Humor

Introduction

Our goal for the humor project was to employ techniques from our humor toolbox to create an effective comedic piece. We were allowed to produce something like a video, podcast, live performance, or skit. The reason we did this project was to experiment and find forms of comedy that we could connect with. Some examples include black humor, blue humor, absurdism, exaggerism, etc.

Reflection

Zeytin and I struggled at first to think of what we wanted to do for this project. I think what ended up happening is that we started discussing several bits we could splice together then eventually decided on one of them (an infomercial) to execute. When we came to this decision, I immediately thought of Billy Mays, but I couldn’t remember his name. For the next five minutes, I sat there trying to tell Zeytin about “that guy” from that one episode of Southpark where one of the characters starts seeing dead celebrities. After a few Google searches, I finally found him.

I honestly don’t think I came off as very funny in this project (I think Zeytin stole the show a little) but I enjoyed conceptualizing and creating the dialogue for this video. I think with this specific brand of humor, I’m better at writing it than actually executing it myself. I like creating over-the-top stupid characters, so “spaghetti guy” (as we called him) was a lot of fun to think up scenarios for. I also got very attached to the character of Earthman Kelli. I think he’s just a really sad guy who just needs to win for a change…

I really pushed for the Shrimp Guy joke. It was Zeytin’s idea, but she didn’t want to go through with it. I really saw its potential. I wanted to include more of Shrimp Guy and take sort of an introspective approach to his character but Zeytin wasn’t so much on board with that.

I would also like to note that the Lapkin (the product) was my idea. If I’m being honest, I’m surprised Zeytin agreed to it.

I feel hesitant to reveal how we got the name Earthmen Kelli…

Humor Proposal

Mell_Emma-Humorist Study Download

Ryan Higa was the first YouTuber I ever watched, so he holds a special place in my heart. Quite a lot of this project was just a personal stream of consciousness, but revisiting Ryan’s videos really helped me solidify what I wanted to do for this project. On the opposite end, I only recently came across Zach Hadel’s work. My friend was really into his show Smiling Friends for a while, and so forced me to watch the entire thing with her. I enjoyed it a lot and really resonated with his brand of humor. There wasn’t really any room in our project to include his comedic style, but getting an excuse to analyze some of his work for a school assignment was worth it enough to me.

Here are links to the videos I discussed in my humor analysis: