Thursday Roundup

Favorites and duds from Thursday's commenting.

Favorites, in no particular order:

Bring Back Anthony Mason cracked me up with this straightforward conspiracy theory joke in the Hope Stevens post. Look at some of those fucking replies. Holy shit. I like this joke because there's no trickery or wordplay. Bring Back Anthony Mason imagined a crazy but not altogether crazy reason why the backup goalkeeper might be celebrating the union of the starting goalkeeper and a frothing maniac, and just laid it out there in plain language, with minimal set-up. It's sort of like getting out of the way of a funny idea, and sometimes that's exactly what's called for.

Here's a great wordplay joke from Raysism in the Hope Stevens post. This joke sort of eschews the traditional punchline-at-the-end format and opts for charm and personality instead. There's a way to give this joke a harder edge by pairing it down, and the suggested name is definitely funny enough to carry the show. But this joke, by going with the whole dopey "it has a certain ring to it" line, gives the author a voice in the comment, and that adds a little extra humor, and that's never a bad thing. Those can be tense moments, trying to zero in on the right delivery and determining, once and for all, whether you've boosted or neutered your punchline by allowing your personal sense of humor to shine through. Later, Raysism took an unexpected angle with this short dialogue joke in the Injury Expectations post. That's damn funny.

Someone called sodboy dropped this sharp caption in the Hope Stevens post, earning a round of applause. Well done! Now spruce up your handle, pick a goddamn avatar, and stick around. That really is a nice pull, and the caption format is appropriate. Good shit.

Here's the original "Our guy", Gamboa Constrictor, with a sharp and funny and perfectly delivered pun in the Bucket O' Piss post. And, sweet Jesus, look at that fucking reply. Good God. If I'd submitted that reply, I would never even visit Deadspin again. Puns and wordplay jokes rely upon that moment of confusion when your brain scrambles to redirect your understanding. Confusion is part of the joke. In this case, it's an extra funny part of the joke, because we get to marvel at the full-blown cognitive failure of the jackass in the replies. Spectacular.

Here's a kick-ass recontextualization from FreemanMcNeil in the Injury Expectations post. There was a time there when recontextualizations were getting a bit out of control. These days, funnily enough, I think I miss them a little. This particular kind of recontextualization is a bit tricky, because the author has to tip his hand a bit in order to work his reference into place. In this case, he had to capitalize a particular word, and if you're paying enough attention, you gain a sense of where the joke is going ahead of time. And that puts a bit more pressure on the punchline to supply the oomph. FreemanMcNeil had the right idea in place, and it brings the whole thing together into a damn funny payoff.

This, from some guy named Phil in the Andrew Bynum post, is hysterical. Just the idea of it is funny. Where are all the +1s, goddammit? I may be an idiot, but I laughed aloud at this.

Sponsored by V8 earned a round of applause for this bitchin' one-liner in the Colin Cowherd post. Outstanding. It pulls an appropriate idiom and a relevant dig at ol' Cowherd into a tight delivery with no unnecessary packaging.

Here's another great one-liner, this one from Dave Algonquin (WWTD?) in the Chamique Holdsclaw post. So good. The specific phrase "anything but a slam dunk" is just letter perfect. Hats off.

Total Fucking Duds

This is an astonishingly awful comment, from some idiot called CLB32 in the Hope Stevens post. The only thing this joke has to say is Dave Chappelle is funny. 

Hit Bull Win Steak said this in the Football Roundtable post. The worst thing about the slippery slope is that Hit Bull Win Steak isn't sliding down it into a vat of boiling oil. This is such an incredibly lame-brained thing to say, the kind of thing even teenagers of above-average intelligence would be embarrassed to post online.

This, from a burner called ReliantGrassField in the Punter Lawsuit post, is probably the least interesting thing ever posted in a Deadspin comment. I find it genuinely mind-boggling that any person on earth would find this kind of thing even remotely interesting in any way. I mean at all. What on earth makes this funny or clever or . . . anything? Astounding.

I really don't know what to say about this, from TheTrippComerExperience, in the Chamique Holdsclaw post. Are they horses because their teeth are visible in the photos? I'm terrified to find out what the actual point of this comment is. I really don't want to know.

And finally, here's an embarrassing and totally misguided non-comment from someone called RobertPooner in the Chamique Holdsclaw post. What is the point of this? YOU'RE NOT HELPING. If you don't have a comment to make, DON'T MAKE A FUCKING COMMENT. The last thing in the world anyone wants to read is you talking about how you don't have anything to say. For crying out loud.

That's it! Take it easy, you big-dicked superheroes. Have a great DUAN.