Monday Roundup

Favorites and duds from today's commenting.

Favorites, in no particular order:

Here's a tricky, somewhat obscure one-liner from fatleaveher in the Daily Screencap post. Perhaps I'm alone here, but I had to do some research on this one. More research, in fact, than I would normally accept in a Favorite. But it's a funny enough reference and it looks like many people got it without as much effort. I won't penalize the joke for me being a moron.

I enjoyed this funny Serge Ibaka joke in the Stephen Jackson post from The Amazing Sneijderman. It's just a clever little sequence written without a lot of painful set-up. Nice job.

StuartScottsEye earned a handful of +1s for this smart wordplay joke in the Air Guitar post. This is essentially a one-liner, with a quick premise and a knockdown punchline at the very end, all revolving around a sharp pun. Good stuff.

And here's a simple Tim Tebow dig from Madoffs Mets, also in the Air Guitar post. See how the one-liner format works? Premise and set-up, knockdown punchline, turns on a bit of wordplay. Everyone on Deadspin does this all the time, and the baseline for success is putting the joke in the correct order. If this joke goes Tim Tebow makes a good pretend backup if this guy's looking to start a band, it loses some of its punch. Because the format doesn't give a lot of room to play around, the rest of the success of the joke will be determined by the strength of the pull. One-liners are for confident joke-makers and the whole idea is that they're not as easy as they seem. Here's another one, even more efficient, with an even stronger pull, in the Clippers Bench post. We've often talked about the strength of the reference determining the length of the joke, and this is a good example. When your punchline is this strong, stay out of its way. Great joke. This is your Comment of the Day.

Here's an excellent thread in the Clippers Bench post, featuring onlyASK, Sgt. Hammerclaw, SavetoFavorites, Pink Slime, JamesDolansRemedialMath, fatleaveher, RexsPodiatryst, Post ApocalypticRecSpecs, The Amazing Sneijderman, and many more. Also, sweet molasses, look at that fucking reply from Nietzschiro. Holy fucking shit. "This is fun!" /facepalm

SavetoFavorites recast The Wire for this dialogue joke in the Cam Cameron post, earning a round of applause. I have no idea where this joke came from, but it's funny enough. Good stuff.

This is a great comment from All Over But The Sharting in the ESPN Disavowal post. On top of being funny and well-made, it's actual commentary. Whereas puns and recontextualizations and screenplays don't always necessarily have something to say about a post, this joke actually pokes fun at the absurdity of ESPN's Tim Tebow coverage. Stuff like this happens often enough on Deadspin, but there are definitely times when commenters are mostly just raking posts for content that can be used in a joke instead of offering actual commentary. The be funny mandate is best expressed when it is used in the service of actually commenting on the subject of the post.

Here's a terrific recontextualization from Eddie Murray Sparkles in the Greg Hardy vs. Matt Bryant post. That's such an excellent goddamn pull. I needed a minute with it, but sometimes that's the best part.

This is the funniest thing you will read today, from Same Sad Echo in the Dadspin Christmas Shopping post. Holy shit. That is seriously fucking hysterical.

I really enjoyed this sharp, tight, outstanding one-liner from Raysism in the Manny Pacquiao post. So good.

And finally, here's a strong effort from a burner called chris.j.p in the Chicago Bar Stabbing post. You know what we say to funny burners: get a real account, will ya?

Total Fucking Duds

Here's something desperately stupid and boorish from a brain-dead teenager called SantiCazorla in the Stephen Jackson post. God I hate this crap. This would never have made it though the approval system pre-Kinja.

This boring, totally unoriginal one-liner from an idiot called ShaneMorris in the JaVale McGee post was actually referred to as "Brilliant" by some fucking burner moron. Unbelievable. What a lame, paper-thin joke. Boo.

This is an incredibly cheap movie reference from Billy Clyde Puckett in the Cam Cameron post. Just so, so flimsy. The entire punchline of this joke is "there was a guy in a movie named Cameron." It's pathetic. And look at that! Thank God there are burners to give a +1 to every bullshit kindergarten joke. Jesus.

And finally, here's a disastrously bad commenter named kittensarecute. This is a Gawker commenter who has strayed over to Deadspin from time to time. This person has no ability to say anything funny or original or thoughtful. At best, kittensarecute is trolling, but either way he's nasty and ignorant and offensive. Boy do I miss the ninjas. There has got to be a mechanism for getting rid of this kind of stuff.

Thanks for reading. Let's have a good old-fashioned DUAN, eh?