That's the beauty of the characters in the episode. They quite literally live in their own universe. They understand the comedy and are hilarious within that universe. They have mastered comedy and humor for every species. They've come across within that universe. However, the audience watching the show is not in that universe. (We are all quite literally outside the joke.)
Basically showing that no, it's not the comedians being incompetent, on the contrary as the the writers knew that you can't really make in-universe comedians as funny to the audience as they are to the people in-context?
Exactly, I was gonna post pretty much the same thing. If I deadpan the line, "and now for something completely different." Python fans will chuckle, but those who haven't seen any Monty Python will go, "huh?"
The problem today is that SOME comedy gets labeled as "offensive" and thus isnt allowed to be shown anywhere, because "easily offended people with no sense of humor" need to make the world miserable for everyone else.
I really like this presentation. I knew I found them vaguely amusing at most watching the episode, and wondered how Penn & Teller turned out to not be used to their full potential, but the idea that I'm not supposed to get the jokes had never occurred to me.
Once you understand that, and also understand that Penn & Teller are carrying on the tradition of the busker or Vaudeville performers both in their own show and here, you can see that they absolutely _nailed_ this performance.
A dog walked into a tavern and said, "I can't see a thing. I'll open this one." (--the worlds oldest known joke, Sumeria (c. 4500-1900 BC)). No, the Archeologists don't get it either.
Depending on the double meanings of the words used to say the joke, maybe the punchline is that the dog walked into _the side or wall_ of a tavern, ie he didn't walk through the entrance, he bumped into the exterior of one. And "I'll open this one" had a meaning of "I'll open my eyes" indicating the dog was literally or proverbially walking with it's eyed closed. Maybe in ancient Sumeria, dogs were said to be short-sighted, or noted to use scent rather than sight for direction and therefore might bump into things.
I remember the joke with Delen. I think that's about the only time her character looses her composition like that. Her reaction was the punchline there.
whenever I see that, I keep thinking she's faking that laugh to be polite to both her guests and her husband. This video was the first time I've believed she was genuinely laughing.
@@FezFindie Ah maybe that is why. It is so easy to edit virtual media after publication that in time print media becomes the closer thing to truth again, in much the same way none of us trust Kindle, and we are beginning to be wary of steaming channels or spotify, because at least with physical media what is writ can stay writ, however controversial or politically inconvenient it may become in the future. So in time print media may become trusted again, or at least more trusted than it's alternatives.
@@markpostgate2551And the fact that they choose which topics to have in their copies might be also an encouraged practice in order to save paper and recycling less of it as they *are* in a space station.
@@markpostgate2551 This is fallacious. You are only talking about trust that the publication is legitimate and has not been altered. Not that what they publish is actually true. You can already use a variety of ways to make sure that a digital document has not been altered and is the same as it has always been. You have been able to do this for decades and decades. A physical copy existing physically is not proof against or protection from telling falsehoods or from outright forgery. Something being unchanged and something being true are VERY different things. Because of this and the fact that, barring some misfortune (e.g. an archive and its contents being destroyed), knowledge only increases overall, earlier copies can only ever be seen as being potentially identical to or inferior to later copies. Thus, all things being equal, forms of media that can easily and essentially instantly be updated, always have the potential to be superior to forms of media that cannot. While the inverse is not true.
@@IanM-id8or The several attempts at "expanding the universe" have failed ... Crusade & Legend of the Rangers ... the first one was interfered with by the studio and had the pretty boring "Enterprise recipe" of "ship comes to problem, solves it and flies away". Rangers had a neat bunch of characters, but the "fire control" for the Liandra was frankly ridiculous ... and the villains are a revamped version of the Shadows .... which SHOULDNT EXIST, because "the First Ones" went away.
The community has been needing a channel dedicated to Babylon 5 lore and development. Some great stuff out there, but overwhelmed by the content of other good but overrepresented shows. This channel is on my subscription list now, and looking forward to your future B5 projects.
Thank you for your kind words of support! Part of why I started this channel was because I couldnt find anyone else doing this sort of thing for B5. I wanted to make the kind of stuff I would want to watch!
During a more serious conversation with Sheridan the subject of being able to take the wind out of President Clark's sails without getting disappeared by his apparatchik... The same way current and past comedians have done so for ages... By undermining their authority in subtle ways... Not by attacking them directly...
That’s a nice little scene. Especially contrasted with the politician we meet at the end of season 4 - ‘It was never the right time to move against Clark..’
You need to be big enough / UNCANCELABLE to be able to pull it off ... anyone else who doesnt like "swamp monsters" gets canceled. Thought-Terminating Clichés are a terrible thing ... because dumb people easily BELIEVE them. MOB justice ...
So as to your point about Rebo and Zooty's performances mostly being references that we don't get, but the "cast" do and so we generally are more forgiving and likely to see them as funny. Also matches with how most jokes in movies and shows are done, with a cut to the Punchline and everyone laughing. Since the audience doesn't see/hear the joke we can't find it unfunny.
Interestingly, Babylon 5 does this quite a lot with real jokes. There’s a scene with Bester and Lochley where we catch the punchline of a gag about Descartes.
It's odd because when movies and shows do that cut to the punchline thing, audiences hate it and recognize it as a lazy way to shortcut humor without doing the actual work of comedy writing. The way it's done with Rebo and Zooty is smarter, as pointed out in the video, not just saving the episode from the demand of having to write comedy that holds up to their reputation in-universe, but also letting the audience share the experience of the few characters who are also not in on the joke, which is interesting and unique. That said, even knowing that's what they're doing, it ultimately still isn't that fun to watch, frankly.
@@Phintasmo Bester has quite a few "punchlines" in situations that arent meant to be funny. - "I'm a telepath, work it out." - "So you think of me as something bright and cheerful for children?"
Funnily enough, you can also tie this back to Episode 1 - with Garibaldi showing "Duck Dodgers" to Delenn, who's staring in utter confusion while Garibaldi laughs his ass off. It's a hilarious scene *and* a really great early character moment. Plus it also kind of foreshadows that the show will have a huge emphasis on cultural understanding, and lack thereof.
You beat me to this post. 😊 As I pointed out, Delenn does have a mildly amused reaction to the physical comedy, but is confused by all the cultural references. And her reaction is nowhere near as intense as to Rebo and Zooty's joke.
This reminds me of those who love Mel Brooks but hate Monty Python. Personally, I find some of the greatest humor in both, with quotable lines in each. But some of my friends will stand on a hill and yell at the top of their lungs that one is funny and the other is not. The funny thing to me is, both Brooks and The Pythons use the same method of schtick. It just doen't always translate well to those who aren't versed in the "other's" culture.
This reminds me of Monty Python "The funniest joke in the world". They never actually tell the joke, but they show the effect. It's the same here: You don't get the joke, but you see the effect on the people in the show. And looking at the effect, they are in fact hilarious.
Actually you do get enough snippets of the German translation in that sketch to reverse engineer the old English joke. "What time is it when your watch reads 13? Time to get a new watch." In particular, you can hear soldiers saying, "Um wieviel Uhr ist es,"
That they have a Minbari joke, with Sheridan as human not getting it just shows this, that these jokes are subject to cultural influences. We as the 20th century (back then) audience will not get 23th century jokes, similar to why Sheridan doesn't get Minbari jokes.
Reminded my of the Alien Nation episode dealing with cross-cultural interpersonal relationships were newcomer Kathy loves earth clowns but finds the Three Stooges cruel and human Sikes finds them hilarious and clowns juvenile and creepy.
Heck, people from 20 years ago will not get jokes today. The video of the bread falling down with dramatic music cracks me up, but many people back then would not get it. Comedy is subjected one's personal preferences and the cultural context that created it.
I didn't see what it was (and don't actually watch Babylon 5) is this setup and joke ever explained, in the show, or is it just one of those "and this is teh punchline!" with an implication that it's had a massively-long setup?
@@weebjeez It's actually 50/50 whether it's a joke or another hint of the bigger world and other mysteries that exist in it. Actually explaining it here would take too much context, but you do get told both lines and given all the context in the episode to "get it," however, which I think is what you're asking.
@@TheJestersGhost I mean, you say that, but you spent a whole paragraph explaining how it would take too long to explain. And it's not like the show had hours to get into this particular joke setup. I imagine it was two lines, and a sentence or two of context. But thank you for confirming that it exists, I guess? I would have liked to know WHAT the joke was, even if I wasn't "in the know" but... sure.
@@weebjeez I can try, but it wasn't necessary to answer the original question :) Teller(Zooty) sticks to his characterisation from their magic acts, and never speaks in this episode. Penn(Rebo) explains to Sheridan that he never breaks character (you get some of this voice line in the above video), and only communicates through the weird slide-whistle device he carries at all times (which he uses to tell Delenn the joke she finds hilarious) and has only said one word to him in the entire time they've worked together: "Why?" Right at the end of the episode, Zooty approaches G'Kar and whispers something in to his ear, points at the device and nods, before walking away. Sheridan asks G'Kar what he said, and it was apparently, "Because it tells me to." As I said, it seems to me me less like a joke and more a fun hint into a deeper background mystery (deliberately left unexplained), but, y'know, the whole point is it's left up to each viewer to decide :P
Amazing. I’ve watched B5 at least six times, and I never noticed the newspaper article about Londo before. I thought Rebo and Zooty were funny because I knew that Penn and Teller were funny. That’s why I think the casting choice was excellent. Even though I didn’t get the references, I could believe that they were top comedians in-universe.
I love your takes on B5 and how you break down certain elements of key episodes. Your love of B5 seems to mirror my own, and JMS's story lines and seasonal arcs make B5 among the elite of Sci Fi entertainment, in my opinion. My wife had never seen B5, so about a year or so ago, we started watching it all the way through. She wavered a bit during season 1, but once S2 was underway she was in. And like a good B5 fan she shed a few tears when B5 was razed in the finale. (oops, spoilers) I look forward to more B5 commentary!
Thank you for such a kind message! I introduced my wife to B5 a long time ago and it was such a joy to watch it again through another person’s eyes. Hope to watch it with my kids someday if they show even the slightest interest!
Rebo and Zooty were intended to appeal to the comedy tastes of that particular era- not to me, but I do like Penn and Teller. Neil Gaiman's script covered more than just them on the station, and it is one of our favourite episodes. He is probably the only one who could have written that particular episode with all that was going on in it. There were plenty of comedy moments throughout the B5 seasons, some of which were ad-libbed like the scene in the damaged elevator with Londo and G'Kar. My wife and I have just watched the entire series again, (this time on Blu-Ray, a great improvement) and still see and hear things that we missed before. Best Sci-Fi series ever.
Neither here nor there for the purposes of this video, but when talking about how the sketches on Studio 60 were distinctly unfunny, which directly counters what we're supposed to believe about Mathew Perry's character, I always thought it was telling that the OTHER Saturday Night Live inspired show that premiered the same year, 30 Rock, mostly avoided showing us the sketches on the show within a show. And when they did, it was generally just as a punchline about something having gone wrong or something. 30 Rock, having been created by people who had actually worked on SNL knew this was the smarter play. And sure enough, 30 Rock ran for 5(?) seasons and was generally pretty critically well regarded. Whereas Studio 60 I think had middling reviews and ran only one season.
Studio 60 had a moment during its short run where the public conversation around it was how unfunny the comedy on it was. Multiple articles were written about it--I was actually in a sketch troupe in LA at the time and we did a whole parody show based around trying to make the sketches that were shown or referenced on the show actually funny. Sorkin was not pleased. He called out our troupe by name in multiple interviews and just called us bitter wannabes.... Rather than take the note that the entire comedy community was saying "Um.... staff some sketch writers to write the sketches if you're going to keep doing this."
It is not "old Marx Brothers physical humor" many of the physical comedy parts (not all but many the parts when they perform for people in B5) are based on Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy.
After watching this video and reading many of the comments, it's amazing to me that nobody has mentioned that Rebo and Zooty were the backup storyline of the episode. It was the main storyline that made this stand alone episode so great and memorable. The comedy stuff with Penn and Teller was just a minor distraction, yet still done extremely well. And I hadn't realized until recently that Neil Gaiman had written this episode. I'm not the least bit surprised that the Day of the Dead story was written by the same guy responsible for the genius Sandman series. The idea of him writing this comedy story into it is the surprising part.
@smo Yeah, any (and there are many) that rely on simply being a human. For the most part this seems to be physical comedy. But there are plenty of jokes meant to be spoken, which rely on human physiology as well. There are also interchangeable jokes. Where the subject doesn't matter nearly as much as the punchline itself. Here is what I mean by an interchangeable joke... A Giants fan, Redskins fan, Eagles fan and Cowboys fan are hiking up a mountain and pause to take in a stunning view over the edge of a cliff. All of a sudden and in a crazed manner the Redskins fan screams "This is for the Redskins!" and throws himself off of the cliff. Sacrificing himself so that his team would do well in the coming season. The Eagles fan, not to be outdone by the Redskins fan, screams "This is for the Eagles!" and follows suit. The Giants fan and the Cowboys fan look at each other, then the Giants fan grabs the Cowboys fan and screams "This is for the Giants!" while throwing the Cowboys fan off the cliff. Those are 4 teams from American football. They are also the 4 teams that make up the Eastern division in the National Football Conference (The NFC and the AFC, American Football Conference, each send a team to compete against each other at the Super Bowl.). You can change this joke to include 4 (at a minimum) competing things. It doesn't matter what they are. Just that they are in competition with each other. All that one needs to understand it, is to know that the 4 subjects are all in competition with each other for something. I used this specific form of the joke because this is the first version of it that I had ever heard.
@@whyjnot420It is somewhat funnier when you understand that the Cowboys fan is supposed to be the most hated of the four. Understanding the cultural reference still effects how funny the joke is perceived as. But of course it is also just a funny twist. The cultural reference is kind of an additional layer on top of it.
@@richardryley3660 The way I structured it, that was a deliberate bonus to the punchline. You still need some understanding to get the joke, like knowing that the 4 people are fans of 4 competing teams. But the punchline needs no explanation and is universal in that regard. (more or less) I think that joke works because at its essence it is physical comedy in spoken form. Akin to how a math word problem is still just a question about numbers. You don't care what Bob or Jane are doing with whatever they have 17 of, all you need to know is that they have 17 of them. Bonus joke: One hydrogen atom goes up to another hydrogen atom and says "I've lost my electron". The second hydrogen atom asks "Are you sure? How do you know?" The first responds with "I'm positive."
In the game “Morrowind”, back when Elder Scrolls was still a great series, someone approaches you needing an actor for their play. You are given a script to review, with a specific instruction to pause for laughter at a certain point (don’t worry, the joke is hilarious, we promise). Then you stand on stage and can choose to get the lines right. The play is mostly out of context nonsense. Then the joke comes up, and you are compelled to answer correctly. When you say the punchline, someone in the crowd yells “No Inwah!” and charges the stage with a knife. I died in game the first time because I was laughing so hard.
I wasn't sure. I know American humour is different from British humour. I've seen Americans laugh historically at a reference to a line, "I've got a fever, and the only prescription, is more cowbell." I'm told this is comedy genius, but I assume I don't get the cultural reference so it's completely lost on me. It's like an in joke that countrywide. And we all do it. I have an in joke with my kids where the words "ee-uhm" mean something very funny in certain circumstances. But nobody else would understand, because "you had to be there." Maybe I was supposed to feel this way at this comedy duo. But I also wondered if that would be funny if I was American. So I get where Londo doesn't get it. But I still don't get it after seeing it and ended up empathising with the captain as she looks around thinking "WTF?" I suppose that could be deliberate, in which case it's worked as I feel more like watching a different time and place from where I am, as much as I shouldn't be able to understand 22nd century technology. Which is what technobabble is supposed to achieve.
Thats a nice parallel. The technology of the future is recognizable as an outgrowth of what we have today but removed enough that we sometimes cant quite understand it or figure out how it works. So too with comedy except it also applies to things of the past. I wonder what the B5 crew would have thought about comedy of the 1990s?
"More Cowbell" was a 24 year old Saturday Night Live sketch about a music producer focusing on the most meaningless instrument in a recording studio. ua-cam.com/video/cVsQLlk-T0s/v-deo.html
This reminds me of one night that I was down my parents and my parents were watching a DVD of Robin Williams stand up from the 70s and John Ritter was in it. I love Williams and Ritter but the references were so obscure I did not get the humor in their routine. My parents found it funny but I did not.
This is one of the things that I’m most impressed about The Marvellous Mrs Maisel - Amy Sherman-Palladino managed to write actually funny standup for a show about a standup where there’s also funny drama. Frankly, the confidence required to even think such a thing is possible, let alone attempt it is mind-boggling to me.
I think “well excuuuuuuuuuse me!” Actually would translate regardless of age or context. It’s all in the delivery. Even just hearing it out of context made me laugh. A lot of Martin’s jokes back then were just raw absurdity and manic energy. I don’t think that kind of humor ever loses its appeal. Like Airplane, it’s mostly timeless.
A better example (from SNL, at that) might be "Choppin' brocollay!" Cracked us up in high school in the late 80s. Probably means nothing to anyone today.
Cocaine's a hell of a drug. A lot of comedy from that era (inc. Robin Williams et Richard Pryor) would not have have been as funny without its influence.
They were aweful. Just god aweful. As usual our favourite, GKar is the only one who left with true insight about the whole experience. Nobody can ever replace him.A great actor.
If you've read any Shakespeare you know a few things are still funny after centuries, but most of his humour is either faintly amusing at best or completely incomprehensible (the porter's french tailor / goose joke in Macbeth comes to mind as an example of the latter).
It was done like this intentionally and it would not have worked any other way considering the wider context of the show. I think this worked out real well, it was not meant to be a comedy episode to make the audience laugh per se, it was deeper.
What I found interesting is that in real life, as it was written into the show, people's taste in comedy tracked largely according to their ideology, philosophy, and politics. Only those who were specifically targeted by the comedy team who extensively studied their taste in comedy, did anyone change their mind.
@@Phintasmo A priest dies and goes to heaven. Being into holy texts he rushes into the heavenly library to see the originals. After a while the heavenly librarian hears him scream out followed by a loud thud. They find him unconscious, wake him and ask him what shocked him so much to faint in heaven. All in tears he replies: "It said CELEBRATE in the original text!"
Great stuff! Oddly enough, as someone who once had the script book of the episode signed by Gaiman, DotD is now one of my least favourite JMS episodes and the lowest point in S5. But that's more to do with the Brakiri storyline and not this one. I have to agree that Gaiman's approach here is brilliant and you explain it perfectly.
Comedy is cultural, and culture is affected by time. Humor unites the living, and those that truly live, suffer. Gallows humor is one of the greatest unifying forces.
Getting a bit meta, Captain Lochley was added to the show near the end of its run as a replacement for Ivanova, who had been with the show since Season 1. Getting fans to support the new character in that situation is hard, and making her the only one reflecting the audience's feelings is a neat way of getting that support. (Few things unite us more than complaining about someone we dislike with someone who agrees)
It's outside the scope of this video, but it's worth saying that their explanation of their joke to Delenn sets us up to understand why Marcus gets such a belly laugh out of Neroon after their fight. It's a perfect example, in English this time, of a joke told in the Minnari sense of humor.
I think it was well done because it would be odd for it all to translate so well since it depicts a very different time period. Some parts i found funny but Delinn busting a gut was probably the funniest part because Mimbari are always so serious. Especially since there is comedy in B5 that is very obviously for the audience, like the time Londo got that plant and was taunting G'Kar with it. So, it was a nice change of pace to see how celebrity comedians are treated.
Just like Daffy Duck being Garabaldi's "Household god of frustration" is funny only because we understand the frame of reference... 200 years from now, it would be a very obscure reference...
When I saw this episode when it first came out I distinctly remember thinking that the question of what was funny about Rebo and Zooty was deliberately intended to be entirely inscrutable and baffling for the whole episode, at least to us 20th century viewers, and THAT is what I thought was funny. Really funny actually. For some reason the otherwise super serious Delenn explaining in hysterics the linguistics of why a joke in minbari was funny - “a lecococ means both a small fish, and the pleasure you get from meeting someone for the first time” - and it still being entirely inscrutable was the point where I thought “this is actually the most whack deconstruction of comedy I had ever seen on TV”. Just like the panda joke, it makes no sense in another language, even if you try to explain it. The whole thing was kind of like if you were an newly arrived visitor to an alien world and you were forced to listen to their comedy for the first time. I thought it was brilliant, but far too interesting for, and probably wasted on TV. But I didn’t know at the time Gaiman had written the script. I just assumed It was one of those JMS stand-alone side things he had as random drafts at the bottom of his desk drawer (some of which were pretty good) and sometimes used to pad the series out. While there is a message from a dead Kosh, and some predictions for the future from a dead Morden, there is literally nothing in that episode that advances any of the series plot lines.
There is a bit of a real-world analogue to this in the comedy world as well: When comics get hired to play at trade shows and corporate conferences and such, many of them (including big names, I've even heard of Robin Williams doing this) will actually wander through the crowds and the stalls, listening in and chatting people up so that their jokes at the end of the day are tailored to the audience they're playing to.
I actually know enough Japanese to get the panda joke and had to remind myself that I was supposed to not get it. This video is making me want to watch Babylon 5, I had no idea Gaiman wrote an episode for it.
This was the joke that The Fast Show made with Arthur Atkinson. A "music hall comedian" without the cultural context. A meta-joke on the Fast Show itself that relies on repetition, catch phrases and subverting expectations. "Where's me washboard" he would shout. The crowd go insane, "I saw you wrapping presents when it was nobodies birthday" is a particular favourite of mine. ua-cam.com/video/6_h0_OUSScc/v-deo.html
The Fast Show was brilliant and I really considered talking about it in this video. Any of the sketches in isolation aren’t actually all that funny - but the humour is in repeating it every single week and making small variations. They really had to train the audience on that one - I’m amazed they lasted long enough for it to catch on!
Mostly because you know the characters. Coming from a complete stranger, those comments wouldn't be as good. As is, they're cute lines from Talon and Lenier.
It is also particularly in universe with Giribaldi loving Loony Tunes - the anachronistic style of the humor makes the dated feel of their routine feel consistent in-world with other experiences of humor we see in Babylon 5
There was a similar scene with Delenn when Garibaldi shows her "his second favorite thing in the universe" It's "Duck Dodgers in the 24th and a half Century". They show Daffy as Duck Dodgers launching his spsceship, and instead of going up, it sinks down into the ground. Delenn laughs. Daffy says "I had the silly thing in reverse" and Delenn stops laughing and looks confused. The physical humor was understood, this ship.was to go up, not down, and Delenn is amused by the subverting of expectations, but she doesn't have the context of a car being accidentally placed in reverse. I thought this scene was incredibly funny in the insight it gives into the nature of humor.
Rebo and Zooty are like THX-1138. Remember what George Lucas said on the commentary. If you don't and haven't watched the movie with the commentary I encourage you to do so.
How delightfully cryptic. I havent seen THX in many years. I remember admiring it more than loving it. Lucas got a lot out of a limited budget. Maybe I should check out that commentary…
I believe the reason he made them unfunny was because we'd be highly unlikely to crack a smile, let alone give a belly laugh to a 200 year old joke, let alone one in 200 years time because comedy is also contextual. If you're under 30 you're probably not going to get a joke from the 80s.
