse]].

* [[Clive Barker]]'s Mister B. Gone: Filled with the darkest of humor, as can be expected from Clive Barker. There's a scene where the demon villain protagonist [[Blood Bath|bathes in a tub full of blood from dead babies]]. The townspeople are hot on his trail, since there was a hole in his baby bag, and he left a trail of children, like bread crumbs, on his way back to his hovel. He complains how difficult it was to keep them alive so the bath would be warm when he emptied their blood into the tub.

* "It was born, though, that very evening, took one look, according to the Radletts, at its father, and quickly died again" Nancy Mitford, ''Love in a Cold Climate''

* A favorite of [[William S. Burroughs]] in ''[[Naked Lunch]]''. Deranged surgeons, ridiculous murder porn, general mayhem.

* In Britain, [[Chris Morris]]'s show ''[[Jam]]'' depended almost entirely on this, even featuring a dead baby. Another of his shows, ''[[Brass Eye]]'', infamously went too far with its "Paedophilia special" and received numerous complaints. Many of these, strangely enough, happened to be from the kind of people and newspapers who the show was satirising in the first place - the News of the World and the Daily Mail acted far more bent out of shape than the Times and the Guardian. Getting celebrities to discuss the implications of a "roboplegic wrongcock" (a paralysed paedophile with cybernetic implants that let him chase children) on television is inherently funny, though.

** ''The Adam and Joe Show'' featured a ''Jam'' parody with a send-up of the dead baby sketch. Adam played a TV repairman who finds a dead baby behind the set and says he will have to [[Dude, Not Funny|rape the corpse]] in order to repair the television. A horrified Joe refuses to film any more, and storms off the set while Adam complains that "you don't understand my genius"

* Rik Mayall's numerous series for the BBC - ''[[The Young Ones]]'', ''[[The New Statesman]]'', and ''[[Bottom]]''.

* Anything involving Doug in ''[[Scrubs]]''. Most of his humor comes from his pure ineptitude at being a doctor so he ends up killing most of his patients.

** There's still a lot of dark humour using Doug, however. He's constantly losing corpses (in body bags, though - to date - they have never been non-adult-sized body bags) throughout the hospital, and having to recover them, usually by hoisting them over his shoulder or dragging them through the halls. In one case, he actually says

{{quote|'''Doug:''' They're like children. Big, dead children.}}

{{quote|I propose we get "Hello Kitty" toe tags. You know, for the dead children.}}

* ''[[Little Britain]]'' was criticized for its increasing attempts to shock, with characters such as an incontinent old lady and an adult man who breastfeeds from his mother. "Puking Pure-blood Lady" projectile vomits whenever she is told that someone of a different ethnic origin prepared the food she is being served.

* ''[[The Sarah Silverman Program]]''. [[Sarah Silverman]]'s stand-up, as well.

** The Australian newspaper The Daily Telegraph also made note of a story on [[The Onion]]'s News Network about a child exploiting the loophole of wishing for unlimited wishes and consequently bankrupting the Make A Wish Foundation with his ludicrously long list of demands. Interestingly, the story not only features the child in question but also not-so-subtly casts him as the villain due to his insatiable demands (to the extent of him wishing away the pro-bono legal team the Foundation was hoping to use in its defense) and features the hosts hoping for his imminent demise so that the Foundation can stop granting his wishes. Presumably Prime Minister Rudd was not told about this sketch either so that he could also comment on it sight unseen.

** The Chaser also did a similar story in ''The Chaser'', their early newspaper. In it, a child's wish was to receive a blow job from Cameron Diaz.

* The infamous "Undertaker's Sketch" from episode 26 of ''[[Monty Python's Flying Circus]]'' suggested cannibalism as an alternative to interment or cremation. The punchline was so disgusting that [[Executive Meddling]] demanded that the studio audience end the episode by storming the set in protest.

