Responding to Key & Peele's Substitute Teacher
Welcome back! This week I will be responding to a blog post by Jack. Jack posted about Key & Peele's Substitute Teacher clip - which he refers to as "the funniest...of all time".
This is a very similar concept as we see in the common knock-knock joke...
Jack takes us through the clip piece by piece - explaining just what it is that makes it funny.
Jack explains how, at the beginning of the video, he found the first mispronunciation to spark his curiosity and interest as to what would happen next. I find this intriguing given the fact that we know some find this sort of repetition to be predictable and boring. Even dull? This was evidenced by the Key and Peele clip - Gideon's Kitchen - from last week's post responding to John and his Feeling Tone Interpretation Theory.
What makes one intriguing and curiosity spiking and the other dull and predictable? I say personal preference. Maybe content? Who knows.
In his post, Jack also talks about how the clip encompasses pieces of both incongruity theory and relief theory. Where, you might ask? Well, just look to the end of the clip. When the substitute teacher finally pronounces the one student's name correctly, and the student quickly responds "Present!", the substitute exclaims with relief. Get it? Relief theory. This is also viewed, as Jack pointed out, as incongruity theory because we, as the viewers, would expect him to mispronounce the student's name just like all the rest.
This is a very similar concept as we see in the common knock-knock joke...
Knock knock.
Who's there?
Banana.
Banana who?
Knock knock.
Who's there?
Banana.
Banana who?
Knock knock.
Who's there?
Banana.
Banana who?
Knock knock.
Who's there?
Orange.
Orange who?
Orange you glad I
didn't say banana?
Well, orange you? And orange you glad that the substitute teacher finally got a kid's name right? I know he sure is!! :)
Until next time,
Always Laugh Lots!!!
Very fun post as always! It is very true that repetition is a key aspect of many Key and Peele skits. And it does seem that there is a common formula where there are several variations and then a final twist. Normally in comedy we have the rule of three--three instances of something, with one final variation. Perhaps the issue some have with KP is that they break this rule; but this also might make it funny.
ReplyDeleteI really like how you brought up how some repetition is funny, and other repetition is not. I had not really thought about this before because most of the time predictability is funny but other times (most of the time for me) it is not. I think it is funny in this clip because although we could all predict that he was going to keep mispronouncing names, we could not predict how he would mispronounce them because they were so far from the norm.
ReplyDeleteI like how you used the knock knock joke as an example, it really emphasized your point! Like you said repetition can get boring and dull after a while, especially in this video.
ReplyDeleteI would argue that even though the clip gets more and more predictable as the sub keeps mispronouncing names, it actually gets funnier as it progresses. This is because his reactions to the students becomes more and more exaggerated, which makes him even more unpredictable.
ReplyDelete