I never get from nonsensical and stupid to funny. I go straight to irritated instead.

Yes, comedy is very subjective.

How do you feel about Ionesco?

Full disclosure: I do find his Shoes video funny.

Maybe if the muffin skit material were stronger, it wouldn't come off so much like black-face.

I'm with you on that. And the long, increasingly awkwardly long hold at the end, followed by another one has been used all over the place for the last five years. It just doesn't feel that funny any more.

But then I've never found drag itself to be inherently funny. I've seen funny people in drag but the fact of a man or women dressed like the opposite sex is not in itself funny to me.

I suspect that is a large part of why Monty Python and Kids in the Hall never really click with me (yes, they're both funny sometimes just not consistently). A lot of it seems to only be funny because it is a man dressed as a woman doing it. If they used an actual woman doing the exact same thing, I don't think many people would find it funny.

As for women as men. Slate recently had an article on the underground drag king scene in D.C. I didn't find that interesting or amusing either.

I've never seen an entire Ionesco play performed live only scenes from Rhinoceros and Bald Soprano (and I've read Rhinoceros in it's entirety) all many years ago. This limited exposure did not make me seek out more so I can't say it appealed to me then.

Watched Shoes, it plays much better than the muffin one. It is more interesting and the absurdity plays better. Still didn't think it was funny though.

If it weren't for the comments here I wouldn't have realized it was supposed to be funny. Unless surreal and absurd is simply considered a straight analog to humor (they can certainly overlap and co-exist, but I don't think the former is always the latter).

Um, well, we all love Lisa .... but, psssst ... she finds no humor in either Mel Brooks or Monty Python. She's missing a gene.

Yeah, I got the "really irritated" gene instead of the "find this funny" gene.

I suspect Ionesco would not likely appeal to you now, either. Absurdism is a love-it-or-hate-it thing, I think, and likely a lifelong opinion. I asked because I was wondering if your distaste for this had to do with your general preference for high art - and Ionesco is one of the few absurdists who is given that distinction.

Though... I've always thought Arrested Development hinged a little bit on absurdism from time to time. (30 Rock certainly does, and though I was thinking of suggesting it to you, my understanding now of your preference for absurdity causes me to retract any previous suggestion. No 30 Rock for you! :) )

To which I might retort - I don't understand why (in this thread) you're so damn eager to flaunt your lack of sense of humor (pretty ironic considering the above-quoted remark of your's from that other thread was apparently a result of the same lack).