Friday Roundup

Favorites and duds from Friday's commenting.

Favorites, in no particular order:

Cyrus_the_virus starts us off with this timely dig at Andy Roddick in the Wake Up Deadspin post. Extra points for the rare comment that operates in real time.

Bernie Carbomb cracked me up with this fantastic Möbius strip joke in the Jim Riggleman post. If there's one place on earth where you'd look for a great joke involving Möbius strips, it's Deadspin. Outstanding comment.

IronMikeGallego's first winner from Friday came in the Dead Wrestler of the Week post with this funny recontextualization. Taking a step away from the common template of this joke needn't be a big dramatic adjustment; in this case, IronMikeGallego more or less uses that template, but works it into the form of a sentence, so the joke flows a little better and has the impact of a one-liner. In the Haunted Hotel post, this offering was one of the funniest of the day. Möbius strips and gibbons: only on Deadspin.

Also in the Dead Wrestler of the Week post, I laughed at this recontextualization from MarkKelsosMigraine, which earned a nice ovation. Again, this joke steps away from the line-of-italics template. In my opinion, the joke flows a bit better and the punchline is therefore
a bit stronger than it might be if it followed the template. I mean, it's a funny reference anyway, but a great jokester doesn't let the reference stand alone.

Hatey McLife earned a huge round of applause for this magnificent one-liner in the Dead Wrestler of the Week post. Holy hell. No explanation required.

I giggled at this recontextualization from Raysism in the Dead Wrestler of the Week post. I realize I may be the only person who, as a rule, finds this kind of humor irresistible. Still, I thought this was funny and clever and it effectively darkened something inherently innocent. Great job.

Sheed's Bald Spot cracked me up with this Mariotti joke in the Haunted Hotel joke. Here the caps at the end obviously impart tone (if not volume) to the joke, which accentuates the humor of the reference.

Steve_U had a few humdingers on Friday. In the NBA Draft Kiss post, this super-clever one-liner earned a round of applause. This is a joke that gets better the more you consider it from various angles. In the Butchered Pronunciation post, this was one of the day's very best comments, and the crowd loved it. And finally, in the Outfield Fly Rule post, how about a funny, straightforward Menendez brothers joke? Excellent.

Here's Eddie Murray Sparkles's daily offering: a hilariously vicious shot at the hosts in the Butchered Pronunciation post. The lack of subtlety here is wonderful, in no small part because of the way it betrays our expectations of Eddie Murray Sparkles's commentary. Nice job.

This is a really creative, deliciously unpleasant contribution from dont-forget-where-you-came-from-cheese-mac in the Goofy Knicks Fan Video post. We're seeing more and more of this lately; folks taking wholly original angles at humor with great success. There's no template for what dont-forget-where-you-came-from-cheese-mac did here.

I'm still chuckling at this Margot Kidder joke in the Drunken Hookup Failures post from DJ Jazzy Jeff Weaver. So we've done Möbius strips, gibbons, and Margot Kidder in a single day. This is why I love Deadspin.

And finally, here's a letter-perfect pun from Theodore Donald Kerabatsos in the Lleyton Hewitt post. Sublime.

Total Fucking Duds

Here's an utterly useless contribution from chakrabs in the NBA Draft Kiss post. What possible value does that observation have? Is that comment even remotely consistent with the standards of Deadspin commenting? Or am I missing something? I wish I could say that this kind of lazy commenting is unique to unstarred (or better yet, pink) commenters.

Unstarred commenter ColHapablap missed the mark with this goofy, juvenile offering in the NBA Draft Kiss post. Hey, at least it's an attempt at humor. And worse jokes have been submitted as Deadspin comments. But there's a fairly excruciating lack of subtlety in this comment. If the joke boils down to Jan Vesely had an erection after kissing his bombshell girlfriend, the structure of the joke needs to be something significantly more sophisticated than Jan Vesely had an erection after kissing his bombshell girlfriend.

Unstarred commenter En Vague submitted this needless, lazy quip in the Vancouver Riots post. Is there a joke there and I'm missing it? Assuming there is, this is maybe an example of an undercooked joke, which is something we talk an awful lot about. It's a fine line to walk between subtlety and schtick, but a good general rule is this: if your joke boils down to something really, really simple, the set-up and delivery have to be part of the humor, in which case you need a little more substance. Conversely, the more complex the idea, the more you probably want to stay out of the way of your punchline. As the obscurity of your reference goes up, the complexity of your delivery should go down, otherwise you're going to confuse and ultimately alienate the reader. Or not.

And finally, from unstarred commenter David Oliver comes ye olde video comment in the Vancouver Riots post. That's just never gonna cut the mustard, guy. Think bigger.

Okay. I realize it is now Monday. A quick peek behind the green curtain will tell you that I'm currently moving from one residence to another for reasons involving a vagina. Internet service is dicey at best. Lots of work is being done, and trying to sneak away for a Roundup, especially during crazy-ass balls-to-the-wall weekend moving time, is like trying to tiptoe past a shark when you and he are both submerged in a 15 square foot tank. I love women, and this living arrangement will surely be an adventure, but you'll have to bear with me during this transition.
Or not.

At any rate, hey, I hope your weekend was as wonderful as mine was exhausting. Soon, very soon, we'll be back on schedule.

Thanks.