Humor

The humor project in English was our final assignment for the class and is meant to be a very fun and lighthearted way to end the school year. Even though we had fun while making it, we also incorporated all the humor techniques we learned through our time reading Kurt Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse Five, and the technical and creative skills we learned how to create a visual production at Freestyle in general.

I really value the vulnerability that comes with this project, humor is hard to create in a structured way and an idea could possibly get zero laughs during presentation. So I learned as long as I had fun while making it, the audience reaction did not matter as much to me.

Humor Proposal

Part 1 – Humorist Anaylsis

I analyzed two works of humorist media, the episode “The Ember Island Players” from the Avatar the Last Airbender and Saturday Night Live’s “Mario Kart Trailer.”

“The Ember Island Players” is a well-crafted filler episode right before the finale of the show, made to summarize the entire journey of the show by having the main characters attending a play written about them. This episode includes various humor techniques such as caricatures, satire, parody, callbacks, and meta humor. The actors in the play are caricatures of the main characters with overexaggerated personalities and physical attributes. The play itself is a satirical commentary on various aspects of the series. From Sokka’s obsession with food to Aang’s random wisdom monologues. The whole play is a parody of classical theatre, the exaggerated acting, over-the-top and sometimes inaccurate costumes, and dramatic line deliveries are all characteristics of typical classic theatre. Sitcom techniques of crowd laughter were also incorporated through the audience’s laughter and other reactions at the play. Most of the play is made up of callback jokes referencing memorable moments from prior episodes to spark a sense of familiarity and shared nostalgia. The most impressive and effective humor was the meta humor, and although this technique is not explicitly mentioned in the list of humor techniques, “The Ember Island Players” takes meta humor to new heights. Characters acknowledge their fictional existence and express their confusion over their own storylines through their reactions towards the play. Scenes in the play also reference the real audience reaction to past episodes when they were aired. Such as quickly passing over The Great Divide, and saying it looks “boring”, which was one of the worst performing episodes aired. “The Ember Island Players” is a testament to Avatar: The Last Airbender’s ability to infuse humor into even the most introspective episodes. The episode expertly uses humor techniques to balance frivolity with its underlying emotional depth. 

Saturday Night Live, SNL, is known for making comedic skits. In the Mario Kart Trailer they made, they had the actors of the popular drama show “The Last of Us” act in another character of Mario Kart. The skit embraces absurdity by juxtaposing the whimsical world of Mario Kart with the intense screen-writing of The Last of Us. The intense contrast between Pedro Pascal’s serious delivery while he is playing Mario creates comedic tension. This skit also uses parody and satire to its advantage by parodying the cliche patterns of action movie trailers by using the absurd humor of exaggerated contrast between seriousness and frivolity. A lot of this skit relies on the audience’s familiarity with Mario Kart and The Last of Us, but even without it proves to be a very humorous production.

Both “The Ember Island Players” from Avatar: The Last Airbender and SNL’s “Mario Kart Trailer” use similar techniques to entertain their audience, but execute it in different ways. Both skits employ the techniques of parody and satire to mock and exaggerate existing concepts from the original productions. “The Ember Island Players” parodies Avatar: The Last Airbender’s own storytelling and characters, while the “Mario Kart Trailer” mocks action movie trailers in general by applying the typical dramatic flair to a more lighthearted Mario Kart game. This technique is efficient since it makes use of pre-established themes and concepts. Another technique used in both humor sources, but not mentioned in the humor technique list is Meta humor. These two medias are different in using humor techniques because “The Ember Island Players” heavily relies on verbal humor stemming from callbacks, by referencing previous episodes, character arcs, and even audience reactions. Whereas “Mario Kart Trailer” taps more into exaggerism, joking about the absurdity of adapting characteristics of the racing game into an intense action movie.

Reflection

Through these two analyses, I realize I appreciate the more slow-cooked humor, that requires a lot of context and build up. And I believe it is because it seems more special and individual, and the producers can directly target certain subjects. “The Ember Island Players” showcased a mix of self-deprecating humor, satire, caricatures, and meta jokes. The episode brilliantly parodied the series itself, exaggerating the characters and storylines to create a light-hearted atmosphere. What was most impactful to me is that it seamlessly integrated humor with the underlying emotional depth of the show. This episode taught me the importance of self-awareness and the power of humor to engage and connect with an audience on a more direct level.

SNL’s “Mario Kart Trailer” skit took a familiar video game franchise and injected it with absurdity and satire. Although I did not have the context of The Last of Us and Pedro Pascal, the combination of absurdity, parody, and exaggerism created a hilarious juxtaposition between Mario Kart and the intense action movie format. This trailer demonstrated the significance of knowing what is relevant to the audience and incorporating unexpected combinations and choices in humor.

These two works inspire my own project through their genius combination of creatively using humor. Topics that are relevant and well known to the audience will be easier and more effective to create humor for. The use of meta humor, although tricky, can also be very effective in enticing the audience. Techniques that pair well with those two concepts are callbacks and caricatures, as seen in both examples. Caricatures can also be portrayed well in visual medias such as animation, films, or even comics. I also learned there are two ways humor can be done: visually and verbally. The Ember Island Players” leans heavily on verbal humor and witty dialogue, using the characters’ exaggerated performances and lines to generate laughs. In contrast, “Mario Kart Trailer” employs more physical comedy, relying on visual gags and exaggerated movements to elicit laughter. Visual and verbal humor is a great way to incorporate creativity and skills learned in Freestyle. Finally, from these two works, I can tell that both must have been really fun for the producers and teams to make, and even in the professional scene having fun is still very important. With the inspiration and insights gained from these two examples, I am excited to incorporate these ideas into my project and explore my own avenue of humor. 

Part 2 – Description of Proposed Project

1. A partner project with Fiona L.
2. Creating a comedic narrative production.
3. The subject of this production is the new Freestyle campus. A lot of people in Freestyle will relate to the emotions of exploring the new campus, and the absurdity of it all. They might find solace in making fun of it, because construction took so long to finish.
4. Humor techniques used will include Banter–Fiona and I banter and bounce off of each other regarding the “firsts.” Black Humor–the “firsts” progressively get darker. Situation humor–because it is based on real conversations heard on the Freestyle campus.
5. This is the right humor project for us because the new campus has been hyped up so much and it is perfect opportunity to do something like this. Additionally it is very fun and silly which is fitting for our dynamic.
6. After we get this idea approved, we will write the script and begin filming some scenes.

Script

Each event is prefaced by “first person to..” and ends with “on the new Freestyle Campus.” As the video progresses, so does the time of day, and the absurdity/darkness of the events

First Person To…

1. cartwheel– Lily does a cartwheel outside
2. log roll on the carpet — fiona rolls on a carpet
3. touch the ceiling — Lily stands on a couch and lifts Fiona to touch the ceiling
4. cry (start cheering once we get the shot) — A singular tear falls down Fiona’s cheek
5. climb a pole — Lily climbs the orange pole
6. kick down a cone — Fiona kicks the cone
7. busk — fiona brings cello and a hat and lily drops in a coin
8. bring chickens — Lily brings her chickens to have a play day
9. steal from — take the English sign, we will return it during our monday presentation
10. commit vandalism — post a tiny smiley face or little sticker on a wall
11. get a haircut — fiona gets a trim
12. stage an illegal night boxing match (fight club style) — dramatic lighting, Fiona and Lily have toilet paper on their hands
13. hide a dead body on the freestyle campus — Fiona says this, and Lily looks at them with a strange expression, the next time it pans back to Lily, a balloon with a smiley face and wig is in her place

… on the new Freestyle Campus