Tuesday, June 7, 2011

Tuesday Roundup

Many favorites and a few duds from Tuesday's commenting (links function in Firefox).

Favorites, in no particular order:

Our guy SavetoFavorites cracked me up with the best kind of comment in the Wake Up Deadspin post: clever and witty but also very silly. I laughed aloud at this.

I laughed aloud also at this joke from All Over But The Sharting in the Bryce Harper post. Later, his offering in the Hacked Twitter post was one of the thread's true gems. It was a rare day of significant activity for one of our favorite commenters.

AzureTexan also delighted us with an active day of commenting, first dropping this hysterical wordplay joke in the Bryce Harper post, and later cracking me up with this out-of-left-field Barbara Streisand joke in the Patti LaBelle post. Today was a happy day.

Our guy dont-forget-where-you-came-from-cheese-mac was in the zone on Tuesday. This welcome riff on a commenting no-no was one of the best comments in the Bryce Harper post. Later, his uproariously funny long-form joke in the 0 Bites post caused a bit of a scene at my office. And finally, this razor-sharp reference in the Sprite Billboard post earned a round of applause. Excellent work.

Bevraj of Choice also ripped off a series of winners on Tuesday. This funny one-liner was good for a chuckle in the Patti LaBelle post. I was surprised this excellent wordplay joke didn't get more attention in the Sprite Billboard post. And finally, here's another terrific joke, this one a version of the Emmitt Smith meme, in the Plaxico Burress post. These last two were pretty damn clever; I expected one or the other to be showered in +1s. At any rate, I loved them.

Not to be outdone, Hatey McLife cracked me up with this fucking brilliant reference in the Nathan Horton post. That's one of those comments that makes you sit back and shake your head. Later, I choked laughing at this joke, which is just so perfectly representative of his overall style of commenting, in the 0 Bites post. Dammit that's good.

StuartScottsEye's simple one-liner in the 0 Bites post was good for a chuckle. I especially like about it that the source material of the joke is away from what virtually every other commenter was looking at in this post: the 0 bites line. That's good hustle.

Steve_U continued his hot streak today, first checking in with this silly, out-of-nowhere David Niven joke in the 0 Bites post, and later dropping one of my favorite template jokes in the Hacked Twitter post. Why wasn't everyone laughing at that? I thought it was terrific.

And again, why wasn't everyone laughing at this joke, from Same Sad Echo, in the Popcorn Bucket Catch post? This slayed me. The punchline here really delivers the joke's humor - before you get to the punchline, you really have no way of knowing where it's going. At any rate, boy did I giggle at this one.

Also in the Popcorn Bucket Catch post, ClueHeywood's dig at Kansas City-folk earned a round of applause from the crowd. Nice work there.

Unstarred commenter MaverickIsAirborne earned another promotion today with this short, funny observation in the Rapiest Marathon post. This is good commenting. For the second day in a row, MaverickIsAirborne eschewed the conventional joke template for the somewhat more sophisticated approach of working the recontextualized text into the body of the joke, allowing the comment to flow a little more smoothly. Hey, that's great work. Keep it up!

This comment, from Bernie Carbomb, in the Plaxico Burress post, is noteworthy not only for being sharp and very, very funny, but also because it was not edited into something about the Gideons. (I realize that only happened once, but I will always remember. ALWAYS.) I really liked this joke.

The other gem in the Hacked Twitter post came from MattinglysSideburns, with this awesome heads-up surname usage. I have no idea where he finds these far-flung references, but God love him.

In the Glenn Beck post, I really enjoyed this perfectly-delivered joke from norbizness. I'm okay with any shot at Glenn Beck, and this is just a wonderfully structured effort. Great comment.

Also in the Glenn Beck post, unstarred commenter Flash Bench Mob earned a promotion and a handful of +1s with this surprisingly confident caption joke. It could have been overcooked, but Flash Bench Mob handled it with care and landed it beautifully. Nice work.

And finally, it was nice to see WashingtonForeskins dropping comments today, and I really enjoyed this silly one-liner in the Jerseyed Politician post. More, please.

Total Fucking Duds

Unstarred commenter RandomHookup failed the be funny test with this offering in the Patti LaBelle post. I can no longer bother with chronicling all the comments that disregard this one rule of Deadspin commenting - most days, I'll just pick one or two and use them to once again make the point. Please make jokes. Please make jokes. If you have to make this point, just bite your tongue and wait for DUAN.

Also in the Patti LaBelle post, unstarred commenter The4thMolinaBrother stopped short of making his joke, probably because he knew it was a lame joke. Stopping short of making the joke is the same thing as stepping on the joke - if you know it's a lame joke, don't submit it. There will be plenty of bad jokes to go around without your self-aware bad joke.

In the Rapiest Marathon post, I'm not sure what unstarred commenter theeschwartz was going for with this joke, but it obviously needed a little bit more finessing. Take the extra minute or two and work that into something special. As it stands, it's puzzling and seems unfinished.

Also in the Rapiest Marathon post, unstarred commenter LBabe reworked an old movie title to zero effect. It's just too flimsy a reference to work. The shame here is that sooner or later a China post will come along and this exact joke will be perfect, only it will have already been wasted on a post about a stretch of ultramarathon in Iran, of all places. Ah well.

And finally, speaking of flimsy references, how about this thing from unstarred guy Broxtons_Buffet in the Bill Hancock post? I'm all for shots at the Vatican, but you need something even remotely specific in order for it to really work. In this case, I think he was hoping the simple mean-spiritedness of the jab would be worth a chuckle, because the reference itself is made of balsa wood.

I'm late today because there was a lot to do around the office and (unbelievably) all of it was more important than my blog. Anyway, very, very soon we'll have another Guest Lecture in Commenting, so that'll be fun.

Happy DUAN!

6 comments:

  1. It's about god damn time. +1/2 cause you were so late.

    -StuartScottsEye

    ReplyDelete
  2. @StuartScottsEte

    [pencils in an early addition to the Total Fucking Duds for the next 18 weeks]

    [laughs maniacally]

    ReplyDelete
  3. When I'm an "our guy," it feels like I just got an angel's asspat. Thanks.

    The David Niven joke and cheesemac's Stevie Wonder gem had people outside of my office looking at me askance. (Sharting's ignored Plague joke in the Marathon thread was also a gem.)

    -StF

    ReplyDelete
  4. SerenityNowAndLaterJune 7, 2011 at 11:31 PM

    The links work in Chrome now!

    +1 browser

    ReplyDelete
  5. Not that I want to increase your workload at all, but I feel like you should substitute comments that just never tried to be funny with comments that were joke attempts and were misguided along with how they could be better. God knows some of us (I) need it.

    Keep up the good work.

    --chadBROchocinco

    ReplyDelete
  6. So will the next Guest Lecture in Commenting be from Paolo.Lex and we treat is as opposite day.

    ReplyDelete