Thursday, November 19, 2015
Lead Blog
Hey everyone! This week, I decided to share a video clip from the Ellen Show. While I was watching youtube the other day, I stumbled across this video. This is a typical Ellen segment in which she invites people who became famous courtesy of a video that happened to go viral. In this case, Ellen's guests are a mother named Erika and her three year old son John. Erika had recorded a video of herself confronting John about eating sprinkles. We are shown a small portion of the original video, in which John continues to adamantly lie about eating the sprinkles. I found this entire video hilarious. I love baby and kid humor. It's timeless and can make me smile any day. The innocence of children is clearly portrayed in this video. The way John answered each of Ellen's questions with a simple "Yeah!" shows that he wasn't intentionally lying. The part that cracked me up was when Ellen asked John if he had a pet, and he said that he had a puppy named tick. Tick is a rather unusual name for a puppy, and the humor of the situation was increased when the audience learns that "Tick" is a figment of John's imagination. By the time Ellen had asked John if he had ever driven a car, it was clear that he didn't really understand the questions he was being asked. I was surprised by how chill and relaxed the mother was. She seemed to entertain the situation and enjoy the crazy amount of attention her son was receiving. John and his mother's reactions to getting the shirts and the sprinkles was priceless. The most logical theory which could explain the humor of this video would have to be relief theory. It is pure entertainment, and the humor is harmless. Incongruity theory could also work here. It's not common that a family winds up on a universally famous talk show because of a mischievous three year old. The meer fact that John and his mother are being interviewed is hilarious. This is also a relatable scenario. Many parents have experienced times when their young children had been engaging in mischief and were caught red handed. A key to humor is the ability to strike an emotional cord. Overall, I enjoyed this video, and I think that John is an adorable little kid. You can never go wrong with child humor.
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I think you are quite right to say that humor has to strike an emotional chord. Certainly people with kids, or who like kids will find this funnier. Why does Ellen strike such a chord with her audience? Is emotional connection the same as relatability? It seems like comedy is very closely allied to our sense of intimacy, belonging, and disgust--we often need to feel that we share the same sense of these feelings, that we are close enough to those we are laughing to feel this connection.
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