Thursday Roundup

Some favorites and a selection of duds from Thursday's commenting.

Favorites, in no particular order:

In the Wake Up Deadspin post, current crush IronMikeGallego did this, which is a very IronMikeGallego thing to do. There should be at least one mention of boxing on Deadspin every day, if only so I can sit around anticipating IronMikeGallego's home-run comment. Someday, I swear, we'll get around to talking about how a commenter/jokester can and should put their specific knowledge and interests to work in their contributions, and you can bet IronMikeGallego will feature prominently in that discussion. Good stuff.

In the Peter Moylan post, MattinglysSideburns contributed another outstanding, winkingly obscure reference, earning a huge round of applause. I'm not sure I'm qualified to write about the whys and hows of a successful obscure joke; I have no talent for this kind of humor, which is why I stand in awe of MattinglysSideburns. It is always always always worth looking up his references.

Also in the Peter Moylan post, infrequent commenter Norm_de_Plume dropped this awesome dialogue joke, cracking me up with the shot at A-Rod. Norm_de_Plume was starred very recently, but his comments today were his first since May 26th. We want more!

Bevraj of Choice dropped the final winner from the Peter Moylan post with this excellent one-liner. Bevraj of Choice can always be counted upon for pitch-perfect timing and structure with his jokes. The punchline on this one is right where it belongs, surprising the reader and reframing everything that came before it.

In Drew's Reaganite post, Same Sad Echo contributed another hysterical long-form joke, to the delight of the crowd. I'm running out of ways to highlight his impressive skill with this kind of humor. It's, um, good.

Also in Drew's Reaganite post, Clamps cracked me up with this relatively out-of-left-field wine joke, earning a few +1s along the way. Nice work.

Phintastic won the Mike McCready Bobblehead post with this outstanding dig at Roger Clemens, and it was the first goddamn comment in the whole section! Great pull, great delivery. Awesome job.

I laughed aloud at this comment, from Hatey McLife, in the National Spelling Bee post. That's a rare bit of silliness from Hatey McLife - better kill a few busloads of orphans to get back on track there, hoss.

In the Hitchhiking Bono post, the crowd really appreciated this excellent pull from UweBollocks. UweBollocks does really well with puns and pop culture references; this is right in his wheelhouse.

Also in the Hitchhiking Bono post, I enjoyed this joke from dont-forget-where-you-came-from-cheese-mac, another excellent lyric reference. I had to read it twice, but it was worth it.

And finally, this offering from unstarred commenter ToddReesingsTurfFacial in the Dirk Nowitski post was one of my absolute favorites from Thursday. When he settles down a bit with his commenting, he's capable of some really sharp humor, and this is a great example. For his efforts, his comment was promoted and received a +1.

Total Fucking Duds

Sarcastro had this to say in the Crazy Terry Collins post. Am I missing something? Oh, right, a punchline, or anything funny at all. Seriously, if there's a reference or some witty undertone to this thing I'm missing, somebody please let me know. I like to laugh.

In the Peter Moyland post, unstarred commenter You Got No Marbles did this. What the fuck. Am I just really off today? Usually, I feel like I can tell the difference between a joke and a non-joke, but today, no such luck. There were a dozen or more comments that confused the shit out of me this afternoon, and this was the least of them. Is that a joke? Somebody please fill me in. Or shoot me.

In the Justice Department post, unstarred commenter nova3930 expressed his opinion of pre-BCS college football. Or made a fantastic joke. I can't fucking tell anymore.

Unstarred commenter RiddlerStrikesAgain missed horribly with this contribution to the National Spelling Bee post and the So-Bad-It's-Almost-Excellent file. Anything that expresses the "there's a joke in there . . ." concept is doomed to failure (except the two hilarious spins on that format in this thread). Other than that, by God, stay away. This one's especially brutal because he went ahead and made the joke, but had already stolen any potential humor from it with the train-of-thought opening.

And finally, unstarred commenter cconsabbatical makes the list for this disastrous pun-filled effort in the National Spelling Bee post. Puns happen a lot on Deadspin and a great many of them fail to cause even the slightest ripple. Puns can be funny, but when they're this desperate, they're mostly just excruciating to read. The effort to be funny is there and appreciated, but something a little more refined would do a lot better.

This roundup's a little late tonight. I had to make pimiento cheese. HAD TO. Today was a pimiento cheese day.

There were a lot of fucking duds today. Many of them were submitted in Drew's Reaganite post, which you may have noticed was not scoured for duds. Somebody submitted something in a post . . .maybe the Bono post, that amounted to "Are you kidding me?" It was a featured commenter. For whatever reason, I threw up my hands and said "to hell with it." In all seriousness, I felt like a moron reading the comments today. Was that a joke? Is there a reference there? Is that a super-subtle joke from a comedic genius? Or is it a lazy sack of crap needlessly expressing his incredulity, as I suspect? I gave up on trying to figure it out.

And finally, along those same lines, I'm ashamed to admit I could not understand Steve_U's joke in the National Spelling Bee post. I tried and tried. Really I did. I hate to ask for an explanation to a carefully crafted joke, but I must know. I must! This will bug me for days and days.

Have a great DUAN.