Trying Too Hard To Be Funny

The other day Sean Michael was watching one of his tv shows in the living room and while I wasn't really paying too much attention to it, I did hear bits and pieces of it, and it struck me on how hard they were trying to be funny without trying to be funny. And of course there was the requisite "audience" laughter in the background, just in case you didn't know it was supposed to be funny (without really meaning be to of course) so that you would laugh right along with the (non)joke. Frankly I just thought the show (and the others like it) was really stupid. But hey, I was raised on Gilligan's Island and F-Troup and Here Comes The Brides.....shows I am sure that by today's teenagers' standard would be pretty lame and possibly stupid too. Still, I'd watch my 70s shows over their 2010s shows any day.

Then there are the blogs out there. I like to read other people's blogs, and there is one popular one with the initials PW that I always think she is trying way too hard to be funny also. I can see throwing in a funny here and there (I do it myself), but with her there is a lot more of them and consistently and to me, they really aren't all that funny. More annoying, actually. True, I don't have to read it, but I still do, because sometimes she might write something interesting. If only she would just stop trying so hard to be funny.

I do enjoy shows like Whose Line Is It Anyway where they have to be funny at all times and they are really good at it. I like it when people play off of each other and don't even have to try to be hilarious, they just are, and the cast of WLIIA is very good at that. I've had friends like that, who we just play off of each other and have fun with it. But when it starts to be forced, ya gotta quit.

So let's be funny. But let's not try. Let's just be. :-)