Why the older generation don't get jokes

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QED!

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Re: Why the older generation don't get jokes

BumbleBeeBoogie wrote:

The alternative options were less amusing, one of which saw the young man replying: "Yes, I feel a little weak. Please help me."

In addition, the participants were shown cartoons from a comic strip, and asked them to choose between four panels to locate the funny ending.

Three of the choices for each cartoon were the wrong ones and created by an artist for the purposes of the study.

Who decides what's right and wrong in comedy? Just because different people find different things amusing, or funny, doesn't mean there's a right kind of funny.

My neighbour's small children find knock-knock jokes hilarious. Her teens find other types of jokes (more in the banana peel slip genre) funny. My immediate next-door neighbour is in her 80's - she appreciates humour (I know she does - I often hear her laughing when she's watching comedies on television) - but isn't a huge fan of knock-knock jokes unless they're told by her own grand-daughters.

There may well be generational and cultural differences in what people find funny (or are willing to report as finding amusing), but the study seems to have missed the point.

Humor's much like music, we 'get' it in different ways.

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Re: Why the older generation don't get jokes

ehBeth wrote:

Who decides what's right and wrong in comedy? Just because different people find different things amusing, or funny, doesn't mean there's a right kind of funny.

Well from the example given it looks like the choices given were pretty unambiguous. I mean, it's not like there were different kinds of jokes and some liked one better and some the other; the test was consciously designed to offer alternatives that were not funny. Kind of different, isnt it?

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Re: Why the older generation don't get jokes

nimh wrote:

Well from the example given it looks like the choices given were pretty unambiguous.

Using the one example given, I'd disagree. Neither of the options pass any kind of 'funny test' for me. I'd probably have stared at the test-givers and asked for a 'funny' choice.

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Re: Why the older generation don't get jokes

ehBeth wrote:

Using the one example given, I'd disagree. Neither of the options pass any kind of 'funny test' for me. I'd probably have stared at the test-givers and asked for a 'funny' choice.

Ditto.

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Mame and ehbeth were walking through the woods together when they came upon a set of tracks.

"Look, deer tracks!" exlaimed Mame.

"No, those are moose tracks." countered ehbeth.

They were still standing there arguing when the train hit them.

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Some older peoples sense of humor must go downhill as they age. I can't believe they got by on such a lame sense of humor as some of them have at their age for their entire life.

Yesterday I'm up to my elbows in mud and sweating like pig in the 95 degree heat, and I half hear someone calling to me from the road.

I crane my head up and this old fart in a SUV calls out to me, "Hey! Has that ornery old coot you live with told you I like what you're doin' to you garden?"

I thought "Old coot? Gus moved out weeks ago.wait, is he talking about Mr. Tea?"

I looked at him like this.

http://www.jesandian.com/seekspeak/trailer.jpg

And said.."I don't know who you are." Just then, his old fart wife learned over in the passenger seat. Then I remembered her. She used to work down at the Dairy Queen before they closed that location. Mr. Tea once went over to their house to change a light bulb or something. I remember seeing her once and she went on like she was his major source of income or something. Stupid hag.

Anyway, Mr. Old Fart says "It doesn't matter if you know me! I like it anyway!" and peeled out at about 7 miles an hour.

I don't care how much respect one has for the elderly, and I have a lot.that's just lame.

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Re: Why the older generation don't get jokes

Mame wrote:

ehBeth wrote:

Using the one example given, I'd disagree. Neither of the options pass any kind of 'funny test' for me. I'd probably have stared at the test-givers and asked for a 'funny' choice.

Ditto.

Quote:

"This wasn't a study about what people find funny. It was a study about whether they get what's supposed to be funny," Professor Carpenter wrote.

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Re: Why the older generation don't get jokes

ehBeth wrote:

BumbleBeeBoogie wrote:
The alternative options were less amusing, one of which saw the young man replying: "Yes, I feel a little weak. Please help me."

In addition, the participants were shown cartoons from a comic strip, and asked them to choose between four panels to locate the funny ending.

Three of the choices for each cartoon were the wrong ones and created by an artist for the purposes of the study.

Who decides what's right and wrong in comedy? Just because different people find different things amusing, or funny, doesn't mean there's a right kind of funny.

My neighbour's small children find knock-knock jokes hilarious. Her teens find other types of jokes (more in the banana peel slip genre) funny. My immediate next-door neighbour is in her 80's - she appreciates humour (I know she does - I often hear her laughing when she's watching comedies on television) - but isn't a huge fan of knock-knock jokes unless they're told by her own grand-daughters.

There may well be generational and cultural differences in what people find funny (or are willing to report as finding amusing), but the study seems to have missed the point.

Humor's much like music, we 'get' it in different ways.

I couldn't have said it better.

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Maybe Prof Carpenter should have stood in front of them and superglued peanuts to his willy, just to see who snickered.

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Re: Why the older generation don't get jokes

ehBeth wrote:

nimh wrote:
Well from the example given it looks like the choices given were pretty unambiguous.

Using the one example given, I'd disagree. Neither of the options pass any kind of 'funny test' for me. I'd probably have stared at the test-givers and asked for a 'funny' choice.

Umm, I think we have a failure to communicate here. I didnt say that the "I just graduated" option actually necessarily made for a funny joke, or that it should be considered funny. But it is pretty immediately clear that it is actually a joke, in that it's at least meant to be funny. Whereas the "Yeah, I feel a little weak" answer is.. nothing. I mean, that just couldnt be a punchline, regardless what your taste in jokes is.

Which is no wonder, since it was thought up by a researcher deliberately as something that Would Not Make For A Joke.

Hence how the example was pretty unambiguous in recognizing, at least, what was supposed to be the joke.

Then again, how old are you and Mame again? Razz

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Oh, I see that Kicky already was ahead of me there..

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Doowop wrote:

Maybe Prof Carpenter should have stood in front of them and superglued peanuts to his willy, just to see who snickered.

Just in case ehbeth and Mame aren't able to follow along...this is a funny post. :wink:

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Mame wrote:

The point of the joke is that he just qualified from Med School so he's asking to be called a Dr.

Not funny, but certainly better than the alternative given.

I consider these to be groaners... you get the joke but it's not funny.

Hey, nimh! I got it, I got it - just didn't think it was funny Laughing

Reminds me of Henny Youngman - "Take my wife... please." Yeah, that's a real yukker, uh huh.... Laughing

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Hey!

Lay off my main man Henny!

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You know what I should have said to that guy who called my Wally a grumpy old coot?

I should of said...Now how would you like it if I called your wife there a fat bitch of a pig?

Yeah, that's what I shoulda said.

Damn french staircase moment.

I'm gonna go walk to their house, it's about 2 blocks away, and stand on their front lawn and call them out on this.

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You go girl!

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Why the older generation don't get jokes

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