Friday Roundup

Many, many favorites and quite a few duds from Friday's commenting.

Favorites, in no particular order

Hatey McLife had another good day, first with this spectacular pull in the Wake Up Deadspin post. That comment is so sharp, it gave me vertigo. Later, in the Drunken Hookup Failures post, his scalding take-down of John Salley's unspeakably worthless stories brought the crowd to their feet. Good stuff.

Tulos_Mullet also stood out today, earning applause for an ingenious, beautifully simple twist on the word "function" in the Juan Agudelo post. Fantastic. Later, his spoof in response to Hatey's aforementioned take-down in the Drunken Hookup Failures post was simply perfect.

From the Nude Break-In post, Gamboa Constrictor's clever name-pun was good for a hearty chuckle, and earned him a round of applause. Nice work.

All Over But The Sharting hit the nail on the head with a nicely-delivered shot at UNLV, in the Nude Break-In post. It's funny because it's true.

Also in the Nude Break-In post, Steve_U made much better use of the Sherlock Holmes reference than anyone else, tying it into an excellent rip of the subject's level of education. This is a great example of what's needed to turn a relatively flimsy reference point into a successful joke; it can't just be, "look, there's a famous character with the same (very common) last name!" The punchline of this joke lies outside the simple reference, which is exactly why it works.

Gottlieb's Cards dropped a dazzlingly complete Jeopardy joke in the Nude Break-In post. This was one of my very favorite comments of the day.

One more from the Nude Break-In post, from dont-forget-where-you-came-from-cheese-mac. Ingenious. I am a complete and total whore for elegant, bone-dry comments like this.

Eddie Murray Sparkles brought the house down in the Foul Pole post with a merciless use of the word "padres", much to the dismay of Catholics everywhere. I laughed and laughed at that. I'm still laughing.

Unstarred commenter djneuro had perhaps the best day of all, dropping winner after winner in several threads. This simple joke in the MLB Attendance post was chuckle-worthy, and earned a promotion. Later, another promotion, this time in the Mets Fans post, for an excellent snipe at Sandy Alderson's intelligence. And finally, in the Drunken Hookup Failures post, his match.com joke was good for a hearty laugh. HE'S IN THE ZONE! Those are really impressive comments for an unstarred guy, and if he keeps up this pace, he'll be featured in no time.

Bevraj of Choice also did good work today, checking in first with a successfully gross pun in the Rafael Nadal post, and again later with a mean-spirited dig at Mets fans everywhere. Both of those jokes work on the same level; they exploit the shock/gross factor, but careful delivery makes the punchline a surprise, and the actual laugh comes from the structure, as opposed to the grossness of the first joke or the cruelty of the second.

Also in the Rafael Nadal post, Always Winning cracked me up with his Tony LaRussa quote. What can I say? Skip dinner and a movie; just give me one good Tony LaRussa joke and I'm yours.

EddieSuttons SouthernComfort's ruthless shot at Mets fans from the (ahem) Mets Fans post earned him a round of applause. As with Bevraj of Choice's comment above, that joke isn't necessarily very sophisticated, in that it could be directed at any fan base anywhere, but the construction of the joke is subtle and elegant, and I loved it.

And finally, ToddReesingsTurfFacial delivered a winner with a funny, patient, long-form glimpse into Tom Cruise's marriage, earning applause for packing a lot of funny into that final sentence.

Total Fucking Duds

Unstarred commenter CalClutterBuckFutter starts things off with this thing in the Wake Up Deadspin post. I don't necessarily hate this comment; I suppose it functions as a joke, it doesn't have any spelling, punctuation, or grammar errors, and it doesn't offend me with stupidity. What it does do, however, is meander on over to a rotten, festering, months-old horse corpse and kick the unholy shit out of it. Something in this guy's comment tells me he can do actual jokes, and probably pretty well.

In the Foul Pole post, totally fucking clueless unstarred commenter Akiyama decided any time is a good time to drop something completely unrelated and uninteresting in a Deadspin comments section. I would have been perfectly happy if this comment had looked more like this: "Not to do with this, but [gunshot]". Seriously, there's a post, every night, for this exact kind of chatter. Non-DUAN threads are not for this kind of thing.

C'mon, Godot is my copilot. This isn't ESPN.com. That comment (from the MLB Attendance post) is not a joke. As I've said before, from time to time there are going to be relatively serious conversations in daytime posts; that's okay. But this wasn't conversation fodder, either. No one on earth needs a Deadspin comment to tell them it's "friggin' expensive."

In the Rafael Nadal post, FAILBOT ripped unstarred commenter MustacheofMystery for exactly the kind of comment that keeps my dentist in all the latest, fanciest lab coats. If I may go off on a slight tangent here, I'm firmly of the opinion that there might be 1-2 photo comments a month that rise to the level of being an actual joke. Too much of the humor in a photo comment is derived from something entirely outside the control or creativity of the commenter. A while back, our boy Steve_U used a photo of a woman with rings around her neck as the punchline of an honest-to-God joke, with wordplay and everything. I can't think of a single time since then when a commenter introduced a photo to a post with any amount of success. Make jokes, people. Be funny. Don't just observe funny. Don't deliver someone else's funny. Be funny.

And finally, featured commenter When_you_get_the_money_you_get_the_Micah_Hoffpauir left this observation of funny in the Mets Fans post, to my screeching horror. I like Micah_Hoffpauir (the commenter and one-time contributor), and have long enjoyed his comments. This drove me up a wall. It's especially galling because it's the first fucking comment in the entire post. WygtmygtMH took a look at the article, saw "head" and "Flushing", recognized there was something inherently funny and silly about it, and submitted nothing more than that impression. I consider this Scorched Earth Pre-Joking, where a commenter turns something that could be funny into a big black hole, robbing other, more creatively-inclined commenters of the opportunity to really use it. Here's what I suggest; rather than just point out that something is funny, turn it into a joke. Use wordplay and sophistication to make something of it. If that fails, fucking wait around a few minutes for someone else to do the job, then post your "Tehehehe" as part of a nice +1 for their efforts. Surely, that beats the hell out of this. Other commenters are scouring every millimeter of that page for something they can use to be creative and funny; don't usurp something for the purposes of laughing at it. Replace "Tehehehe" with "lol!!!11!!1!" and then ask yourself if that comment belongs on Deadspin or YouTube.

That's all for tonight, toughies. Keep an eye out later for another short note related to the recent discovery of Mad Bastards All by the Deadspin commentariat before I close the fourth wall of this blog forever. We're sticking around, thanks to a pretty incredible show of support by the very people we've bad-mouthed and/or creepily worshiped, and after one more note to you folks, we're strictly concerning ourselves with the business of Deadspin commenting, with none of this mortifying self-awareness.

Happy Friday DUAN!