Humor Blog --- Rhoman James

In the Importance of Being Earnest there is a great mix of effective high and low humor. The low humor is easier to detect and can relate to physical joking or farce. High humor is a little harder to detect, this can consist of satire or puns that relate to the time period. A very humorous instance of the book was when Jack was distraught over a woman and his friend was eating a muffin, he then said “How you can sit there, calmly eating muffins when we are in this horrible trouble, I can’t make out. You seem to me to be perfectly heartless.", and his friend replies "Well, I can’t eat muffins in an agitated manner. The butter would probably get on my cuffs. One should always eat muffins quite calmly. It is the only way to eat them." This was a classic instance of Wilde's satirical tone towards the class of the society. 

My favorite piece of modern humor is probably shown in the TV series Family Guy. Seth Macfarlane constantly jokes at the rituals and actions of our society and many others. Many puns and hypocritical statements are the baseline of the comedy and add a nice twist to regular comedy. 

Performance Review Blog-- Haley Longworth

To Rhoman, Garrett, Alaap, and Hans:


I thought you all did well in your performance, and had your lines memorized for the most part. I liked the scene you all did when Jack was trying to get Algernon to leave his house. You all had nice movement across the stage and were easy to understand, using clear projection. One of my favorite things about your performance was the carrots that represented the garden.


If I were to cast back any actors in a performance of the entire play, I would call back Megan, Sofi, Rhoman, and Ryan. They all talked very clearly, and Ryan made his groups performance funnier, which I think is appropriate for and Oscar Wilde play. I would award an Oscar to Megan because she had all her lines memorized and was able to get into the character of Gwendolen well.


I think that my own performance added an understanding of the text because we got to act like the characters and look at the text from a new perspective, adding in movements and using sarcastic voices for example.

The Best Medicine (David Stevens, Comedy)

When it comes to comedy, I’m no snob. I appreciate essentially all forms of humor: from high to low, from family-safe to politically-incorrect, from political satire to scatological jokes. As such, I have so far enjoyed thoroughly reading The Importance of Being Ernest. It is an excellent combination of farce, societal satire, wordplay and more. To demonstrate this, I will select two examples of high and low humor, both concerning cucumber sandwiches.

First: Jack, commenting on the aforementioned vegetable confections:

“Hallo! Why all these cups? Why cucumber sandwiches? Why such reckless extravagance in one so young?”

This is what I would consider high comedy. Wilde is making a big deal out of a few cucumber sandwiches, which is at once ridiculous and a cutting criticism of the upper classes of Victorian England.

Second: Algernon on the sandwiches:

“Please don’t touch the cucumber sandwiches. They are ordered specially for Aunt Augusta.” (Takes one and eats it.)

This is pure farce. The juxtaposition of Algernon’s comment and action are hilarious.

My favorite genre of television show is comedy. I love Saturday Night Live and most of the NBC comedies, from Seinfeld to 30 Rock to Parks and Recreation. I especially enjoy witty dialogue and political satire, such as on the above and also on The Colbert Report. Here are a few examples:

Comedy Blog

In The Importance of Being Earnest, of the funnier scenes in my opinion was when Jack attempted to take one of the cucumber sandwiches and Algernon told him, “Please don’t touch the cucumber sandwiches. They are ordered specially for Aunt Augusta.” But soon after, Algernon takes a sandwich and eats it himself. This sort humor was quite comical and I found myself chuckling. Dilbert is one of my favorite comic strips so I decided that I would pick an example from there. http://t3.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcT2R1VysWpwoIZZ__BtdV26tW-yJBHmCc9yjpjKn1YWzHn5CopL:rack.3.mshcdn.com/media/ZgkyMDEyLzEyLzA0L2MyL2RpbGJlcnQ5MTMuY1NqLmdpZgpwCXRodW1iCTk1MHg1MzQjCmUJanBn/c78913ab/c2e/dilbert-9-13.jpg This example satirizes unfair bosses with their overly rigid demands which is similar to Algernon eating the sandwiches then wondering where they went.

comedy blog Siobhan O'Neill

In The Importance of Being Earnest, a scene that stands out to me comedic wise would be the opening scene with the cucumber sandwiches. In this scene Earnest reaches for a cucumber sandwich when Algernon declares they are for his Aunt Lady Bracknell and they must be saved for her. Later on it is Algernon himself who eats the cucumber sandwiches absent-mindedly. In this scene Wilde is poking fun at the things we place importance on, for example manners and cucumber sandwiches.

My favorite form of modern technology are vines. They are videos no longer than six seconds that are usually making fun of someone or something. The fact that I can laugh hysterically at something that is only six seconds long makes me think that there has to be some true talent hidden in them.

Humor Post- Ethan Petraitis

The Importance of Being Earnest has many different types of humor, some intelligent and some slapstick, but my favorite type of humor present in the play is the satire used to poke fun at the class differences present in the play. One example of this is when Algernon is talking to Lane about Lanes personal life. "I don't know that I am much interested in your family life, lane" "No, sir; it is not a very interesting subject. I never think of it myself" this implies that Lane is so low in the class structure that his personal life doesn't even mean much to him, and especially not to Algernon.

One type of humor that I really enjoy is slam poetry. One of my favorite poems is George Watskys 'Narwhal Apocalypse' youtube.com/watch?v=A3fo96LYaJA This poem is a satirical take on human ingenuity and problem solving. The wordplay is clever enough to keep you thinking and the slapstick and physical humor at the end keep everyone interested between the deeper, thought provoking

Comedy Blog

The Importance of Being Earnest is a witty, humorous play packed with satire, sarcasm, and puns. While reading Act 1, there were a few times that I found myself smiling at Wilde's wit. Personally, I think I identify more with "low" humor, but both low and high can be funny. On page thirteen Lady Bracknell says, "I never saw a woman so altered; she looked quite twenty years younger," when talking about Lady Harbury after her husband's death. Typically if someone's close relations were to die they would look older, so the author made it obvious that Mr. Harbury's not being around was a relief to his wife. Another example was when Algernon revealed his secret Bunbury, who wasn't anyone at all, that he used to get out of obligations he didn't want to be a part of. "I have invented an invaluable Bunbury, in order that I may be able to go down into the country whenever I choose," he stated. Later on in the act, he had "just had a telegram to say that (his) poor friend Bunbury is very ill again" when his Aunt Augusta tells him about a dinner with Mary Farquhar, allowing his to miss out on the monotonous event.

A couple movies I find particularly funny are 21 and 22 Jump Street. Both are full of slapstick, sometimes vulgar, humor. Nonetheless, they never fail to get me laughing, especially when you find out that Schmidt was dating his boss's daughter and see Ice Cube's reaction.

There are also a lot of Vines that you can watch on Twitter that are super funny, especially late at night when you need sleep.