Oh the Thinks you can Think

We  attended our 20 year high school reunion recently. It was a very entertaining evening. Relaxed conversation, queues at the bar reminiscent of the end-of-year pub crawl, lots of squeals of “Ohmygod! It’s YOUUUU!”.  We had a great night, which is a shame because we had a whole Romy and Michele scenario planned, should things go pear-shaped.

So sadly we never got to tell people that we invented Post-It notes, no former-geek-turned-billionaire showed up to interpretive dance with us and whisk us away in his helicopter, and at no time did we have to excuse ourselves from a stilted conversation by saying “I cut my foot before and my shoe is filling up with blood”.

Teen years have always been filled with fun, tears, love and drama. Despite our disappointment in not being able to channel our inner Romy and Michele, I guess we can take consolation in the fact that twenty years after leaving our teen selves behind, we are now comfortable in our own skins – owning our wrinkles, grey-hairs and extra-pounds and proud of where we have ended up in life. Wow Sooze – this must be contentment. Who knew?

Anyone else have a reunion recently? Found an old flame on Facebook or just caught up with a former classmate around the traps?

Humour is such a subjective thing. Some people like satire, others prefer dirty limericks, some deranged folk (of which I am one) can’t get enough of a good pun. There are people who like their comedy literate and high-brow and others who are partial to slapstick. Many of us like both. I’m sure psychologists could put together a fancy study correlating humour preferences to personality type, and expound upon why it is so. And yet, there are some things that are just funny. Inexplicably so.

Here are a few that come to mind.

Nuns. Nuns are hilarious. Flying nuns, boxing nuns, rock and roll nuns, nuns basically doing anything other than praying = funny. And yet I hear the movie Nuns on the Run wasn’t funny at all. Shame that.

People thinking they have a bug on them. OK – hands up everyone who has tickled the ear of a sleeping friend to make them swat at themselves. Or has almost wet their pants watching someone leap about to get some kind of creepy-crawly off their person (or as we like to call it – ‘doing the spider dance”), only to discover it’s a dried up leaf or bit of lint.  Yep – me too. Even with my well-documented arachnophobia, I think that’s funny. Not when it happens to me of course. Then it’s JUST MEAN! AND I CAN’T BELIEVE YOU WOULD MAKE FUN OF ME WHEN I WAS JUST SO SCARED!! [blows into paper bag]

Sloths. Brilliant animals. Certainly more highly evolved than we humans. Can anyone look at a picture or a video of a sloth without guffawing in delight? Meerkats are another funny animal – although I’d categorise them as more ‘delightful’ than ‘hilarious’. And I have it on good authority that non-Australians find dingoes funny. Well, the word ‘dingo’ anyway. Dingo. Diiingo. Yeah – OK – I guess I can see that being a little chuckleworthy.

German Folk Dancing. Confession here – being a good Bavarian girl, I did German Folk Dancing for many years as a kid. It’s awesome fun, and I love it, but you gotta admit it’s funny. You know – the knee slapping kind, where they wear Lederhosen. *snerk* Lederhosen! (Sorry, Dad, if you’re reading this, but that photo of you as a kid in your little short leather pants on Bondi Beach? Bloody hilarious.)

Smart Cars. OK – smart cars in the city? Clever. Smart, even. (Hey, look what they did there!) Smart cars on the freeway going bzzzzzz-zzzzzzzzzzzz-zzzzzzzzzzzzzz-zzzzzzz? Funny!

And you know what’s not funny? Clowns. Go figure.

Comment below with what else is just funny with no explanation required.

Meredith and I both like to think of ourselves as being funny people. Well, to be more precise, Meredith likes to think of herself as funny and I like to humour her because it makes her easier to live with.

Generally speaking, we’re both easily amused and we quite enjoy coming across quirky news items and the absurdities of everyday life.

