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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 [[
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]].
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See also [[Everybody Laughs Ending]]. May be a result of [[Trailer Joke Decay]]. Often an example of [[Stylistic Suck]].
{{examples
== [[Anime]] ==
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* 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 The Order of The Phoenix]]''. After Ron makes a lame quip about Goyle's ugliness, everyone laughs, but recently-introduced [[Cloudcuckoolander]] Luna keeps laughing on and on, prompting him to ask [[So Unfunny
** In ''[[Harry Potter and The Half Blood Prince]]'', Ginny Weasley invents the nickname "Phlegm" for her prissy sister-in-law to be, [[Lovable Alpha Bitch|Fleur]]. Maybe mildly funny only once, if you're being generous, but everyone acts like it's the most hilarious, witty thing ever every time she uses it. Over and over again.
*** Considering at this point they don't her like this has some....implications
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* ''[[I Carly]]'' 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 On the Sunset Strip]]'': the fact that characters constantly refer to the sketches in the [[Show Within a Show]] as hilarious, when more often than not, they fall flatter than Kansas to the people at home.
** This may be one reason ''[[
* A helluva lot of Joey's routines on ''[[Full House]]''.
* Early episodes of ''[[Seinfeld]]'' would open and close with samples of Jerry's stand-up that typically weren't even ''close'' to the caliber of humor in the actual show, yet still had the audience in stitches.
* The entire premise of the ''[[Mad TV]]'' sketch "Coffee Twins" revolves around this. A woman at an office setting cracks an incredibly lame joke, and then she and her another female co-worker break out in laughter, as if it was the funniest thing they've ever heard. Everyone else at the office doesn't see the humor, so when the original worker [[Don't Explain the Joke|futilely tries to explain the joke]], she gets angry and throws a fit.
* In the final episode of ''[[Police Squad!]]!'', Frank Drebin goes undercover as a stand-up comedian for a nightclub. His jokes are pretty basic (and nowhere near as good as the material Zucker, Abrams and Zucker wrote for the rest of the show) yet the audience is falling out of their seats with laughter, and the management of the nightclub tells him that it was the best performance he'd ever seen.
** 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|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.
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*** 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.
* ''[[Babylon Five]]'' had the comedy team of [[Penn
** Like the ''Robocop'' example above, this was deliberate. [[Word of God]] is that Rebo and Zooty were meant to reflect how standards of humor change over time, not to mention that a lot of humor is based on cultural references and mores that you have to be familiar with to get the joke, so that what's funny to a society in the future would be incomprehensible to present-day audiences (or to alien audiences).
*** Also lampshaded in the show by Rebo/Penn saying lines to this effect after he makes an incomprehensible joke that the Minbari find funny but nobody else even understands.
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** 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:
* This is mostly averted in ''[[The Fairly Odd Parents]]'' where Timmy wishes he was the funniest person on Earth: His dialogue doesn't change at all and everyone is simply magically forced to laugh at it. This trope shows up briefly with the jokes the supposedly funny kids tell at the start of the episode, though.
* 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
* ''[[Phineas and Ferb (Animation)|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.
** Not only that, but then Stacy -- who was laughing along with everyone else -- says she doesn't even know what airline food is.
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