Are you looking for counterexamples? Because the treacle of "Life is Beautiful" notwithstanding, Roberto Benigni is pretty funny, in a Steve Martin kind of way.
I was thinking of Roberto Benigni as a paradigmatic example of the unfunny European.
There's this, which I think is from somewhere in Scandinavia.
Ever since I saw Smoke Signals, I've been convinced that more of humor than I thought is culturally specific.
Does that mean you didn't think Smoke Signals was funny? Because "John Wayne's teeth, hey-yah hey-yah" was hilarious.
Smoke Signals was hilarious. The earlier parts were better than the later ones, though.
4: I've been convinced that more of humor than I thought is culturally specific.
You ain't kidding. This is apparently the Finnish equivalent of Kids in the Hall.
Are we counting Turkey as European, and does the humour have to be intentional?
Johny Stecchino (sp?) was hilariously funny. Also Günter Grass has his moments.
Aargh. I spelled his surname correctly but his given name incorrectly.
Johny Stecchino (sp?) was hilariously funny.
Also, big parts of Il Mostro.
Johny Stecchino (Benigni's best work) was on the IFC channel or something the other day - you might be able to tivo it.
I seem to have started a trend of dropping n's.
I remember Mediterraneo as being amusing, although I don't think it was a comedy, and it has been a while.
In big swaths of Latin America there are guys named "Jhonny", so I don't sweat the spelling of the name...
6, 9: No, I thought it was extremely funny. (The weather reports alone!) I was just taken aback by the fact that my companion and I were, on numerous occasions, the only two people in the theater laughing. And we're talking about a near-to-big-urban-area theater, with an audience that has plenty of exposure to art-house and foreign films.
Der bewgte Mann is pretty funny. Or so I thought a few years ago.
Eastern Europeans are funny? Like who? Yaakov Smirnoff?
22: Balki, from "Perfect Strangers"
On second thought, was Mypos Eastern European?
Johnny Stecchino!!!!
nanni moretti films too. and once upon a time beppe grillo was funny though now he focuses on politics and is more serious.
the French can be maliciously wittily funny. though it can be pretty culturally specific.
Also, Italo Calvino has written some very funny stuff. Or are we only talking about movies and comedians here?
Norway has Hurra Torpedo and Kristopher Schau.
or this
(
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-4655323211378605528&q=der+bonker&hl=en)
Somewhere, René Goscinny is spinning in his grave. These Romans are crazy.
Eastern Europeans are funny? Like who? Yaakov Smirnoff?
Bohumil Hrabal? Um...
Also, I'm not sure about the British anymore. I keep hearing about these great British comedy TV shows (Nighty Night, Black Books, Coupling) and generally each episode consists of a few upper-middle-class slackers being extremely cruel to each other, unexpectedly laughing and saying random things in a stoned way, and making references to what a slut some female character is. (That's what most American sitcoms are like too, but at least they have a formulaic structure and a laugh track so it isn't so awkward to watch.) Exception: "The Mighty Boosh", which is hilarious.
My brother claims that this is the funniest movie ever made. I wouldn't go that far but it is funny.
Oirland is in the British Isles.
The Swiss are funny sometimes. See Duerrenmatt.
This was one of the funniest movies I've ever seen. I'd like to buy it on DVD, but can't figure out any way to do so from an English-language website.
Oirland is in the British Isles.
I was given to understand that some Irish take exception to that characterization.
Hurra Torpedo
This was the one that occurred to me too; very funny.
Not a page of La Disparacion does not contain multiple belly laughs -- and it is not a short book.
The Gävle goat and assorted hinjinks are pretty damn funny.
31 - I refute you with Spaced, so there.
Anything counts; even your funny German uncle Helmut.
I was thinking of Roberto Benigni as a paradigmatic example of the unfunny European.
You are my blood brother.
Anything counts; even your funny German uncle Helmut.
The first time I went to Berlin, I went to a concert put on by the viola section of the Berlin Philharmonic. They played a piece by some Australian composer, who was there, that called for occasionally playing with viola bows and occasionally with violin bows. It was good! Since the composer was there, they had him introduced; I couldn't understand the introduction, but the audience laughed. Even the American friend I went with laughed.
My German father in law was funny. E.g., he used to announce to his undergraduates on the first day of class that his last name was pronounced "bloom, as in gloom and doom, not blum, as in glum and dumb."
My husband once said, to a British landlord of a friend who was going on about the superiority of English humor, that he agreed completely, as Benny Hill was the funniest thing he'd ever seen.
