Friday Roundup

Favorites and duds from Friday's commenting.

Favorites, in no particular order:

Steve U dropped an excellent, tricky little screenplay-style joke in the Daily Screencap post. So good.

Our guy IronMikeGallego contributed this winner in the Hugh Douglas post, earning a big round of applause. I'm still chuckling about this one.

Here's a funny-as-hell spin on the High School Highlight post from BronzeHammer. It's really the final line that brings this joke home. It's not so much a punchline as it is just a really funny impersonation. Good stuff.

Dave Algonquin (WWTD?) reworked a song I'd love to never hear again into a damn funny comment in the Lawrence Taylor post. Nice job layering on the silliness. For his efforts, a major haul of +1s.

Eddie Murray Sparkles used a provocative opening line to set up readers for an unexpected punchline in this awesome joke in the Stephen A. Smith post. I love this kind of misdirection. I've read a thousand Eddie Murray Sparkles jokes now, and even I was nervous about where this one was going.

This is probably your Comment of the Day, from All Over But The Sharting in the Stephen A. Smith post. Another big dramatic playaction fake on this one, leading to a stinging commentary on ESPN's First Take. That's really great.

Bring Back Anthony Mason went slightly meta with this comment in the Car Hurdling post, but what makes this joke funny (for me) is the notion that the poor guy's tumbling action is subject to the same kind of style review as the move in an earlier post. The comment also reflects upon the absurdity of a thread from that post (more below), which is also pretty funny.

Madoffs Mets scored a winner in the Car Hurdling post with this one-liner-ish contribution. This is a neat kind of joke; the setup is virtually 100% of the humor. The whole laugh comes from the way the final line defies the reader's expectations. The punchline itself packs almost no surprise or humor for the simple fact that no one is surprised or scandalized by Kobe having skipped college. We laugh because Madoffs Mets turned that simple truth into an unexpected finish for his dig at the subject of the post. I suppose misdirection is the theme of the day.

Raysism strengthened his pun in the Chris Cooley post with a fun little accent touch. The line in brackets puts in our minds a very specific look, turning a reasonable pun into a sardonic passive-aggressive dig. The comment almost functions as a screenplay joke, wherein the line becomes a genuinely awkward moment between the deliverer and the kid. That's a hell of a joke.

Total Fucking Duds

This, started by apparent moron digdug in the High School Highlight post, is one of the worst, most embarrassing threads in Deadspin history. What a fucking mess.

I won't bother linking to it, but the Stephen A. Smith post comment section was, predictably, a sorry show of stupidity and ugliness. Here's the full content of an unsolicited email I received about it:

Boy, that sure is some "intelligent discussion" in that Stephen A. Smith post.

/kills self

Enough said.

Hey, have a great weekend, humorous types. It's been a good week for commenting. Here's to next week being even stronger. Now let's have a rockin' Friday DUAN.