Tuesday, September 11, 2007

Physics in Comedy

I feel like I should explain the name SuperLappy486, what with it being my basis for this whole internet comedy thing. But alas, other topics come up and I think I'll put that off until the next post. Just to get us all on the same page though, I'm pretty sure you're going to need to see this before I can explain the name. He's a "superhero" who answers emails, you're not missing anything.

Anywho...
I think one of the things that'll make just about anyone laugh is some good topic-related humor. It would usually fall under the genre of parody, but it doesn't always need to. I for one am a big physics and math nerd so this one's always good for a laugh:

I remember my rotation unit in Physics class. The teacher made a big 5 minute shpeel about the fact that there is no such thing as a centrifugal force. Apparently physicists are really set on the term centripetal when talking about the force in a centrifuge. To top it off, the whole thing's thrown into the classic James Bond moment with the even more classic Nemesis's line: "I expect you to die, Mr. Bond."

I suppose the lesson here is that every joke (of this type) that a single person finds funny has some sort of throw back to something they already know. For me it was the already funny fact that physicists hate "centrifugal," and the scenario of Bond strapped to a big-ol gerbil wheel that just struck home. I realize that not everyone would find this one all that funny, but I bet you can think of some joke you've heard that has to do with a hobby of yours (or an interest in this case). I'm sure there are some great marine biology jokes that most of us could care less about, but it's all about what you know.

Oh, and if you never took physics, I didn't mean to exclude. Here, everyone can stand to learn something new...

2 comments:

Lucy in the Sky said...

I really like this comic. I'm not a big physics person or math person, but it sounds smartly funny. If that makes any sense whatsoever. I also just wanted to mention that I read this comic every day and it completes me. I don't know if you've ever heard of it but it's called toothpastefordinner.com. It's by far my favorite.

Anyway, keep the funny comics rolling!

TopFalcon said...

I loved this post. I've been to this site in the past and have read these, but I can relate perfectly with what you said. I'll admit, I'm a nerd for math and science too, so anything involving physics and humor is the best. Jokes that require the prior knowledge of a certain field transform the joke into an inside joke. I guess it's because of this that the joke becomes even funnier. On another note, I'm an extreme Bond "addict", so finding a joke about physics AND James Bond seems like finding a girl with beauty AND brains. (just kidding, I don't mean any offense to anyone) So this joke is pretty much amazing. That's all.