Humor Dissonance: Difference between revisions
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{{trope}}
So a fictional setting has, as a plot point, something that is supposed to be very funny. The other characters treat this joke or show within a show as the funniest thing they have ever heard. The problem is, due to [[Sturgeon's Law]], few writers can actually write a joke that funny, and even a competent writer will have difficulty living up to the hype the characters give it. As a result, the joke just isn't that funny, and can become cringeworthy much more easily because the show is presenting it as the pinnacle of [[humor]].<ref>Or [[humour]].</ref> This is one of the cases where [[Take Our Word for It]] would have been a better way to present the story element.
Of course, this can be [[They Plotted a Perfectly Good Waste|done deliberately]], for example to make the audience think "My god, what kind of [[Crapsack World|twisted world]] is it where ''this guy'' is considered ''funny?''" Or, could also be either played for laughs or to present everyone as sadistic if laughter would actually be considered [[Dude, Not Funny|a downright inappropriate response]] to something.
Please keep in mind that this applies only to things the show explicitly labels as funny; this isn't a place to complain about normal jokes you didn't find funny or about the overuse of the [[Laugh Track]]. If we don't see the actual joke that is supposedly funny, it's [[Take Our Word for It]]. For the inverse, when genuinely funny jokes are ignored in-universe, see [[Tough Room]].
See also [["Everybody Laughs" Ending]]. May be a result of [[Trailer Joke Decay]]. Often an example of [[Stylistic Suck]].
{{examples}}
== [[Anime]] and [[Manga]] ==▼
▲== [[Anime]] ==
* ''[[Lucky Star]]'': Konata decides to have a staring contest with Tsukasa and Kagami while at a fast food joint. The two of them burst into laughter at Konata's ability to stare unflinchingly, and tell Miyuki about it when she returns from the restroom. At their request, Konata (unwillingly) shows it to Miyuki, and Miyuki and Kagami make fun of her by suggesting she mention it while applying to college.
== [[Comic Books]] ==
* In an issue of DC's ''[[Countdown]]'', Donna Troy calls Jason Todd "Re-Todd", [[Don't Explain the Joke|a pun on "retard"]]. Kyle tells her "good one", with a goofy expression as if it was an expert burn. Not only is a lame joke, it's entirely out of character for Donna and Kyle.
* Apparently a common deal with the [[Harvey Comics]]' character Jackie Jokers. [http://www.misterkitty.org/extras/stupidcovers/stupidcomics38.html Some examples are further down this page.]
{{quote|One thing Jackie does provide is an example of how to live for aspiring young comedians. For example, Jackie teaches us the number one way to stay focused and confident is: surround yourself with people who are REALLY EASILY AMUSED.}}
== [[
* Sometimes seen in bad [[Fan Fiction]] as well; In Stephen Ratliff's '[[Marissa Picard]]' stories, Marrissa Picard's pranks are seen in-universe as hilarious (except by the bad guys) but come across to many readers as banal or heartless.
** Plus, some would qualify as [[Too Dumb to Live]] if people were in character—I mean, pulling a [[Proud Warrior Race Guy|Klingon warrior's]] pants down?
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== [[Film]] ==
* This is a problem in the [[Biopic]] ''The Life and Death of [[Peter Sellers]]''—the attempts by the film's writers and actors to distill Peter's work in ''[[The Goon Show]]'', ''The Millionairess'', the ''[[Pink Panther]]'' series and ''[[Doctor Strangelove|Dr. Strangelove]]'' aren't as funny as the real thing (no actual film clips of Sellers are used, unlike in ''Chaplin'' below), despite the in-film reactions to them. ''The Goon Show'' sequence especially suffers for this if you're unfamiliar with the show—and most non-U.K. viewers are. Most of the rest of the movie relies on [[Take Our Word for It]], which is also problematic for viewers who don't know his early films up through 1959's ''[[The Mouse That Roared]]''. This might actually be a reason the film wasn't released to theaters in the U.S., since if you can't fill in the blanks with regards to his talent, the downbeat portrayal of the [[Real Life]] Sellers (which takes up much of the film) makes it hard to understand why anybody liked him, much less loved him, at all.
* Subverted the ''[[Monty Python's Flying Circus]]'' skit "The Funniest Joke in the World" (later part of the film ''And Now For Something Completely Different''). There is a joke which, when read, kills people (they die of laughter). Subverted in that this joke is never read in English, but after being translated one word at a time into German, (one translator accidentally looked at ''two'' words, and fell into a coma for a month) it is broadcasted in German on a WWII battlefield, causing the German troops to, you guessed it, die laughing. When translated back to English by interested fans, the joke turned out to be [[As Long as It Sounds Foreign|gibberish with a few genuine German words mixed in.]]
* Absolutely and intentionally defied in ''[[Monsters, Inc.]]'' at all costs. Pixar had a very strict rule that they couldn't have any character laugh unless the audience is also laughing. As a result, a lot of the slapstick that causes Boo to laugh (and of course, her laughter is a major plot point) got considerably more violent and complex than it was in the storyboards.
