How does humour vary in different countries?

Watching it again, it wasn't as British punny as I thought, but it doesn't strike me as particularly funny. It doesn't build up to anything. It is slightly reminiscent of a routine that appeared in the first episode of the Abbott and Costello TV show and reappears in Jerry Lewis' The Errand Boy.

If you want British humour, try Blithe Spirit. Noel Coward is the epitome of British humour

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humour for posh people tho

I certainly think humor varies from country to country. The only real comparison that I myself can make is that of American and British humor. Watching shows that come on BBC American a lot of the time I don't get why they are funny at all, but I have a few friends from the UK that will sit there and laugh their heads off at that stuff, but they will think something like Seinfeld is the stupidest thing on earth.

The silly British stuff goes best over with Americans because it is less dependent on specific to British culture. Some of the Monty Python stuff is satirizing things Americans know nothing about, but they are doing funny voices, dressed up like women and making faces and we laugh anyway.

The Monty Python movies I can certainly laugh at, but there is still some of that humor in those films that go right over my head.

I watched an episode of the Simpsons recently (i think it was the first episode of series 17) where Homer had gone to some town somewhere (maybe the south) and he kept calling them 'rubes', which I totally didn't get.

I guess he thinks the people from the south are dumb and slow. The writers are probably working on the stereotype that Southerns are all yokels and bumpkins. It's ironic that Homer Simpson of all the people is calling anyone 'rubes'.

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But what does 'rube' mean?

http://onlineslangdictionary.com/definition+of/rube

http://www.yourdictionary.com/rube

A dull unintelligent person.

Bugs Bunny uses it a lot (what a rube).



The guy on the harmonica is a rube.
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I don't think it's stupid, but it's certainly not funny. I think it's a bit like beer, in that very few people actually think it's funny, while everyone else is determined not to feel/look stupid or be the odd one out, so carry on with it until they get used to it.

Seinfeld doesn't always work for me. but I thought this was pretty funny.

I agree with you on that one, completely.

To diverge into tv talk, I've always thought that Arrested Development was more British Humo(u?)r than American. I know that people (for reasons unbeknownst to me) compare Coupling to Friends; the shows don't share many similarities besides 20-somethings with relationship issues, but that seems to show the divide between British and American humor quite well. I've always thought of Woody Allen as having a British humor quality.

For me, British humor is one of those "I can't describe it, but I know it when I see it" things. Or when I hear it, you know, because of the funny accents.

Here is a good take on things...

Julia Morris unmasked

http://au.tv.yahoo.com/the-morning-show/video/

You've already gotten the dictionary definitions and the fact that rube is derived from the name Ruben. It's also part of the battle cry of old time carnival workers. If one of their people got into a fight with a customer over a rigged game or if the police swooped down on a raid because of the crooked games and naked dancers in some tents, the cry would go up, "Hey, Rube!" which would bring all the carnival workers on the run to fight the local "rubes" who were causing trouble.

The best use of "rube" in a film is in All the King's Men in which Broderick Crawford, being fronted as a candidate for governor of Louisiana to split the opposition vote and reelect the machine's candidate, finally figures out he's being had, throws away the dull, phoney speeches his handlers have been giving him and starts telling the rural voters how the slick city boys managed to gull him because he's a rube. Then he tells them, "You're a rube, too," and calls for all the rubes to band together to fight the politicians at the ballot box. The film is a very good telling of the Huey Long saga who managed to build a coalition of poor whites and blacks in Louisiana to get in the governor's office and became practically dictator of the state for several years. But during that time he paved a lot of country roads, built a lot of country schools, brought a lot of electric power to isolated communities. It served two purposes--satisfied the country folk who helped keep him in power and provided kickbacks which he pocketed from the contractors who he awarded the work. If you've never seen the original All the King's Men but just the remake, you owe it to yourself to see the original. Won Crawford an Oscar as I remember.

When I was in Germany in '63-'64, I found German humor to be both juvenile and mean--a combination of the potty humor of 2-year-olds and always a victim who is knocked about or humiliated in the punchline. It was a very strange type of humor--not only was it not funny, but it often made me uncomfortable.

Yeah, this is crazy talk, assuming you're at all serious. It was outrageously popular, to the point at which attributing anything more than a tiny fraction of its fans to some kind of herd mentality is just untenable.

I laughed my ass off at many an episode, and watched it with lots of other people who did. You might not find it funny, but trust me, tens of millions of people weren't pretending to laugh to seem cool, or something.