Neither of us tends to be particularly amused by mean-spirited mocking of others. We’re all for laughing at other people, but we generally restrict this to laughing at each other and letting the rest of the world alone. Well, we do have a go at politicians every now and then, but gentle mocking by their constituents is part of their job description, isn’t it?

We were chatting recently about which comedians we like and why and discussing humour in general – why it was funny to watch The Chaser Kevin Rudd “In Due Season” spoof of the Barak Obama “Yes we can” song (you can watch them side by side here at Mia Freedman’s Mama Mia) and why it wasn’t funny to read all the rather nasty Tweets about the Masterchef Australia finalists that were thinly disguised as witty remarks. Not nice people. Not nice at all.

I’m not a big fan of slapstick humour or the kind of humour that relies on mentioning the types of body parts and processes that I’m not going to mention here for fear of receiving an overwhelming number of spam comments. You all know the words I mean.

If I’m looking for a good laugh (and Meredith isn’t available for me to mock), the following are sure to get a laugh-out-loud reaction:

Comedians
(mostly Australian comedians listed here. If you’re not familiar with their work, you really should check them out).

• Hamish & Andy
• Shaun Micallef
• Wil Anderson
• Amanda Keller
• Adam Hills
• Tripod
• Jimeoin 

Authors

• Jasper Fforde
• Douglas Adams
• Terry Pratchett
• Bill Bryson

Television and Movies

• Monty Python
• Fawlty Towers
• Black Books
• Top Gear
• Black Adder

Comic Strips

• Far Side
• Calvin & Hobbes

Blogs

• Of Cabbages and Kings
• Moggit
• Nanny Goats in Panties
• Southern Fried Momma

So what about you? What tickles your funny bone? What comedians have you chortling in your coffee? Are there any popular comedy programs or icons that you just don’t get? Are you a LOLcats fan or do you prefer something more esoteric or intellectual? Let us know what makes you have a good giggle?

[It's Retro Day again at thinkthinks.  This was originally published in 2006 at Just Humour Us]

The lovely Melissa from Business Mums has tagged us to complete this meme. We couldn’t resist. Particularly Meredith, who has no shame about revealing her strangest quirks to the world.

Meredith:
1. I am not only arachnophobic and BryanAdamsaphobic, but also slumbermoistaphobic.
S: Slumbermoistaphobia?
M: The fear of falling asleep in a public place, and drooling.
S: You really scare me sometimes.

2. I have always wanted to own a llama.

3. My two first preferences for children’s names were Sediment and Windowsill, but sadly my husband used his veto power on those.

4. My middle name is my first name, my first name is my middle name and my maiden name is unpronounceable. Which is why government departments, banks and telemarketers all hate me.

Susan:
1. Despite enthusiastic attempts by several friends, I remain unconvinced that sport is necessary for a productive and happy life.

2. I applied to join Mensa several years ago in an attempt to meet intelligent, witty and interesting people.
M: Isn’t Mensa an organisation for socially inept pseudo-intellectuals?
S: That’s not very nice or very accurate for that matter. I seem to recall, by the way, that you  were quite excited when I gave you an official Mensa coffee mug.
M: You have noticed that I’ve decorated it with Shrek stickers, haven’t you?

3.  I am deeply and personally offended by muzak.

Both:
1. We have a strong dislike of poor grammar, punctuation and spelling. This, combined with the fact that we don’t know how to find the apostrophe on our mobile phones, results in text messages that sound like they were written by Dr Seuss. “I will not be able to make it. I do not know. I do not eat green eggs and ham.”

2. Our first combined writing project was a ‘Thrills and Swoon Horror Romance’ called ‘When Love Misfeeds’. The central character was the school library photocopier (a rather amazing and impressive piece of office equipment back in those days).

3. We were members of an all girls choir for many years during our teens. The trauma caused by having to appear in public in floor length fire-engine red skirts and shapeless white blouses continues to result in terrifying flashbacks and nightmares consistent with PFD (post-traumatic fashion disorder).