* ''[[Have I Got News for You]]'', while generally hovering somewhere above this level of offensiveness, did feature this joke about the [[wikipedia:Louise Woodward case|Louise Woodward case]]:

** Similarly, when he skewered the host for a relatively tame joke, everyone remarked on how it must have been odd for him to find himself in the moral high ground. He double subverted it when, a moment later, he made a joke about the Russian that Vladimir Putin had allegedly assassinated through polonium poisoning.

** That pet quote actually merited him his own separate warning before the program started.

** ''[[Frankie Boyle's Tramadol Nights]]'' is generally considered by critics to be pushing so far into the realm of tasteless that it forgets to have jokes.

 

* A good chunk of [[The Velvet Underground]]'s ''White Light/White Heat''. "The Gift", "Lady Godiva's Operation" and "Sister Ray" all have characters indulging in activities that end in somebody getting killed, all while the stories are narrated in a deadpan, if not outright playful, tone.

* Russian band "Horned Necrocannibals" ("Рогатые Трупоеды"), as Death Metal pastiche (''Bitches, Sex and Ptomaine'', ''The Kvlt and Troo and Eevil and Grimm and Nekro'', etc). Most album covers are [[Bloody Hilarious]], too. The band's good enough to make songs [[Troperrific|made of cliché]] ''and'' [[Ear Worm]]-y (''Vengeanscythe'').

 

== Religion and Mythology==

* The orcs and goblins in ''[[Warhammer Fantasy Battle]] Fantasy''. These are creatures that live for killing things - goblins even commit suicide just to kill enemies. These are the most humorous in the setting. And [[Xtreme Kool Letterz|da Orkz]] in its sci-fi counterpart ''[[Warhammer 40,000]]''. These are creatures who can get anything to work by simply [[Clap Your Hands If You Believe|believing it will work]], and with the Grots, the local flavour of the goblins, being the ultimate kind of [[Butt Monkey]] to the Orks in the setting - and not caring. Where any other army is based on a major civilization or a well-known historical army, the orks are based on British soccer hooligans, clearly cementing them as comic relief. The 40K setting is so dark, grim, and cynical that it is almost taken to levels of self-parody, something many fanfiction writers embrace to a strong degree, and some official book series lampshade this fact, such as Deff Skwadron and the ''[[Ciaphas Cain]]'' ('''[[Fake Ultimate Hero|HERO OF THE IMPERIUM!]]''') series.

* ''[[In Nomine]]'' has Kobal, Demon Prince of Dark Humor, and his servitors, who work to turn existence into black comedy.

 

== [[Theater]] ==

** [http://agameoffools.com/comic_126.html This]{{Dead link}} too.

* The name of the game in ''[http://manga.clone-army.org/t42r.php Tomoyo42's Room]''. Sometimes even involving actual dead babies: for example, Tomoyo throwing hers and Sakura's child (well, egg) into the sea, or sticking a dead baby through a fan.

* [[Shredded Moose]] attempts this. The creator forgot to include the "comedy" part.

* [https://web.archive.org/web/20131019082313/http://www.sexdrugsandjunecleaver.com/ Sex, Drugs, and June Cleaver] occasionally forays into this territory. Oh, and it's a [[Journal Comic]].

* ''[[Skippy's List|Skippys List]]'' has examples:

{{quote|54. "Napalm sticks to kids" is *not* a motivational phrase.}}

** [https://web.archive.org/web/20131112115228/http://www.theonion.com/video/scientists-successfully-teach-gorilla-it-will-die,17165/ Scientists Successfully Teach Gorilla It Will Die Someday].

** It even made a joke about the Rwandan Genocide... and it was actually funny.

{{quote|Brodhagen then related the story of another tragic suicide note, discovered at the feet of a 15-year-old St. Louis boy who had hanged himself.

