HUMOR PROJECT
For this unit we were challenged to research two comedians that we found interesting, and apply some of their methods to a comedy piece of our own. We were free to do basically anything we wanted, but with the restrictions of the stay at home order we had to get creative. I decided to make a video rating and documenting my experience with various facebook groups. Here is my final product!
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REFLECTION
I was happy with the idea I settled on after a lot of contemplation, but wish I had made more witty commentary besides stating the obvious. Although the video was a bit shorter than I wanted, I am happy with the product. Although, if I had to redo it I’d try to improve the audio quality.
HUMORIST STUDY/PROPOSAL
John Oliver is a late night show host with a background in standup. His show has a witty undertone and heavily uses satire, which is common with many comedians whose subject matter is politics. But what makes his show unique to me is how he will make a joke and fixate on it through his show, only to reveal at the end that he followed through with the joke to a ridiculous extent. You can see this in bits like Marlon Bundot, which is based around Mike Pence’s pet rabbit. His team decided to create a full children’s book about Marlon, a gay bunny, who falls in love with another gay bunny. The show published the book and made it available to buy for their audience with the intent to surpass Mike Pence’s own children’s book about his rabbit.
The production of his show also allows him to make photoshopped visuals to coincide with what his subject matter is. -Yes, I realize John Oliver himself isn’t creating the visuals, it’s his team. Like an image of a t- rex in medical gear, conversing with other doctors or an image of Cher dunking in an NBA game. The base of the jokes aren’t in clever wordplay or witty remarks, but standard visual humor. The fact that they exist in the first place is one to laugh about. The sheer absurdity of the photoshopped images compared to his political subject matter help achieve the goal of late night shows- to bring light to serious topics, allowing the viewer to laugh and unwind in their impossibly stressful life.
The intent of John Oliver’s late night show is very apparent- to both educate and entertain the general public about prevalent social issues. In the comedy form, he isn’t being held to the standard of neutrality and is free to add social commentary and let people know his political stance. One of the appeals of late night shows, as opposed to news stories, is that the hosts are allowed to call out politicians and organizations on their poor behavior. I find his commentary to be nuanced and thoughtful but it is presented in a way that is very digestible for the average viewer.
While finding comedians for this assignment, I had a hard time identifying who counted as a comedian in the media that I consume. Most of what I watch is narrowed down to commentary/entertainment videos on Youtube from independent creators. I had no real guide to tell if they were comedians or not other than if I personally found their commentary funny. A lot of media I’ve been exposed to in the last few years has blurred the line between humor and serious critiques, and the creators don’t define themselves as comedians, only as content creators whose content may or may not be funny.
Michael Messineo, or Mike’s Mike , his Youtube name, is a content creator who contrasts the style of John Oliver in that he has a narrow audience. His content is heavy with allusions to pop culture and twitter memes that the viewer would typically have to be familiar with to fully understand his brand of humor. The intent of his videos is less obvious, especially compared to people like John Oliver. The videos he creates are only about subjects that seem to interest him. His content is, for the most part, supposed to be taken at face value. This is shown in various content like I don’t trust the green M&M or I would die for Claire from the Bon Appetit test kitchen. One of his recurring video formats are his rating videos, where he takes various things and puts them on a ranking chart from D to S rank. He’s ranked childhood TV shows, photos of Dr. Phil, and even days of the month. Much of the humor comes from the lack of substance–he is doing something silly and baseless, which the idea is funny in itself. By creating humorous setups, it’s a lot easier to make the video funny. While this might seem like common sense for a humorous video, when compared to the setup of “late night show host talks about a homophobic politician”, it’s easier to see the comedy in “australian man makes a cutout of a rat to put in his chef hat”.
His ranking videos inspired the idea for my project. I wanted to pull from something in my everyday life. I recently joined Facebook to be able to join various groups related to my college. But while browsing the website, I found various Facebook groups that seemed to be more geared towards my age group. Groups like “A group where we all pretend to be ants in an ant colony” and “a group where you can only say same”. I was inspired to create a video similar to the ranking videos Mike’s Mike creates, where I rank my enjoyment on various Facebook groups I join on a scale of 1-10.
I won’t be using Mike’s technique of referencing popular media, because that approach caters to such a niche audience. Instead I’ll be drawing from the thought behind his video. He turns ranking inanimate objects into something very subjective. Even though on paper, the 3rd of the month and the 27th of the month are no different, he will, in a way, personify the vibes of the days and make it funny while doing so. I want to draw from his specific brand of situational humor where he is the one who creates the situation that is so humorous.
The format I want to use for my humor project is nowhere close to a late night show’s monologue, but I want to draw from John Oliver’s techniques. A lot of the humor will come from the fact that these Facebook groups even exist, which is like finding humor in the absurdity of the situation. This is similar to his photoshopped images which are funny because of the fact that someone went out of their way to make them.