Tuesday Roundup

(For dont-forget-where-you-came-from-cheese-mac's Guest Lecture on Commenting, click here. Email madbastardsall@gmail.com to discuss how you too can submit content to Mad Bastards All.)

Some favorites and more than a few duds from Tuesday's commenting.

Favorites, in no particular order:

In the Manny Pacquiao Puppet post, IronMikeGallego put together this funny shot at Shane Mosley, earning a pair of +1s.

In the same post, I really enjoyed Gamboa Constrictor's wonderfully insensitive one-liner.

Hatey McLife had a few winners today, including this funny one-liner in the Green Men post, and this dark Korey Stringer joke in the Boise St. post. Great job.

In the Serena Williams Stalker post, this joke from Fendi Hotdogbun is just beautifully constructed. The punchline is right at the very end, and without any tortured, awkward use of language to force it there. Nice work.

Also in the Serena Williams Stalker post, I really loved this goofy joke from newly-starred DJneuro. This joke requires a bit of an exaggerated double-take - I read the post, read the comment, went back and read the post again, and finally re-read the comment. It was worth it.

UweBollocks dropped a real winner in that same post, drawing laughter from the crowd. This comment thread is a good excuse to again bring up the topic of following up someone else's joke. For whatever reason, UpstateUnderdog wasn't happy letting the joke stand on its own, and I can see why this would drive someone up a wall. To me, this is stepping on someone's joke. The specific delivery of that punchline is what makes it so successful, and that's 90% of the work that goes into constructing the comment. Then another commenter comes along and walks all over that careful delivery. Why?

I'm trying to put together a Guest Lecture (or something similar) with one or more Deadspin commenters on the nuances of riffing on another comment and the general theme of following a joke vs. stepping on a joke. At the moment, this is just a conversation taking place via email. To join in, email madbastardsall@gmail.com or find me on Twitter.

RMJ=H's silly physics joke in the Leveled Ref Video post was good for a laugh. I'm surprised this comment didn't get a little love from the crowd.

Eddie Murray Sparkles dropped yet another excellent one liner, this time in the Charlie Bell post. Nice, straightforward, deadpan delivery.

And finally, occasional Mad Bastards All punching bag norbizness cracked me up with this silly, imaginative dig in the Softball Commish post.

Total Fucking Duds

Goddammit. It turns out, the long-desired draw-down in Dud chronicling was a pipe dream. Though it consumes an ungodly amount of time, goddammit, goddamn sonofabitch, shit fuck hell, I'm going to include every sack of crap Dud I can find in every Roundup from now on. Why? WHY? Because I missed this, in Monday's Roundup, and some knuckle-dragging degenerate had the stones to call me on it. I can handle missing a winner here and there, because it's possible picking winners is somewhat more subjective than picking the Duds. For the most part, Duds are duds. This comment, from Arthur_Digby_Sellers, is a dud. It's lazy as all hell. Its lack of spark is so great, it actually sucks the humor out of the entire page of comments. I should have included it. I have failed.

On to today's many Duds.

In the Wake Up Deadspin post, I wasn't a fan of this lazy contribution from Hustler of Culture. There is absolutely a joke there, but the raw idea is more or less tossed together here and it obviously fell flat.

Also in the Wake Up Deadspin post, this brutally clumsy offering from unstarred commenter CarlosPutts. That's about as awkward and overt a set-up as you're likely to find in a Deadspin comment. Not to mention, Gilbert Arenas is not an NBA fan, he's an NBA player. /shits diamond

Noted troll Phd_thc left behind this pancake-flat, humorless junk in the Manny Pacquiao post. Recently, somewhere, possibly DUAN, someone offered the wise suggestion that only those comments that actually make you (the commenter) laugh should be submitted. There's just no way this comment meets that standard.

Aptly named unstarred commenter Confirmed Moron used a dreaded inside-joke to step on his own comment in the Rex Ryan post. I hate this. HATE. Furthermore, Confirmed Moron is, in fact, longtime Mad Bastards All punching bag sacoplenty, with a new user name. Yes, I sussed it out. Pro tip: resurrecting your commenting career with a fresh identity is a gray area, but resurrecting your commenting career with the same lousy shtick, naming yourself after an insult hurled at you in a blog post, and then stomping all over your own jokes is about as clear cut an act of stupidity as there is. I will be watching your comments, son. Do better.

Also in the Rex Ryan post, this offering from unstarred commenter dondi203. This is interesting to me, because it's possible this is just a different angle on a joke - I'm willing to entertain that notion. But the specific set-up here makes a bad impression on me; it seems to indicate a lack of care in preparation - he couldn't conjure a clever presentation, so he went with "20 bucks to . . ." There could be a legitimate joke there, absolutely, but this just isn't it.

Nothing needs to be said about this thing, from unstarred commenter smecktacular, in the Green Men post. Try harder. Do better.

Unstarred commenter Duck With a Lisp struggled today. First, his contribution to the Leveled Ref Video post was shipped off to #memorablequotes by the comment_ninja. That's an excruciatingly painful comment, and I cringed at it. One post later, I groaned at his clumsy, false-premise-based comment in the Boise State post. Yikes.

Unstarred commenter DraftKing was viciously snarked by the comment_ninja for what is obviously a very lazy comment in the Leveled Ref Video post. So there.

In the Boise State post, unstarred commenter Kenny Powers left this clunky Colin Cowherd joke. Colin Cowherd is an easy target, and I tend to look favorably upon jokes that snark him. This one, however, is just a flimsy, lazy, pulse-less pile of crap.

I'm not sure what unstarred guy Von Kaiser was thinking with this thing, in the Boise State post, but the comment_ninja justifiably jumped up and down on it. Just suck the humor right out of the post, why dontcha?

And finally, thank God, this treat from unstarred commenter TheCFLAllstar, an entry to the So Bad It's Good file, from the Cricket Announcer post. Goddammit. Nothing about this comment works, and yet, I laughed aloud at it. What the hell.

Alright readers, on to DUAN.