"The boy's mother opened the door to his room one morning to wake him up for school," Brodhagen said, "and she screamed in horror at what she saw: Dangling, right there in front of her, was {{spoiler|a participle}}." }}

 

== [[Western Animation]] ==

{{quote|'''Captain Hero:''' Captain hero ONE! Billions of innocent Zebulonians...um...dead. Oh. I...uh...(Slinks off)}}

* ''[[Courage the Cowardly Dog]]'': Courage & his owners Eustace, and Muriel Bagge constantly run into monsters, aliens, demons, mad scientists, zombies, and island natives that Courage must fend off to save his owners. Eustace always ends up being attacked by all the horrors in the series.

{{quote|'''Grim''': (Baby voice) Who's gonna get reaped? Who's gonna get reaped? You are! You are!

'''Grim''': Come on, Mandy. This should be fun... like watching a train wreck.

'''Grim''': Ahahaha! This is more fun than the French Revolution!

'''Grim''': Actually, I'm scheduled to see you next week, Mr. Teetermeyer! }}

* ''[[Moral Orel]]'', which occasionally decides to drop the "comedy" part; it left it to die in a ditch for most of the last season.

* ''[[Jimmy Two-Shoes]]''. More subtle than the above examples, but still there.

** When they went to the museum, there was a dog skeleton on display with a collar that says "Bucky." Phineas says that they had a dog named Bucky who got sick and went to live on kindly Old Man Simmons's farm. Their dad hurries them along to the next display, which is {{spoiler|kindly Old Man Simmons.}}

* One famous animated segment on ''[[The Electric Company]]'' starts with a well-dressed woman leaving her parrot home alone; a plumber comes and knocks on the door, and the parrot says, "Who's there?" The plumber answers, "I'm the plumber, I've come to fix the sink." But the parrot says "Who's there?" causing the plumber to repeat, "I'm the plumber, I've come to fix the sink!" [[Overly Long Gag| After several repetitions of this]], with the plumber becoming more annoyed each time, he has a heart attack and collapses. The owner of the house comes back, notices him, and exclaims, "Who's this?" The parrot replies, "He's the plumber, he's come to fix the sink."

 

== Other Media ==

* Q: What is the best way to get 100 dead babies out of a blender? A: With chips! https://web.archive.org/web/20131023100523/http://www.dead-baby-joke.com/introduction.htm

** Q: What's worse than a pile of dead babies? A: The live one at the bottom of the pile.

** Sadly some dead baby jokes require visual pantomime. On the other hand...

* How do you empty a garbage truck full of dead babies? With a pitchfork!

* Q: What's worse than five babies in a trashcan? A: One baby in five trashcans.

* Q: What's the difference between one hundred dead babies and a Ferrari? A: I don't own a Ferrari.

* Q: What's pink and orange and floats on the bottom of a pool? A: A baby with its floaties slashed. Q: What's pink, red, and orange and floats on the top of a pool? A: Floaties with their baby slashed.

* Q: What's the difference between a baby and a trampoline? A: You take off your boots before jumping on the trampoline.

** There's a streak of black comedy running through the patronage of saints. St Sebastian - martyred by being shot full of arrows - is patron of archers. Thomas More - executed for not supporting Henry VIII's divorce and subsequent split from Rome - is patron of difficult marriages. Teresa of Avila - known for her overwhelming ecstatic visions - is patron of headaches.

* CTF, or Cletus the Fetus is an obscure black comedy medical term for a baby born at 23 weeks, where the survival rate is less than 1%. There have been no cases of a baby surviving birth before 22 weeks, confirming [[Makes Sense in Context|doctors may have the blackest of all humor]].

* [[Christopher Hitchens]] combined this with a [[Take That]] at Princess Diana:

{{quote|'''Hitchens:''' The thing about mine fields is that they're very easy to lay, but they're very difficult and dangerous, and even expensive to get rid of' - the perfect description of Prince Charles's first wife.}}

“Christopher Hitchens is Dead.” —-God, 2011 }}

*** ...which is a [[Older Than They Think|repurposed Nietzsche joke]].