Wednesday Roundup

Some favorites and very few duds from Wednesday's commenting. (All links work in Firefox.)

Favorites, in no particular order:

Here's a funny joke from DubaiAtNight in this morning's Daily Screencap post. Simple one-liner, nice wordplay, classic structure. Good job.

IronMikeGallego dropped this awesome re-mix in the Yankee Tickets post, earning a round of applause. These jokes are deceptively tricky to pull off - commenters try them several times a week on Deadspin, but they usually don't rise to the level of funny. Most of them are, at best, clever or cute, and it's hard to know what makes the difference. Or, anyway, I can't explain it.

Mantis Toboggan, M.D. contributed this funny dig at Vin Baker in Drew's Wade Specs post. I like this kind of joke because it works like a one-liner, in that it has a quick premise/set-up/punchline structure, but it also uses tone (right from the beginning, with "Ugh") to impart personality on the joke. That's a quick, crafty little way of accentuating the humor in a simple joke, and when it's done well it really works. Hume's a master of this trick, for those looking for other examples.

Here's a more straightforward one-liner from Poignant Theater, also in Drew's Wade Specs post. Sometimes, when your punchline is strong enough, the most elegant possible delivery is best. In this case, even adding the word "it" to the front of this joke makes it a bit more forced, a bit staccato, and probably just a bit less successful. The instincts required to make these kinds of style choices on the fly are what separate the featured guys from the gray guys, but it can be picked up over time.

Newly starred guy Madoffs Mets earned a big round of applause for this script-style dig at LeBron James and Chris Bosh, also in Drew's Wade Specs post. I'm happy for Madoffs Mets, who clearly has the ability to make excellent jokes, but this is also somebody with a penchant for taking the low-hanging fruit. That's perfectly common when you're an unstarred guy, but developing the discipline to stay away from the easy stuff is what ought to come next. I spared Madoffs Mets a trip to the duds for a crappy, lazy-as-hell joke today in honor of his achievement.

Here's a devastating knockout one-liner from Steve U, yet another gem from Drew's Wade Specs post. There's your comment of the day. 

This is just so, so funny, from UweBollocks, our final entry from Drew's Wade Specs post. I love this - love it. No reference, no pun, no wordplay, no recontextualization, nothing forced about it at all. It's just a wonderful condensation of an idea that made the author laugh. So breezy and charming - terrific. 

Eddie Murray Sparkles cracked me up with this naughty bit of dressed-up goofiness in the Competitive Shin-Kicking post. Most of the time, we associate Eddie Murray Sparkles with ultra-clever hiding-in-plain-site type jokes, but he can do silly as well as anyone when he's so inclined. 

And finally, SponsoredbyV8 used a confidently subtle little rewrite to great effect in the Crazy-Ass Adrian Peterson post. This one went over my head several times, but I got there. It turns out, I'm pretty fucking slow.

Total Fucking Duds

Here's something totally pointless from unstarred loser GiovanniJahoovafat in the Bristolmetrics post. Hey, dipshit, that you got the joke isn't interesting to anyone in the world. The worst part about this goddamn shit is this: when I was putting together this Roundup, somehow this link is the only one that copied and pasted. So, for every goddamn Favorite up there, the URL of this joke was attached. I feel like I've been reading this joke over and over again for the last several hours. Which, you know, sucks.

And here's a flimsy-as-hell, shamefully lazy Jerry Sandusky joke from Hit Bull Win Steak in the Absurd Relief post. On a day when some other prick got shipped off to some place or another for, of all things, a John Amaechi joke, this one managed to slip under the radar. Come on, guy - featured commenters should be able to do better than this.

I have nothing to say about the Angry Madden Asshole post that hasn't already been said. Dude's a fucking scumbag and his behavior is nothing to be even remotely proud of. Reading that post was more than a little disorienting - I'm not used to feeling that horrified and disappointed by something I read on Deadspin. I've read a lot of what's been said about it, and I agree with those of you who pointed out that the real issue is the style of presentation, the tone that suggests we have any amount of empathy for this Peter King fella. Clearly, we all agree he's a contemptible little shit who needs a violent ass-kicking as soon as possible. Let's not give him any more energy or attention than he's already gotten.

Hey, have a happy DUAN.