THE FAMED GERMAN SENSE OF HUMOUR
Here’s a German advert for SEGA’s Wii version of Ghost Squad. They are cleverly referencing a Sony product. It might be ironic. It might be really slagging Sony off. It might just be a joke now that Sony and SEGA are friends. Can’t really tell as it’s all in German.
If you’re really bored today, you could do worse than read this ace old article written by Stewart Lee about the German sense of humour. It will make you understand and like Germans. Seriously.
filed in Uncategorized on Jan.15, 2008
January 15th, 2008 on 3:56 pm
It’s just blurb about Ghost Squad. Did I mention Zorg, I got your copy of nights in the post last week. I’m not shitting you either!
January 15th, 2008 on 4:02 pm
If only Nintendo could display this level of humour!
January 15th, 2008 on 4:05 pm
Oooh. Check you out. UK:R gets into the Guardian and all of a sudden you are linking to Guardian articles to clarify that you aren’t xenophobic anymore.
January 15th, 2008 on 4:54 pm
Can you send it back to me? Here’s my address:
Herr Cutlack
Helmstraβe Stadt 79
10179 Berlin
DEUTSCHLAND
January 15th, 2008 on 5:36 pm
there are even more:
http://www.consolewars.eu/news/19077/ghost_squad_deutsche_printwerbung/
January 15th, 2008 on 5:52 pm
If I could be arsed, I’d translate that. But essentially it says Sony can come and have a go if they think they’re hard enough.
Wilmersdorf eh?
January 15th, 2008 on 6:54 pm
It doesn’t say anything remotely funny. And despite the Germans often being quite nice people, generally they really don’t have a great sense of humor. None of the Germans I met so far that is. Like Americans, sarcasm largely escapes them and german TV comedy is devastatingly unfunny.
That said, I’m an Austrian, and while I would still deem it inferior to British humor, Austrian humor is far funnier than the German one. Language, especially in Vienna, is much more colorful and pictorial than german German. Example: “Rotzpippn”, a term for a child, literally meaning “snot faucet”.
Further, Austrian humor is largely derived from human misery (one’s own or another’s), making it therefor funnier and at the same time explaining why the Nazis where welcomed with open arms and right-wing parties still have a field day in this nice little country.
I really need to kill a lot of time today at work …
January 15th, 2008 on 7:03 pm
” klinsmann_nicht_bei_liverpool said…
there are even more:
http://www.consolewars.eu/news/19077/ghost_squad_deutsche_printwerbung/
“
My god, look at the responses. It’s like the funniest thing they’ve ever seen! I should move to Germany. I’d be the funniest person in the country, and I have absolutely no comic talent whatsoever. As the content of this post illustrates.
Verification: rhrhr – A german laughing himself to death.
January 15th, 2008 on 8:47 pm
To be more precise, you actually live in my flat. I’ve not fucking seen you! I’ll have to be careful when I’m alone from now on.
January 15th, 2008 on 9:04 pm
lol, hearing an austrian say that austrian humor is funnier than german is actually quite funny.
paradox.
January 15th, 2008 on 9:55 pm
“german TV comedy is devastatingly unfunny” *sniff* it’s true, it’s true. Generally, at any rate. Except for Loriot, he’s just about the only German with a fine sense of humour (though you sometimes have to *gasp* think before you understand what’s funny, so not everybody’s cup of tea.)
“I should move to Germany. I’d be the funniest person in the country, and I have absolutely no comic talent whatsoever.” No, I’m afraid my dear countrymen wouldn’t understand you. Even if you spoke German.
January 16th, 2008 on 7:32 am
“Austrian humor is largely derived from human misery (one’s own or another’s), making it therefor funnier”
I find the further east you go in Europe, the more depressing and dark the ‘humour’ becomes until you eventually get behind the Iron Curtain and ”Worker & Parasite” is actually on the TV (which the entire village huddles around)
Also, surely Nazis were welcomed into Austria with open arms because it was a hometown boy done good?
mxeby: cartoon dog from the former Yugoslavia. He only has two legs and has to drag his backside around in a cart. He encounters other hilarious characters such as a diseased rat that is losing its fur, an emaciated cat and a cruel, moustachioed human in a greatcoat. The backdrop of factories and smokestacks is greatly lifted by the pounding drums and military march-style soundtrack.
January 16th, 2008 on 3:21 pm
Stupid stereotypes. I know loads of Germans and, to a man, they are all fucking hilarious, with a supreme sense of timing in their humour. Stewart Lee is spot on, as always. It tends to be deadpan stuff that revels in the ridiculousness of life.
And you want to compare it to our humour? Look at what sitcoms we make that get the highest ratings. “My Family”? Nuff said.
January 16th, 2008 on 5:12 pm
austrian living in germany here. I’m so tired of my ex-countrymen’s stupid stupid stupid hatred for germans. yea, viennese are supposed to be oh so funny, with their oh so funny slang. and of course germans are sooo sober and boring.
fuck you!
people are people and there are funny germans and boring brits. I’ve even heard that there are austrians who don’t suffer from some fucking inferiority complex which leads to them having to bash germans every chance they get.
boy, am I glad, that I don’t live in vienna anymore.
fucking boring bastards, every last one of them
January 16th, 2008 on 5:38 pm
“lol, hearing an austrian say that austrian humor is funnier than german is actually quite funny.
paradox.”
and what exactly would be the paradox about this?
“Also, surely Nazis were welcomed into Austria with open arms because it was a hometown boy done good?”
And also because they are a bunch of assholes with an inferiority complex ever since WW1. But they are still funnier than the Germans. And, as you might suspect by now, they don’t particularly like themselves.
“And you want to compare it to our humour? Look at what sitcoms we make that get the highest ratings. “My Family”? Nuff said.”
Your country spawned Monty Python which makes it the nation with the funniest TV comedy for me, regardless of the shit they might produce now (and I don’t know about).
January 16th, 2008 on 5:52 pm
“I’m so tired of my ex-countrymen’s stupid stupid stupid hatred for germans. “
If you mean me by that, I don’t have any hatred for Germans. I just don’t find them funny. Like I wrote, there are lots of nice people there, some of whom are my friends. But not funny.
“I’ve even heard that there are austrians who don’t suffer from some fucking inferiority complex”
Sorry but you don’t seem to be one of them.
January 16th, 2008 on 7:50 pm
“and what exactly would be the paradox about this?”
austrians aren’t funny. do you see the problem? :(
January 16th, 2008 on 10:36 pm
“austrians aren’t funny. do you see the problem? :(“
It’s a paradox based on your personal opinion (are you German or Austrian?). Anyway, I’m not claiming Austria to be the humor capital of the world. It’s just that after reading Stewart Lee’s article, I found the Austrian language being more suited to humor than the German one. I don’t want to write anymore, this is far from funny. Yesterday I was bored and wanted to start some controversy, but today it’s become tedious. I’m going into consume-only mode again.
January 17th, 2008 on 1:10 pm
ROFL, you crazy krauts crazy me up!
keep up the good work! ROFL ROFL
January 17th, 2008 on 2:09 pm
“Your country spawned Monty Python which makes it the nation with the funniest TV comedy for me”
I also like Monty Python, but for fuck’s sake can we move on, please? Can’t English humour be famous for something other than a deceased bloody parrot, a prat who can’t walk properly, and a holy hand grenade?
Oh yeah, The Office. I forgot. Well, I’m bored of that now, too.
No, HE’S THE IMPOSTER! Oh wait, the other Nick didn’t write anything about that yet.
January 17th, 2008 on 8:36 pm
You can’t say germans are not that funny. you can’t say austrians are. It belongs to the people you are talking to.