It is hard to imagine what comedy will look like in 200 years time. But one thing I really like in B5 is that you feel like there is a contemporary Earth pop culture going on. The in-universe music in bars is usually original, acts like Rebo and Zooty exist. Compare that to Star Trek where all human culture we see is usually old even by 20th century standards. (Classical composers, 50s-style nightclubs, Beastie Boys…’
@@Phintasmo To a degree, Trek embraces music and culture that are already engrained as feeling timeless or evergreen. Thus, there's little chance of the show feeling outdated by referencing things that didn't age so well. This approach for B5 makes it more unique, but can be a tad harder to grasp onto. You're either going to be Lochley or everyone else in this episode in how you absorb it.
True, the Trek approach does prevent the references from dating badly. I’m sure Discovery probably regrets throwing in that Elon Musk reference in season 1.
@@Phintasmo The way Trek does it isn't **just** to avoid becoming outdated (there was a lot of "future rap music" in 90s scifi, oof), but because Trek is one of the only scifi properties that says that it isn't just technology that will be different in the future, **we** will be, too. So while most scifi is happy to come up with a bunch of examples of "pop culture thing, but in space," Star Trek mostly doesn't assume that culture will be the same at all, and doesn't imagine that there will be a "Space Billboard Top 100" or a "Space Academy Awards," because whatever does exist will look nothing like that.
B5 was a great series.. The 5th season wasn't supposed to happen how it did. The studio was going to cancel the series after the 4th season, so they crunched the stories from 4th and the planned 5th seasons into the 4th season. However the 4th was so great the studio extended them for a 5th season which is why the 5th isn't as cohesive as the rest. Also the CW is supposedly rebooting the series but there's been on going issues for the past few years so who knows if it will ever be started or finished.
You present a well written thesis. I appreciate the video. However, I disagree on some key points. You mentioned drama writers like Aaron Sorkin, and them trying to dip into other genres wirh shows like Studio 60 which is supposed to have some comedy. I respect Sorkin's work and his dedication to his work. But comedy was never his strong point. But more importantly, you failed to mention *dedicated* comedy writers. There are writers out there who dedicate *their* careers to writing comedy and humor (like how Sorkin focuses on drama). Your video presents this notion that presenting comedy on screen is hard and can be difficult. But I counter by saying the real issue is that the "comedy" being depicted on screen was written by a drama writer. And unfortunately, not everything they write can be a success - especially when they writing outside their element. Writing is often about writing what you know and drawing from your experiences. A drama writer trying to write comedy will generally not go well. That's why Sorkin's Studio 60 TV show failed, and was cancelled after one season. I actually watched the show and hoped it wouldn't get cancelled. But....Sorkin can not write comedy. It has nothing to do with comedy being hard to present on screen. Sorkin is just bad at it. It's NOT what he knows. I counter your argument that If Rebo and Zuti's Babylon 5 scenes were written by actual talented comedy writers (and I could name a lot), then they could have found some way to present the humor better on screen for the audience to enjoy. Sorkin and Neil. Gaiman were not the correct writers to do it. Heck, look at UA-cam. Fans on UA-cam will find something funny even in the most serious franchises or subject matter. They are able show us some really funny jokes and memes - even in the most serious subjects. It IS possible show humor on screen.
I didn't really find them funny. And I WAS a little more than disappointed by that. But once you watch the whole episode, it becomes clear that (like you said) we aren't getting the joke because it references stuff we never get to see. The more important thing about Rebo and Zooty is that through their humor and interacting and learning humor from other alien species, they seem to have acquired a decent amount of wisdom. If they ever got tired of their comedy bit, they can actually be fairly decent ambassadors between Earth and other alien worlds.
Interesting. I remember this episode, and I thought it was boring because of those two. I didn't know who Penn and Teller were back then. Now, I know who they are and I do like them - still find that episode boring.
