Seriously funny?

[Fred Duran]

I've been having a bit of a debate about this with myself ( :confused: ).
What would be funnier: A cartoon-ified guy making a fart joke or a character ripped from the most serious show/movie/book (for example Jack Bauer from 24 or Morpheus from The Matrix) doing the same? In short, is it more effective to read funny dialogue and see funny situations if the style matches the mood (i.e. if it's all cartoony) or if the style is dead-pan serious?
Personally, I'm leaning a little towards the latter. I think the funniest thing in the world would be having, for example, Morpheus fighting an Agent on top of a moving eighteen-wheeler (as is done in the second movie), and just as the Agent jumps up into the air to deliver the finishing blow, he smacks flat into one of those green highway signs and falls back to the street. Does the fact that the art tells the reader it's going to be serious and the words and situations are hilarious confuse the reader, or do you think that it would make it that much funnier to see Elliot Stabler (Law and Order: SVU), while looking deadly serious, tell a dirty joke?
If this comes across as me being stupid on purpose, let me say I'm completely serious about this. Any thoughts would be greatly appreciated.

Fred

[Fred Duran]

Come on, nobody has an opinion? :sure:

[KH]

Jack Bauer (in his most tense voice): You aren't listening to me. I need you to evacuate this building! There's a bomb in my pants!

definitely taking a TV/movie character that would never ever fart on camera is much EASIER to make it a funny situation than coming up with just a cartoon about farting --- or whatever. that's not to say that it can't be done in scenario 1, of course. I just think it would be funnier having the women from The View sitting around trying to control their gas than some character I don't know very well. We place these people into compartments in our head. You would expect it from a fart comic character, I guess, versus not expecting it from the farting preacher.

that farting preacher on ebaums... that's some good fart jokes right there.

[fluxchild]

I agree with KH. Morpheus beginning to go into focus mode, and ripping his pants with a fart is comedic gold. I can see either Trinity or Neo calling him something like fancy pants or commenting on his metrosexuality.
I think the agent jumping into a highway sign is some funny ish also.

[RichardB]

Part of me thinks that between Blazing Saddles and South Park any good flatulence jokes have already been done. To actually be funny, a good joke absolutely must contain an element of surprise. The mere fact of expelling gas was never the funny part, but making it incongruous and unexpected could be very funny. Good luck finding a new context in which it can be unexpected!

Now, I was doing some research on Benjamin Franklin for a script I'm about to post here, and came across the following line written by Franklin for the 1736 edition of Poor Richard's Almanack: "He that lives upon Hope, dies farting."

One of the Founding Fathers making a wisecrack about farting = comedy gold.

[ReekingHavoc]

I think the latter is funnier because it's unexpected for a completely serious character to do something goofy. Joss Whedon does that a lot with his television villains and serious characters and it works wonders.

Has Jack Bauer ever done anything funny?

[Fred Duran]

Thanks for all the responses, people. So it seems like we're all in agreement that someone that's famous for being serious making a dirty joke would be ten times funnier than someone who tells dirty jokes all the time doing the same thing.
Now I gotta get to spoofing the Matrix and 24 :har:

Fred

[ReekingHavoc]

Please...no more Matrix spoofs.

[AthenaRose]

I'd love to see you do something funny with Jack - he's far too serious.

[T.J. May]

I'm sick of Fart jokes. They are cliche :)

[Fred Duran]

Yeah, fart jokes are a little cliche, but that was just thrown in as an example.
And as for making Jack Bauer funny . . .
Give me a few days to post it. :cool:

[xtylerx]

Definitely dead pan. That's the best kind of comedy, in my opinion. The absurd has infinitely more comic appeal than an expected punchline. Isn't that why we all love Monty Python? Snooty British blokes "wild'n out," as the kids say.