funny

 'Do you know her, Funny?' 'At least she knows me' 

14 December 2023. Continuing the Covid era posts from, well, 17 days ago...

I have been alternating today between watching 2011 episodes of The Simpsons (as you will recall, I watch them with Finnish subtitles) and episodes of Friends from the very start. It began running in 1994. 

In Finland, Krusty is known as 'Funny', which strikes me as fairly basic, unless there's a more subtle meaning to this appellation that I don't understand, though I suppose calling a clown 'Funny the Clown' (except the Finns don't have definite articles, so they're a bit hamstrung with that trope) is suitably grim. 

There's a lot of talk these days (that's a lie, but there is some talk) (what would I know. It's still on TV, maybe people talk about it all the time) about when The Simpsons jumped the shark. If you'd asked me, let's say, a year ago I would have said probably after 6 or 7 years, but really, no. These 2011 eps are actually usually pretty strong, who knows, maybe new episodes sometimes still hit the right note today, though I kind of doubt it (but then, what would I have said a year ago? exactly). Not that I can remember anything much that they have been about. There was the episode featuring Ted Nugent (yep, apparently he is actually doing his own voice there) as a celebrity who Homer, as a right-wing TV commentator, wants to endorse for president. I know The Simpsons' joke about 'President Trump' ten years (or whenever) before the real thing was the most prescient they got about Trump, but this is pretty prescient. 

I've referred to this before, probably not that long ago, but I read once in a magazine a critic's opinion that Lou Reed only got loud and raucous when his lyrics weren't up to scratch (I mean LR was a professional, maybe he thought certain kinds of music went with certain kinds of lyrics, like, bad ones went with raucous music). I think that when The Simpsons is low on ideas or even ways to convey ideas it goes violent and cruel, particularly to animals, which I don't really find that funny.*

Friends is an interesting show. As it's finding its feet in these early episodes, I'm intrigued by the way it tries to hard to get us engaged with these characters who, of course, meant precisely nothing to anyone in 1994 (neither did any of the actors, I think, though maybe Courteney Cox had a career before this?). It does this partly by heaps of reaction shots and glances between characters hearing a line, split-second shots that go nowhere, breaking up the rapid fire nature of the dialogue and instead forcing us to think: wow, these kids really do care about each other and enjoy each other's company. So we should too! 

I'm also interested to think about the impact Seinfeld had on Friends, by which I guess I also mean every sitcom after Seinfeld. The way the Friends people sometimes dwell at the fringes of celebrity (Joey is Al Pacino's butt double the way that Kramer was in a Woody Allen movie, for instance - and both took their roles way too seriously and got fired, ha ha) or the way that the Friends people are often regretlessly shallow. Gosh it must be hard to set up a sitcom and keep it going. It takes a lot of talent, probably even more luck. According to Wikipedia the six stars of Friends (or at least the five living ones) make twenty million dollars a year just from repeats of the fucking show. No-one deserves that (or everyone does). 

*Partly because it reminds me that the world is cruel, to animals and people, but also because I just don't  understand why it should be funny.