Sweet, Sweet Repetition

In further ‘children with a lack of self-awareness say incredibly annoying things’ tales, I was treated earlier to an unwitting Stewart Lee/Richard Herring style repetitive and tedium-goading routine by a group of children. For anyone unfamiliar with these kinds of routines, they revolve around playing with one idea for a seemingly inordinate amount of time, usually repeating the same information or sentiment but with subtle variations in the phrasing. I hope that wasn’t too reductive an explanation. The children then had been arguing over invites to a Halloween party, or a lack thereof, and had decided to fall back on the well trodden joke of “You don’t even need to dress up for Halloween!” with the suggestion being that the individual in question already looks like a monster. Except, of course, the children found it necessary to ruin any subtlety of the joke by actively stating, after a painful gap where no one laughed “because you already look like a monster!”.

Not satisfied with this, another child decided to proceed with the baton of hilarity and take it on a marathon journey. He burst in with “Last Halloween you dressed up as the Grinch didn’t you?” and when this inquiry bore no fruit declared “you really should have taken the costume off by now!” Now, this joke was, at best, a variation upon the earlier theme, and since the original joke had led to no laughter, it seemed unlikely that this more extended adventure would bear fruit. The silence was deafening, but undeterred the child ploughed onward “it’s been an entire year now!” Perhaps the children were un-amused by this declaration because of its untruth, it has only been nearly a year since last Halloween, which may give credence to the saying ‘It’s funny because it’s true’, duly informing us that ‘It’s not funny because it’s not true’. The child then returns to the original thread of the joke, declaring that “You didn’t even have to dress up to be the Grinch!” dutifully filling the silence that followed with “because you look like the Grinch anyway!” Further banishing the silence with the contradictory exclamation of “You never take your Grinch costume off!”.

I am a huge fan of the works of both Stewart Lee and Richard Herring, and find much humour in the work they do. What this episode of child-jesting proves is that when it comes to repetition, there is a thin line between hilarious and tedious. My own personal research informs me that even if the original joke isn’t funny, if you keep pushing eventually you break through the wall of cachinnation, as the conceit gets ever thinner the further you force it, the funnier it will eventually be. I have mixed the metaphors of a ‘line’ and a ‘wall’, but to be fair I’d like to think it was more of a wall, as this sets up tedious joking as a personal challenge to me, to see just how far I can push a tedious joke in order for it to be funny. My conclusion then, in terms of the Halloween/Grinch/Wearing-your-costume-all-the-time/You-are-ugly-enough-to-not-need-a-costume/Take-your-costume-off-ugly! joke, is that the child in question simply didn’t have the comedy courage, or coumrage if you please, to see it through to its inevitably hilarious conclusion.

It may have helped if he knew where the joke was going as well, and perhaps if he had a big deviation at the end as a punch-line.

Maybe as a big finish he could have taken his costume off!!!!!!!!!!!!EXCLAMATIONMARK!