Seat Fillers

Forgive me, dear Fancy Twitter Bastards, if you have already read 2/3 of these jokes. I decided to borrow from my time-shifted Oscar’s live tweets from Monday night to fill in the gaps above (hence the secret double meaning pun title in which I reveal that I am a monster). I started watching the Academy Awards about 90 minutes into the broadcast. I figured that would give me enough time to skip all the boring parts and just barely catch up with the end. I tweeted as I watched, which must have been jarring for anyone following both me and everyone tweeting the show in real time. Afterwards, I went back and read the previous 3 hours of my twitter feed and realized something odd. The jokes in my feed, provided for free by professional funny-makers and my friends (many of whom themselves are pros at funny-making) was 1000% more entertaining than the awards themselves. But… those highly entertaining tweets (containing no less than 5 L actual OL moments) would not have been possible if not for the incredibly boring Oscar telecast. And they wouldn’t have been as funny had the Oscars not been so dry, flat and humorless. So does that leave me actually grateful for a miserably unfunny Oscars? I certainly don’t regret the jokes that I made which led to this comic, and the ones I read on my phone last night. I know this is a common occurrence in the age of constant connection and commentary but I started to wonder if there would be a tipping point where people gather around the water cooler to discuss NOT the Oscars or whatever communal viewing experience happened the night before, but rather the tweets that experience inspired.

Emerald City ComiCon 2013

Emerald City Comicon is THIS WEEKEND in Seattle. It is my favorite show of the year and I will be at the Blind Ferret Booth all weekend (#1106-1108).

I saw someone post something along the lines of “Why do you watch the Oscars? Why not just read a list of winners at the end?” I thought about it and came to the conclusion that awards shows, season finales, elections and other MUST SEE televised events provide us (the country, if not the entire world) with the rare chance to all be focused on the same thing at the same time. It’s so much easier to land a solid joke when you are experiencing something right along with your audience. You can get away with “This guy is all like…” instead of “Right now I’m watching Top Chef and this guy is all like…”. It lends an additional element of familiarity and brevity, a shorthand, to the experience. For pro-time funny-doers, I think it also allows them (us?) to experience something akin to laughter at a live show. The audience is right there with you, watching the awards and their RT’s and Fav’s and such can take the place of the instant approval a comedian seeks from a live audience.

I think about this stuff a lot. 

COMMENTERS: Have you ever enjoyed someone making fun of a thing more than the actual thing? I think the Red Letter Media reviews of the Star Wars prequels certainly qualify here. To expand on that thought, have you ever enjoyed a commentary, remix, tell all book, cover band or making of documentary more than the subject on which it focused?

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15 Comments

  1. "Have you ever enjoyed someone making fun of a thing more than the actual thing?"
    Isn't that the whole rationale behind MST3K and Rifftrax?

  2. I love "Blue Milk Special", a parody of Star Wars (the original trilogy) made by real fans. I think it's really funny and thanks to the comments under it, I learned a lot of little facts about those movies even if I have absolutely no interest in the movies themselves. Being a geek, I always feel a bit of shame whenever I see controversies about something that's supposed to be a cornerstone of geekdom, and just can't understand all the feelings they created. At least now I know enough trivia so fans can't look down upon me :-p

    check it out: http://www.bluemilkspecial.com/?p=4

  3. "Have you ever enjoyed someone making fun of a thing more than the actual thing?"
    Sums up my preference to Weird Al's versions of songs. A few days ago, one of my local radio stations was playing RHCP's "Give it Away" and a sang "Bedrock Anthem" over the real words! I do the same thing with "Yoda" and "White and Nerdy".

  4. I've cultivated my Twitter following list to the point that any given event is going to be funnier experienced through Twitter than it is to actually watch it. I'm okay with that, though I do find myself enjoying X-factor so much that way that I'm tempted to *actually* watch it, which is worrying.

  5. My dad, my brother and I invented MST2K LONG before it ever aired… that claimed, my Super Bowl experience is the same. Group of ol' college buddies comes up with a pool based on unique questions, always including whether the National Anthem will tun over or under 2:15, and always used to include who would win the Bud Bowl (ah, memories…). As for the Oscars, didn't see any of the films (I know), didn't watch the Red Carpet until Fashion Police recapped the other night. Where else would I have heard an actress wearing a REALLY HIGH SLIT in her dress described by Joan Rivers: "She reminds me of a giraffe, strong and tall and with a clearly visible vagina"?

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