ZachsMind, the Universe, and everything.

[Rube_Maroon]

The guy shits on movies he's never seen and makes a big production out of the fact. wtf? a movie snob is one thing, a movie bigot is something else.

[ScottotD]

It's all subjective, some of you here obviously sceen jokes for taste or... something and I don't do that.  Making a joke (or laughing at one) about an event when people died isn't something I think about, or if I do it usually makes it funnier.  That's just me.

Not in the mainstream.  When you hear those types of jokes, it tends to be from friends or in such aspects as an online community.  You don't see Jay Leno cracking on it.

Jay Leno? I thought we were talking about jokes.

[Rube_Maroon]

Jay Leno isn't funny.

[Tarantulas]

Jay Leno is f*cking clown shoes.

[Rube_Maroon]

Jay Leno is f*cking clown shoes.

If you're going to swear, go for the gold.

[sarcasm_made_Easy]

hmm i dont know this whole thread i think was summed up in the beggining and has been repeated too many times. 

Humor is subjective.  I obviously have something in common with most of the posters here. AKA i like rifftracks (ps i just finished cocktails.  magnificent)  but other than that i would but i dont like much else. 

I cant stand anything i can call raunchy.  It negates about 90% of modern humor but there you have it. 

However all that WTC thing is certainly different.  its a bit more touchy, because people have died.  Not imaginary people but real people.  its truly a serious matter.  I do think we can laugh at it.  And quite frankly i expect to.  now might be too soon though.

Remember there were a ton of pearl harbor jokes in prince of space and invasion of the neptune men.   I thought they were hilarious. So we should be able to laugh about it soon enough.

I wouldn't characterize this as "conservative," political or otherwise.  I think that Americans are just used to expressing ourselves when we see something we disagree with, and I think that rocks.  Yes, people are protesting the movies, but those responsible for the films aren't thrown in jail.  They wind up on The Today Show.  What's the good of free speech if you can't have a good outcry now and then?  If we choose to have it over Janet Jackson's droopy-ass boob, so be it. 

Ladykenobi that has to be the best thing i have ever read on a thread.  with maybe the exception that there is a sequal to the dark crystal coming out.  big woot.

[Joe Don Faker]

I wouldn't characterize this as "conservative," political or otherwise.  I think that Americans are just used to expressing ourselves when we see something we disagree with, and I think that rocks.  Yes, people are protesting the movies, but those responsible for the films aren't thrown in jail.  They wind up on The Today Show.  What's the good of free speech if you can't have a good outcry now and then?  If we choose to have it over Janet Jackson's droopy-ass boob, so be it.

Yes, thanks for this.  (repressing desire to do a Jerry Lewis LADDIIIIE!)

In this spirit, I'd rather hear people's real responses to a joke, even when it differs from the prescribed response, laughter.  Groans, silence, helpless whimpering, or a thrown chair can be telling.  A school of thought which suggests that everybody should just lighten up and laugh at anything strikes me as fascism in clown shoes.  (Which may make the goose-stepping funnier looking, but still.)

And MST3K is often about challenging the movie's prescribed response ("okay, everybody laugh now; everybody cry now") and replacing it with something more actually felt by a viewer.  In one of Joel's interviews he said MST "is about liberation."   He may have been partly joking, but only partly.  The discovery that we don't have to find Hobgoblins entertaining and can instead deliver some well-deserved pummels to the little guys ... feels so right.

[LadyKenobi]

Thanks guys.  And, JDF, I found this:

And MST3K is often about challenging the movie's prescribed response ("okay, everybody laugh now; everybody cry now") and replacing it with something more actually felt by a viewer.

a very insightful statement about MST.  I'd always thought of the show as an expression of independence (i.e., we don't have to take the crap the world shoves at us) but I never considered it from an "upending expectations" point of view.

This has got to be the most pretentious thread about a puppet show ever.

[Tarantulas]

YOU HEARD IT HERE FIRST!

[ambitiously stupid]

This will be my last post on this subject.  I want to just enjoy rifftrax as much as anybody.  And make friends not pick fights. However, I feel obligated to be a voice of reason when it comes to this. Call me uptight, tell me I need to lighten up but 9/11 is not funny.  Not tomorrow, not next week, not 30 years from now, not ever.  I'm sure the families of those victims are just cracking up thinking about the anniversary a few days from now.  I'm sure the families of the soldiers who are battling terrorists everyday are preparing their own comedy bits.
Things have a way of coming back on us.  If you find something funny in those deaths something could come back to you.  And somebody with too much time on their hands could post in a message board about how funny it was.  I pray that doesn't happen.  Something's regardless of perspective are wrong. Please understand even the almighty comedy has a line.

[PlayMSTie]

In this spirit, I'd rather hear people's real responses to a joke, even when it differs from the prescribed response, laughter.  Groans, silence, helpless whimpering, or a thrown chair can be telling.  A school of thought which suggests that everybody should just lighten up and laugh at anything strikes me as fascism in clown shoes.  (Which may make the goose-stepping funnier looking, but still.)

Nicely put!

[ambitiously stupid]

I know that I said I wasn't going to post on this again.  Well...I'm sorry.  This was too good.  I found this post from Zachs Mind in the Plan 9 board.  This quote is a real blast from the past.
Re: B/W Version
? Reply #13 on: August 25, 2006, 08:41:06 PM

Admittedly, where it wasn't funny was the twelve references to Bella Lugosi's heroin addiction. The first one was kinda funny but Mike kept going back to that well and it wasn't becoming.

So in Zach'sMind it is ok to poke fun at 9/11 but please don't mock Bella Lugosi's heroin addiction from 40 plus years ago.  Where was all the tragedy plus time equals comedy comments? Where were the matter of perspective comments?  I guess it wasn't becoming.

[Tarantulas]

If one thing is a sacred cow and isn't funny, then nothing is funny.

If you can't make fun of scientology, then how can you make fun of christianity?

How can you make fun of Courtney Love, but not Bella?

"Personal feelings aside, stop thinking with your heart, and start thinking with your brain."  <-- this isn't aimed at anyone, its a general statement

Unpopular speech is the most important speech to protect, because you never know when you are going to be on the other side of any given issue.

Support free speech.

[ambitiously stupid]

Support free speech

Who is saying anything about free speech? All I am saying is with freedom comes responsibility.

[sarcasm_made_Easy]

Does this rule out all war movies?  pearl harbor?  come on that needs to be riffed.  I would love also to see some john wayne movies as well.  but those are about unfunny times.  i think its too soon for 911 but give it 30 years.