The films--just about all of them--of Aki Kaurismaki. I'm particularly partial to his rendition of Hamlet in a rubber duck factory, in which Hamlet is a clueless buffoon whose always eating large pieces of meat for some reason.
My German father in law was funny. E.g., he used to announce to his undergraduates on the first day of class that his last name was pronounced "bloom, as in gloom and doom, not blum, as in glum and dumb."
Oh man, B.
A friend of mine in the biz says that all funny American comedians are either Jewish, black, or Canadian. He was none of those and also an unsuccessful comedian.
John Stewart is double-dipping, a Jew who has taken on stereotypical Canadian name. No Screech for that big phony!
Imagine it in a thick German accent, said as if he were being very serious.
The funny thing about Canadian comedians (who are often very funny indeed) is that Canadians, by and large, have no sense of humor.
In one Norse saga there are two brothers named Grim and Glum. In Old Icelandic their names respectively mean, approximately, "grim" and "glum".
I'm particularly partial to his rendition of Hamlet in a rubber duck factory, in which Hamlet is a clueless buffoon whose always eating large pieces of meat for some reason.
This reminds me of a list of ways to stage Hamlet my friend Dave and I came up with once many years ago. Eg:
2. The actor playing Hamlet either A. plays all the characters or B. plays Ophelia.
3. All the actors are trees.
14. Before the duel, Laertes winks at and nudges Claudius in very obvious ways.
15. Claudius doesn't speak the same language as the other characters.
16. Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are dead throughout the entire play.
17. Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are played by a coffee grinder and a helium tank, respectively.
30. Gertrude is a table lamp which turns on and off in lieu of reciting lines. When she has lines in scenes with Claudius, he holds her menacingly in the face of people to whom she's talking.
I can't believe I still have this.
Oh no, it's the humor cop! Everyone act serious!
It's an accident that inanimate objects (coffee grinder, trees (ok, not really inanimate), table lamp) show up so often in that selection. They weren't that common in the whole list.
Oirland is in the British Isles.I was given to understand that some Irish take exception to that characterization.
And I've been given to understand that Emerson takes exception to that characterization, on grounds that it should all be called the Welsh Isles.
Canadians, by and large, have no sense of humor
This must be true. I totally don't get that "glum and dumb" joke, for instance. Maybe I'm doing the German accent wrong.
I totally don't get that "glum and dumb" joke
Don't worry, you're not missing much.
Are you people speaking ill of my dead father-in-law?
Oh! Oh! All the words sound the same!
Wait. That's not very funny...
Wrong, IA. Kindly drink your Screech and be silent. There are no Welsh and there is no Wales.
One of my friends has seen Shakespeare in New Guinea pidgin (in London). In B.C. my brother just recently saw Shakespeare done in either Kwakiutl or Tlingit. (Sold out, but he got his tickets in advance).
I can't tell a Kwakiutl from a Tlingit, which is a real problem since they're cannibals who hate each other. I usually start out in English until I know which one they are.
Both languages will be dead by the next time you visit Alaska, John, so I wouldn't worry too much.
62: Damn, now I feel bad. I'm letting the monkeys loose in his honour.
My brother's German grandfather-in-law is a monolingual schizophrenic archeo-Nazi. Not funny.
I once read about a conference panel of Canadian comedians. They were charged with coming up with a saying that began "As Canadian as..." and which was parallel to "As American as apple pie." Martin Short answered "As Canadian as possible under the circumstances."
Kindly drink your Screech and be silent.
I will happily drink my Screech, Emerson, and drink to your health while I'm at it, but I'm afraid I cannot possibly remain silent while doing so. In fact, even thinking about drinking Screech prompts an irresistible urge to break out into a round of I'se the B'ye:
I don't want your maggoty fish/That's no good for winter
48: John s/b Jon, which sounds less Canadian.
an irresistible urge to break out into a round of I'se the B'ye
I. Am. Letting. The. Monkeys. LOOSE.
Actually, it s/b Jonathan Stuart Leibowitz, which sounds a whole lot less Canadian.
Eugene Levy was your only Jew, right?
Soembody keep an eye on IA. She seems to be letting herself go tonight.
I think Emerson and IA should fall in love. I know the latter's married, but that can be taken care of.
Oirland is in the British Isles.
I was given to understand that some Irish take exception to that characterization.
The problem is that "British Isles" is a geographic designation that is typically understood to include Ireland, so if you try to use the term to exclude Ireland, you will prompt responses like this. But the term is indeed offensive to some, because of its connotations of ownership. Good non-offensive alternatives are: "Britain and Ireland", "The United Kingdom and the Republic of Ireland", or "Ireland, Scotland, Wales, and the fucking Sassenachs".
