I shot an elephant in my pyjama's today.

mattd mattd at useoz.com
Mon Dec 31 23:24:11 PST 2001


More than a few essayists and researchers on science fiction have noticed 
that science fiction is a little lacking in the humor department. This 
isn't for lack of trying: humor in our supergenre of science fiction, 
fantasy, and horror fails mostly because either the writers are too close 
to their subject matter or because it's hard to drop a few great jokes into 
a 4,000-word short story without it distorting the plot. A few examples 
exist of brilliant humor in the genre, including Fritz Leiber's "Lean Times 
In Lankhmar", Harlan Ellison's "I'm Looking For Kadak", and Paul Di 
Filippo's The Steampunk Trilogy, but comedy writing requires a completely 
different attitude than that of any other form of literature. (This may 
sound as if I'm belaboring the obvious, but you would be amazed at how many 
feeble attempts at humor are attempted by otherwise excellent writers who 
simply don't understand the basics; they're like the folks who write 
children's stories without understanding what a typical children's story 
needs for success.)
The first thing to remember is that humor is dependent upon two things: the 
audience's level of knowledge, and its attitude. For instance, the humor in 
the phrase "Whitley Strieber still hasn't caught on that `Klaatu barada 
nikto' really means `Squeal like a pig, boy! SQUEEE!'" depends upon the 
readership being knowledgeable of (a) Whitley Strieber and his claims of 
being rectally probed by aliens and (b) the movies The Day the Earth Stood 
Still and Deliverance. All three are necessary to make the gag work: a 
passing familiarity with the three is all that's needed, but lack of 
knowledge of one component causes the gag to lose most of its impact. The 
worst feeling a humorist can experience is that horrible facial expression 
implying "Should I be laughing?", and the more time spent explaining the 
basics means less time to finish the story. (This isn't always true: Arlo 
Guthrie's song "Alice's Restaurant" goes on for 25 minutes with the details 
of the notorious Alice's Restaurant Massacree, and every last element is 
essential to explaining why ol' Arlo's potential sojourn into the Army was 
compromised by a charge of litterbuggery. Take out even five minutes, and 
the whole thing falls apart
More at...http://www.hpoo.com/errata/humor.html





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