What Do You Find Funny?

Erik Bates | March 27, 2005
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Scott Hardie | March 28, 2005
I have not seen more than a minute of "Family Guy," and everything I've heard about it has made me want to see it less. I'm due to start watching it in a few days, thanks to Netflix. I'll let you know what I think, or you can check my star rating.

Anyway, I've discussed that very "wince" moment with friends on more than one occasion, and more than one of them has found it hilarious that the scene just keeps going and going with nothing more to it than Peter holding his knee and wincing. I'd have to see the scene to make up my own mind, but it sounds like a case of Mike Myers's beloved "comedy torture," in which you extend a bad joke for so long that it gradually becomes very funny, such as when Austin Powers pees in the toilet for a very long extended take in the first film. At least, that's what Myers finds funny, but I disagree: To me, if it isn't funny once, it just gets more and more annoying the longer it goes on, like a terrible SNL sketch or yet another joke that Conan O'Brien botched and must desperately mug to the camera to wring a laugh out of. In my judgment, the best comedians know to move on when a joke bombs. "Family Guy" is a cartoon and can't rely on audience feedback, but it still seems to me like desperation (or misplaced pride) if the writers are telling the same joke for thirty seconds.

Slapstick can be very funny, if you ask me. My own favorite moment from "The Whole Nine Yards," the moment that got me to buy a ticket when I saw it in the promotional material, was when Matthew Perry's character has sold out Bruce Willis to a hitman but suddenly encounters Willis in his living room: He bumps into Michael Clarke Duncan then knocks down a lamp scrambling in a panic, and Perry is so damn good at it.

Erik Bates | March 28, 2005
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Amy Austin | March 28, 2005
Well perhaps we should start a convo on "The Whole Nine Yards"... ;DDD

My own personal crack-up moment in that movie is on the boat after Jimmy "The Tulip" Tudeski (Bruce Willis) kills Frankie Figs (Michael Clarke Duncan) and then goes to toss Oz (Perry) a cold one -- but, of course, he's so stunned by what just happened that he doesn't even flinch as the brewski whizzes right past him overboard while he stands there, eyes wide, mouth agape. Hilarious.

Erik Bates | March 28, 2005
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David Mitzman | March 30, 2005
I think the part where Jimmy and Jill are at Jimmy's house and start to plot Yanni's murder:

Oz: "Why the hell did you have to move in next door to me???"
Jimmy: "Oz... Do you know what kind of dirt is out back there? I've been here five days and I already have little sprouts..."
Oz: "OH MY GOD!!!" (in his typical Chandler'esque voice)