More Inspector Clouseau
It’s such a corny joke, but such a good one. I never tire of these things, and it’s because Sellers delivers the lines with such outraged dignity:
The New Neo
A blog about political change, among other things
It’s such a corny joke, but such a good one. I never tire of these things, and it’s because Sellers delivers the lines with such outraged dignity:
It’s always been part of my weird sense of humor to deliberately mispronounce a word to give it a different meaning than the context of a conversation would dictate, or just “hear” a word as its homonym, or to take a comment meant literally and interpret it figuratively or vice versa. My side of the communication can then go off in a completely new direction, like what happened with Sellers’ “message”.
I try to do it in such an off-the-wall, over-the-top manner that I think any listener should immediately understand that I’m joking. However, 98.1314% of the time (give or take), I’ll get a puzzled or angry response like “That’s not true! How could you even say that? Here is the way it really is…”
Either I’m a better actor than my acting teacher gives me credit for, or the human race has a much poorer sense of humor than I give it credit for.
There have been few if any comic actors at Sellers’ level- probably only Steve Martin, Charlie Chaplin, and maybe Bill Murray.
I like Steve Martin, too, but why in the world did he do two Clouseau remakes?
Ann,
Money is a wonderful thing…
geokstr,
Rarity does not connote superiority. My ex loves word play, which never struck me as that funny, whereas she didn’t share my sense of humor. Other’s do, so I know its not her or myself but different strokes for different folks. I consider both Peter Sellers and Robin Williams to have been comedic geniuses. But their humor was very different.
I thought you said your dog did not bite.
That is not my dog.
You killed him in a rit of fealous jage!
Clouseau: Oh, yes. It is obvious to my trained eye, that there is much more going on here than meets the ear. Before you are dismissed, Mr. Stiffsticker, I suggest you count your bees. May find one of them is missing.
Now, now, no need for insults, Geoffrey. I didn’t say my sense of humor is superior, instead I implied that a sense of humor seems to be lacking in America. You see, I may feel someone else’s attempts at humor are in poor taste, unfunny, off the mark, not my style etc, but I can still recognize them as humor, so I don’t generally get all huffy, angry, outraged or annoyed. Maybe it’s my Brooklyn upbringing, where ranking (insult) contests were daily affairs.
Note that many famous comedians, even the liberal ones, are refusing to do college gigs precisely because of the delicate snowflake fear of microaggressions and the culture of victimhood that prevails there – Seinfeld (whose humor should offend no one), Mencia (who pisses off everybody), and Chris Rock come to mind. Others are forced by SJWs to apologize because someone, somewhere got offended at a joke they made on Twitter, Facebook or other online venue.
There’s even a movie out right now that decries the dying of the sense of humor:
Can We Take a Joke
I might add that almost all humor that isn’t slapstick, physical or visual is a play on words or wordplay of some kind or other. So lighten up already, please.
Neo:
Thanks for the reason to view clips of Peter Sellers on YouTube!
Not that my arm needed any twisting. A welcome break from the grim political situation.
“That is not my dog.”