* Lampshaded in ''[[Austin Powers]]'' where Dr. Evil and company's [[Evil Laugh]] goes on for so long, as if they are laughing at something genuinely hilarious, that it becomes a bit of an [[Overly Long Gag]].
* Used intentionally in ''[[RoboCop]]'', where everyone seems to watch the same crappy [[Benny Hill]]-like sitcom and burst into laughter at the [[Catch Phrase]] "I'd buy that for a dollar!" The show looks [[Stylistic Suck|completely brainless]] and we only ever hear the catchphrase devoid of context, so it's never funny to the viewer. All of the television segments in the show are satirical social commentary. In the midst of economic collapse and political strife, the population is distracting itself with lowbrow escapism, even the crooks.
* Averted in the [[Biopic]] ''Chaplin''. The filmmakers use many actual clips of Chaplin's films, and Robert Downey Jr superbly matches Chaplin's physical capabilities.
* In ''[[Showgirls]]'', there is an overweight performer at the strip club who makes a string of self-depreciating jokes. While the patrons of the club are in stitches, the jokes themselves are painfully flat.
== [[Literature]] ==
* In Book 3 of the ''[[Inheritance Cycle]]'', ''Brisingr'', Eragon and Arya witness a group of spirit orbs turning a lily into a gem. Eragon points out that they literally gilded a lily like the phrase "gilding a lily" and thinks it's the funniest thing ever. Arya is only vaguely amused.
* Sometimes done deliberately in [[Discworld]]; most of the narration is absolutely laugh-out-loud, split-your-sides, pee-your-pants hilarious, but what characters point out as a joke is often just an [[Incredibly Lame Pun]], [[Running Gag|Or Play on Words]].
* An in-universe example occurs in ''[[Harry Potter and
** In ''[[Harry Potter and
*** Considering at this point they don't her like this has some....implications
== [[Live
* ''[[iCarly]]'' uses this in regards to most of what goes on the web show, although the incident that inspired the show had some fairly funny insults towards the [[Sadist Teacher]]. One episode two characters saying "Mom..." "No!" 10 times in a row on their Web show was presented as an example of their humor surpassing everything on TV.
* One of the causes of the downfall of ''[[Studio 60
** This may be one reason ''[[30 Rock|Thirty Rock]]'' is more successful. The in-show sketches are portrayed as mindless dreck that appeals only to the lowest common denominator. They do not disappoint.
* A helluva lot of Joey's routines on ''[[Full House]]''.
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** Most (all?) of what you see is Frank delivering punchlines, and most of those punchlines come from infamously filthy jokes—the implication being that Frank works dirty, and he's really good at it. One can assume that it's really just a case of ZAZ [[Getting Crap Past the Radar]]; ''[[The Goon Show]]'' used the same trick.
* In a ''[[3rd Rock from the Sun]]'' episode, the aliens struggle to understand the concept of humor after seeing a stand-up comedian. The episode is funny throughout... except for the comedian's routine. It's apparently supposed to be funny since it garners laughs within the episode (but not on the [[Laugh Track]]) and Dick has a [[Late to the Punchline]] moment at the end.
* Played with in ''[[
* ''[[The West Wing]]'' [[Tough Room|is normally one of those shows where everyone is super witty and spends all day firing hilarious remarks back and forth, and hardly anyone ever cracks a smile]]. The teaser of the episode "He Shall, from Time to Time..." calls for the senior staff to be standing around laughing so that the mood can be shattered by the sound of the president collapsing with a crash in the other room. The joke that causes them to lose their poker faces for one of the only times in the series? Sam lamenting, "I'll never live it down!" in reference to a typo the president caught while rehearsing his State of the Union address. Ho, ho, ho.
* Played with in ''[[How I Met Your Mother]]'':
** Barney sets up an anecdote as ''the funniest thing you will ever ever encounter [[Department of Redundancy Department|ever]]''. The real joke is that causing Marshall to have to attend an important meeting ''sans'' trousers is not nearly as funny as he thinks it is.
** Then there's the joke that's "the funniest joke ever", but only if you're a guy. "What's the difference between peanut-butter and jam?" Barney tells it to Lily, who is so disgusted that she refuses to see or speak to Barney for a month. The guys, while upset that the group has been divided, still think it's the best joke ever. The punchline of the joke is never uttered out loud on the show, but if you look it up on the web, it definitely fails to live up to hype: {{spoiler|"I can't peanut-butter my dick up your ass."}}
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* There was an episode of ''[[Star Trek: The Next Generation]]'' where Data was trying to learn what humour was. Some of the jokes in that episode were meant to be funny, some of them were not. Any correlation between whether or not a joke was supposed to be funny and whether or not it actually was funny is entirely coincidental. ([[Fridge Brilliance|No wonder Data has so much trouble understanding what humour is.]]) Of particular note, this joke which Guinan absolutely '''''insisted''''' was absolutely hilarious, and the only reason Data wasn't in stitches was because he's a robot;
{{quote|'''Guinan''': You're a droid and I'm a 'noid (pronounced to sound like "Annoyed")}}
** It's even worse, As [[SF Debris]] pointed out in his review of the episode (The Outrageous Okona) the joke that appears is actually a rewrite, the original joke (which he actually reads out) is even worse: ''My job here places me under some obligations, like a vow of secrecy. I can't repeat anything I hear or see. Now the obligation of the patron is to tell the truth otherwise I'm being placed under a commitment to keep a secret about nothing. That's not fair, it's called wasted honour. Do you understand?'' Yeah really, that's the joke, check it [https://web.archive.org/web/20150809014019/http://blip.tv/sf-debris-opinionated-reviews/tng-the-outrageous-okona-review-5167604
*** What makes this really bad is that Guinan is played by [[Whoopi Goldberg]]. Couldn't they have just asked her to adlib? Chances are it'd at least elicit a chuckle or two!