"As Canadian as possible under the circumstances."
Is an old one, though. Companion to the one postulating great Canadian Literature, like "Probably One of the Few Remaining Mohicans."
w-lfs-n, you're . . . matchmaking?!?
DS, as much as I adore Dave Foley, the monkeys sketch just isn't that funny.
w-lfs-n is just screwing with my no-relationship policy.
Actually I had the same reaction when I first saw it, but like most of KitH it kinda grew on me.
77: Sportswriters often use that form, as in "Probably one of the best pitchers in the game today". The combination of a superlative with two reductives (whatever you call "probably" and "one of") is totally incoherent, but not rare.
But the term is indeed offensive to some, because of its connotations of ownership.
Indeed. And at the risk of sounding like yet another humourless Screech-drinking Canadian (I took Liza to a dance/And faith, but she could travel/And every step that she did take/Was up to her knees in gravel), I'd like to suggest that geographical designations are not neutral, factually objective descriptors, innocent of any and all of political connotations ... hence the concept of geopolitics, no?
I cannot, or will not, give my heart to Emerson, because I would not meddle with his no-relationship policy.
Such noble self-abnegation bespeaks true longing, IA.
I cannot, or will not, give my heart to Emerson, because I would not meddle with his no-relationship policy.
This is a plea for help.
82 -- you're just upset because of the continent's name.
Has anyone seen Benigni's Pinocchio? I don't think I stopped laughing.
It would take a heart of stone to watch Benigni's Pinocchio without alternately laughing and yelling "WTF" every two minutes throughout.
The tall blonde man with one black shoe begs to differ. Has no one else seen Le Diner de cons?
More important, I need some literary advice.
That's like, an honor. Lewis and Clarke sounds good.
87, 88 - Wait, were you guys laughing at intentional jokes? The vibe I got what that Pinocchio had a dangerously high treacle-to-humor ratio.
Intentional joking is so 1996.
That is quite an honor, Charley. I'd be tempted to hold up an Ann Coulter book.
Charley, you should choose Portnoy's Complaint.
echh - 92 should read "the vibe I got was that..."
95 - I can think of two things wrong with that title.
Chuckkoi, here's your answer, if you can find a hard copy in the local library system.
Underground by Emir Kusturica is a very funny movie with beautiful historical metaphors about the creation and violent dissolution of Yugoslavia. (Yes, Eastern European). Black Cat, White Cat, also him, is a really fucking funny Gypsy wedding movie. His Arizona Dream, made in America, has Johnny Depp, Faye Dunaway, Vincent Gallo, and Jerry Fucking Lewis and if that isn't enough to make you run out and rent it, then I'm mon oncle's monkey.
In a similar vein: if you are a Jewish camper in a summer camp that has a lot of children from Western Europe, do not trade "Jewish jokes" with the German boys.
Dario Fo. When he felt like it, Luis Bunuel.
Bunuel
Yes, totally. Viridiana had me rolling in the aisles at points. (Well there are not aisles in the room where my television set is but I was rolling in the closest thing that would pass for aisles.)
I closed the italics tag after the word "Viridiana". Unfogged's refusal to recognize that simple truth makes me doubt its sincerity.
It's cheating to name Yugoslavs or people from any of its degradation-product nations, but "Who's that singing over there" (1980) is a hilarious black comedy. It's set before the German invasion of Yugoslavia in WWII, which turned out to be extraordinarily brutal and led to a brutal civil war. There was lots of foreshadowing of the civil war that was to destroy Yugoslavia.
East European black comedy is really black. I also like American black comedy, but it's just nervous giggling by people who feel exempt and are spectating abstract disasters.
Score one for wiki.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ko_to_tamo_peva
"Underground" mentioned above includes a scene with circus animals roaming the city which was originally intended for "Who's that Singing Over There?"
The Wiki also misses the way that the two Gypsies function as a sort of Greek chorus with little songs.
One of the repeating themes of the movie is that the Yugoslavs were going to resist the Nazi war machine with a single cannon.
"No Man's Land" is also pretty funny in places. But again, it's Eastern European.
And Closely Observed Trains and any number of more recent Czech movies, but again, Eastern (or rather Central) European.
Are we talking only about professionally produced humor? Because times I've been in Italy, Italians seem as likely as anyone, and more likely than most, to say clever stuff. And I've laughed at German movies. (Admittedly, I saw Manner in high school, but I don't go to the movies much.)
As likely as anyone, LB? As likely as blacks, Jews or Canadians? Well, maybe forget Canadians for a second.
One of the funniest guys I know is Japanese, and I know some very funny Finns (in a sort of stereotypical suicidally bleak way).
