Poll: The death of "Clever" comedy.

[maninahat]

No, but there is a difference in the way trailers are made. The original Ghostbusters is from an era where in a trailer, a narrator plains tells you what the movie is about. Now we have trailers that exclusively tell the story through scenes spliced from the movie and sound bites. Whilst it is more efficient and can create clever trailers, it can also set the wrong tone or, depending on the movie, fuck up a lot of the jokes by lifting them out of their context.

 

[maninahat]

But the Simpsons has gotten dumber, so there is that.

 

[Squilookle]

Can I just give you a quick nod of approval- for specifying the TV series of Hitch Hikers. Sure it looks like balls compared to the movie and the movie has some truly fantastic music, but on comedic setup, timing, and delivery the show was LEAGUES ahead of that flat film.

For me, Clever wit comedy copped a mortal wound when 'The Office' first appeared, and the final nail in the coffin was rammed in by Tim and Eric.

 

[Kyrian007]

Sharp writing seems to have (for the most part) given way to the pop-culture reference - and those are almost never funny. Case in point: The Simpsons.

British humor is still mostly on point, however.

A large increase in the popularity of pop culture references is kind of a by-product of the increase of "on demand" television and readily available media in general. Time being if you missed an episode of tv, you'd have to wait for the off season rerun to get a chance to see it again and if you missed that you would NEVER see that episode. If you didn't see a movie in its theatrical run... you'd NEVER see that movie. Now, beep boop... and it's playing on my phone. Thus you can trust a pop culture reference is going to be shared by a much larger audience... more people will GET the reference. But pop-culture references AREN'T a "new" thing. Go watch an episode of M*A*S*H. There's at least one pop-culture reference made an episode. And that's a 70's show making 50's pop-culture references.

And yeah, most these days fall flat because they are overdone. But we are also seeing the subversion of the pop-culture reference joke done right. Look at Archer. A lot of the reference jokes made in Archer are intentionally obscure references, its fairly clever for a comedy that relies heavily on sex and violence.

 

[EbonBehelit]

But pop-culture references AREN'T a "new" thing. Go watch an episode of M*A*S*H. There's at least one pop-culture reference made an episode. And that's a 70's show making 50's pop-culture references.

And yeah, most these days fall flat because they are overdone. But we are also seeing the subversion of the pop-culture reference joke done right. Look at Archer. A lot of the reference jokes made in Archer are intentionally obscure references, its fairly clever for a comedy that relies heavily on sex and violence.

I remember reading a post earlier today (non-related thread) about good references. Basically it boiled down to this: a good pop-culture reference will pretty much fly over the head of the uninformed viewer but nonetheless remain totally in-character.

 

[TelosSupreme]

I think we all know by now that tearing apart the new Ghostbusters is just picking low-hanging fruit.

Seriously though, I can understand where you're coming from, but I think it's a bit of both "yes" and "no."

There has always been low-brow comedy just as witty comedy still exists today. What I think the major difference is that the low-brow stuff seems to have taken more prominence as of recent. Or maybe it really has to do with Hollywood's almost total inability to come up with new and original stuff.

Ironically, Ghostbusters just so happens to be a perfect example. The original film was both funny, smart, and massively successful. But now we get a film that essentially only exists because a studio wanted to make some quick cash and dug out Ghostbusters from the barrel of formerly successful while still recognizable properties. Be honest with yourself if you're about to disagree, you know deep down in your blackened heart of hearts that it's true.

So really, if wit is what you want again, you may just end up finding it somewhere else. Perhaps in a game, a YouTube video, or maybe even a new film that's actually trying to give a damn in telling an original a clever story.

If the audience so wills it, then hopefully that's the case.

 

[Samtemdo8_v1legacy]

My favorite comedies are slapstick like Looney Tunes and "Sitcom" Comedies done Masterfully like Seinfeld:



Modern Comedy rarely makes me laugh in the movie and theater.

Internet Comedy when done right makes me laugh the most, the thing that makes me laugh so hard is in Youtube is how Double Toasted review there movies, Oh man Alvin and the Chipmunks got lolz out of me:

 

[Lindale FF]

"Comedy" has not been genuinely humorous since Monty Python.