Tangent: The Powerpoint

 “The quality of being amusing or comic, esp. as expressed in literature or speech.”  There are many different types of humor, all with different executions.  The success of humor largely depends on the audience.  There’s also a lot of overlap between types.

 Incongruity Theory: “Humor is perceived at the moment of realization of incongruity between a concept involved in a certain situation and the real objects thought to be in some relation to the concept.”  Translation: I’s funny because it’s not what you expect.  Ex: The peasant scene in Monty Python and the Holy Grail. 

 More commonly known as slapstick.  “Comedy based on deliberately clumsy actions and humorously embarrassing events.”  Very visual-dependent.  Criticized for desensitizing viewers to violence.  Ex: Tom and Jerry.

 “Humor drawn from placing characters in the most embarrassing situations possible, or having them say the most awkward or offensive thing possible at all times.”  Extremely prominent in modern television.  Ex: Pick a sitcom. Any sitcom.

 Verbal irony: Intentionally worded statements that imply a meaning in opposition to their literal meaning.  The most common type of ironic humor.  Situational irony: “Incongruity between the actual result of a sequence of events and the normal or expected result.“  Overlaps with the previously mentioned incongruity humor.  Dramatic irony: A character speaks or acts erroneously, out of ignorance of some portion of the truth of which the audience is aware.  Ex: Into the Woods.

 Humor that exists because of a reference to another work within a work.  This is why pop culture references are funny.  Ex: Several from Back to the Future:  George: Who are you?  Marty: [wearing radiation suit] My name is Darth Vader. I am an extraterrestrial from the planet Vulcan. [makes Vulcan salute]

 Alias black comedy, morbid comedy or schadenfreude.  “Joy in the suffering of others."  At its core, gallows humor is bad things being treated in a satirical manner while still being portrayed as bad.  "Tragedy is when I cut my finger. Comedy is when you fall in an open sewer and die.“  Mel Brooks, explaining the phenomenon.

 Banana. Banana banana. Banana, banana banana. Banana, banana? Banana!  Piiiiiiiinapple.  Humor that’s surreal, absurd, unexpected, unpredictable, nonsensical, and/or incongruous.  Closely related (and often overlapping with) gross-out humor.  Ex: Roughly 34% of the Internet, and 47% of anything preteen boys find funny.

 “Comic imitation often intended to ridicule an author, an artistic endeavor, or a genre.”  Note that parodies are not necessarily humorous (ex: Lord of the Flies is in fact a dark parody of Jules Verne’s Two Years Vacation – they have the same setup, but drastically different outcomes), but in the majority of cases, they are.  Ex: A Very Potter Musical for the Harry Potter Series, Men in Tights for the Robin Hood mythos, the Scary Movie series for horror tropes.

 The Rule of Three: While dramatic things often come in sets of three, comedy also utilizes this often.  Ex: A brick joke/running gag appearing 3 times in total.  The K Rule – Apparently, words with a “K” sound in them are inherently more funny than words without one. Hard “G” sounds also qualify.  Ex: Kangaroo. Kidney. Kookabura. Guacamole.

 You have up to 500 words to utilize one type of humor effectively enough to make your reader legitimately laugh out loud.  You can attempt to use more than one, but I wouldn’t recommend it. Quality over quantity.  I have probably forgotten at least one type of humor. If there’s one I didn’t mention that you wanted to use, just ask.  Cosine: Draw a short, newspaper-strip-style comic showcasing a type of humor.  Or you can draw me something involving bananas, pineapples, or floating skulls. Your choice.  Banana!