** On the other hand, Data's ''failed'' jokes, which are ''supposed'' to be unfunny to demonstrate his failure to understand humour, are, if not actually good, at least capable of eliciting a smile, and at any rate are better than the jokes that the audience is ''supposed'' to laugh at.
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== [[Western Animation]] ==
* There was an entire episode of ''[[Arthur (animation)|Arthur]]'' dedicated to how funny King Tut saying, "I want my mummy" supposedly was.
** The ''Arthur'' example might be a bit of playing with the trope; only a select few people thought the joke was funny, but Buster's imagination sure thought it was the reason Binky got a higher grade. It's revealed at the end that Buster studied the wrong topic for his report.
* An episode of ''[[Jimmy Neutron]]'' had Jimmy alter his father's brain to make him "500% funnier." An example of one of the jokes he told under said influence: "I can smell the learning, oh wait, that's Butch. Do you ''ever'' shower?"
** Well, 500% of 0.000001 still isn't much.
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* Invoked intentionally in one [[Family Guy]]. Peter tried to impress [[Dan Ackroyd]] and [[Chevy Chase]] with a flat joke. The two comedians and Lois recognized it as unfunny, but absolutely everybody else in the show's universe thought it was the most hilarious joke ever.
{{quote|Here's John Wayne at the first Thanksgiving! "I'm john Wayne, pilgrims! Happy Thanksgiving, Pilgrims!"}}
* ''[[South Park]]'' plays the dissonance for comedy.
** Jimmy is supposed to be a very funny stand-up comedian that all the other characters find hilarious. He has yet to tell a single joke that is funny. In the episode "Fishsticks," Jimmy coming up with (and Cartman taking all the credit for) what is supposed to be the funniest joke ever. It goes thus: "Do you like fishsticks ([[Don't Explain the Joke|fish dicks]]) ?" "Yes." "Do you like putting them in your mouth?" "Yes." "What are you, a gay fish?" The joke makes the rounds in all the talk shows and becomes a nationwide phenomenon. The only person not to get it is rapper [[Kanye West]], who is so self-centered that he takes it as being called gay and starts looking for the originator of the "rumors".
** The "Funnybot" episode features a robot that is programmed to be the perfect comedian, but it tells lame cut-and-paste tabloid jokes, mostly ending with the punchline "Awkward!" It sells out amphitheaters across the world. The Funnybot is so successful that the world's most famous comedians are rendered unemployed and destitute, and an angry mob consisting of [[Conan O'Brien]], [[Adam Sandler]], [[Jim Carrey]],and dozens of other famous but now-unemployed comedians storm South Park Elementary.
* The Joker played with this in ''[[Batman: The Animated Series|Batman the Animated Series]]'' with an episode where he took a studio audience hostage and hooked Batman up to an electric chair. The chair was directly connected to a "laugh meter" and since he knew he would never get the audience to laugh legitimately, he pumped in laughing gas and had Harley read from the phone book.
* This is mostly averted in ''[[The Fairly
* Every single episode of ''[[Widget, the World Watcher]]'' (not to be confused with a [[Widget Series]]) [["Everybody Laughs" Ending|ended with everyone laughing]] at some "cute" thing someone said that was distinctly not even remotely funny.
* ''[[The Marvelous Misadventures of Flapjack]]'' has an entire episode of this trope, beginning with Peppermint Larry telling some jokes consisting of truly awful puns and continuing into a joke-telling contest between Larry and another character. Eventually said other character speaks ''[[Rapid-Fire Comedy|entire sentences]]'' in [[Hurricane of Puns|nothing but puns]], soon after which it curves in on itself, implodes, then becomes genuinely funny.
* ''[[Phineas and Ferb]]'' has [[The Quiet One|Ferb]] going up on stage and saying "So, how about that airline food?" This prompts everyone in the audience to burst out laughing, pound their fists, and even overturn a table because they find it so funny.
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{{reflist}}
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[[Category:Laughter Tropes]]
[[Category:Informed Attribute]]
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[[Category:Audience Reactions]]
[[Category:Unexpected Reactions to This Index]]
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