The question is, how well can I trust you all to be able to distinguish between quality of humor? I mean, my mom thinks my dad is hilarious.
The Master and Margarita is a really incredibly funny book but it's old and extremely dark and Eastern European so I don't know if it qualifies as a knee-slapper and it cannot possibly qualify as "current" and ogged included Eastern Europeans in his humor amnesty anyway.
The monkeys sketch is fucking hilarious. Tangential to that, but related to the "Canadian as..." deal, one of my favorite lines from KitH is when a Filipino boy asks a Dave Foley character if he's American and he says, "No, I'm Canadian - just like an American but without the gun."
It would take a heart of stone to watch Benigni's Pinocchio without alternately laughing and yelling "WTF" every two minutes throughout.
I can't even read the reviews without laughing and yelling "WTF!"
From Elvis Mitchell:
"Other scenes of unintentional innuendo can be found. While Pinocchio is pulling one of his many jail stretches for a crime he didn't commit -- he spends more time in manacles that Enron's senior executives -- one of his cellmates, another adult under the illusion that he's a boy, offers a lick of a lollipop that's ''the flavor of paradise.''
Pedro Almodóvar is another funny European.
Very true.
In fact, I think we can objectively establish that Ogged is simply insane.
the French can be maliciously wittily funny. though it can be pretty culturally specific.
Le Placard is very funny, not culturally specific, and has much to offer the Mineshaft viewer.
In general, I find Daniel Auteuil and Gerard Depardieu to be quite funny.
And, thinking of the French, Delicatessen has plenty that's guffaw-worthy. Also cannibalism, but hey.
Natagacam, Closely Watched Trains is based on a novel by Bohumil Hrabal, whom I mentioned earlier. More interesting is that his other novel I Served the King of England has finally been made into a movie, forty or so years after it was written (it was more risqué and weird than Closely Watched Trains, and definitely not as popular with the Communist government).
http://film.guardian.co.uk/festivals/news/0,,2014987,00.html
75:
The problem is that "British Isles" is a geographic designation that is typically understood to include Ireland, so if you try to use the term to exclude Ireland, you will prompt responses like this.
It is rather stronger than that, in that the term "British Isles" if meant to exclude Ireland doesn't make any sense. The British Isles are Great Britain and Ireland, along with assorted sundry little islands. If you exclude Ireland, why are you talking about Isles at all? And is Northern Ireland part of the British Isles, and the Republic not part? It's all a conceptual mess.
Beyond that, I've never encountered anyone who is actually offended by the use of "British Isles", but only people reporting on how other people find it offensive.
120: I agree with the first part of your comment: it doesn't make much sense to use the term the way ogged tried to. As for the second part, I'm guessing you have never lived in Ireland.
girl x is convinced that the UK is called "Britland". works for me. then again, she also, based on my general attempt to explain that different-looking people come from different places, and european-derived people are pale because it's cold there, while people ancestrally from hot places tend to be darker-skinned, is convinced that her half-Indonesian/half-English friend has dark hair and skin because he is from australia (I mean, he is from australia because his parents are expats). I just let it go at that point.
it doesn't make much sense to use the term the way ogged tried to
Blame wikipedia; I checked before I posted.
While [British Isles] is probably the most common term used to describe the islands, use of this term is not universally accepted and is often rejected[7] in Ireland.
Other descriptions are also used, including "Great Britain and Ireland", "The British Isles and Ireland", "Britain and Ireland", and the deliberately vague "these isles", as well as less common designations like "IONA" (Islands of the North Atlantic), "The Anglo-Celtic Isles", etc.
I know a Welsh-Irish couple living in Canada who have settled on "Hyperborea" as the designation of choice.
And cdm is right, "British Isles" really grates on most Irish people and I appreciated the fact that the post didn't use it in that sense.
I never had any problem with this; a childhood surrounded with official anglophilia may have helped. The big island, containing England, Scotland and Wales, which always looked to me like a cartoon character in Tudor costume dancing a reel, is Great Britain. The political entity is The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, formerly without the "Northern." All the islands, including Ireland, and the Isle of Man and the Hebrides and the Shetlands and Orkneys, are The British Isles.
And I know which way is up on a Union Jack too.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/6479377.stm
[btw]
Norman Davies' book "The Isles" has a lengthy discussion of the right way to name the 'british isles'. The Irish, understandably, get a bit annoyed at the British Isles but there isn't really a nice alternative (for the geographic entity).
In general, comedy doesn't translate, period. The reason why we find the British funny is share enough linguistically and culturally with them that their comedy is actually related to ours.