Damn, annoyingly, I started smiling at that panda joke...I got it before it was explained. Interestingly, I never found Penn and Teller that interesting or funny before B5 and I was annoyed when they showed up in this episode. However, either I've mellowed or they've mellowed because I do like watching "Fool Us", in particular their trick at the end of the show.
In the same way the issue of religion was promoted in a season 1 episode with the first representative of religion being a non religious person (An Atheist) was meant more for the aliens on the episode more than for the humans (us) watching the show. As a result, the impact of the aliens seeing humanity's "conflict" of ideas yet able to unify as Humanity, was a foreign concept to the aliens. But for us the watchers, promoted a message that our differences could be seen as astounding, to aliens.
I'd say Rebo and Zotty are more Laurel and hardy than the Marx Brothers. If Gaiman had created the greatest comedians ever, why not make that instead of a B5 script?
Best sci-fi ever in my humble opinion, this episode was in the top 5 of the final season (the weakest season of them all but had a few gems (I know the story about the renewal by the way)).
4:40 I always try to watch every new movie and series in both my native dub and in the original English. Ukrainian dubs are usually very good, but also a lot of jokes can be just lost because of the language differences.
I think Sci-fi can get away with writing the "perfect Comedian" only cause it's set in a future where people can fake it and You can't relate cause you don't live there and you the member of the audience can accept that. The key is you can accept oh they're super funny even though their jokes aren't making you laugh cause this is supposed to be a view into that world and you can accept not knowing why is it funny. You can kind of get away with it in Fantasy but you have to at least make some relatable funny jokes to at least get a chuckle but a Modern drama or period piece you either have to build up the knowledge for the audience or you have to force the audience into accepting the proposed sketch is actually funny in that setting and it's really difficult to pull off cause the best jokes are indeed timeless and when you're watching the comedy unfold can be made relatable and funny by nature.
Comedy isn't subjective. Humor is subjective. Comedy is objective. It follows rules. Which is why intended jokes can fail to land. They falter in following the laws of comedy
The first thing I notice about moving countries is that my jokes don't work. Also some people don't put as much effort into jokes. I think the British joke all day long about everything and that attitude doesn't work in America where we think we are going to be understood but aren't. The kind of jokes change too. I'm part Irish and I find their jokes more satisfying than English ones. Zimbabwe->South Africa was my first transition and that was very debilitating - to not be able to rely on one's humor anymore and just get a series of blank looks. Germany - just again I was very aware that the continual unserious nature of British communication was not expected. Nowadays I think I try to joke less and not to use sarcasm much and never use irony. I work with people from all over the place and I don't think it helps. Being more straightforward and also more positive is better.
I sent a message to Neil on bluesky when I learned that he had written the Reebo and Zooty episode on B5 and I mentioned that it had blown my mind when I realized that humor wasn't universal, cultural and language would always hinder the meaning or intention of the joke. He replied "That was my hope when I wrote it."
I bet he really loves getting questions about his slightly more obscure works. I’m sure he’s answered every question about Sandman a million times over.
"Shaka, when the walls fell" gets me every time. Darmok was the greatest stand-up.
Sokath, his eyes open.
@@LordGertzOh, man, stop it; you're splitting my sides! 😂😂😂😂
Dude, I actually saw Darmok and Jalad at Tanagra, best comedy duo ever. Rebo and Zooty wish they were half as good.
@@dracos24 😄😄😄
@@dracos24 They were better when I saw them on the ocean.
Londo not finding Rebo and Zooty funny until later also symbolized how his soul was in peril, but not entirely unsalvageable.
unlike penn & teller.
I mean, they where not funny.
That's the beauty of the characters in the episode. They quite literally live in their own universe. They understand the comedy and are hilarious within that universe. They have mastered comedy and humor for every species. They've come across within that universe. However, the audience watching the show is not in that universe.
(We are all quite literally outside the joke.)
Basically showing that no, it's not the comedians being incompetent, on the contrary as the the writers knew that you can't really make in-universe comedians as funny to the audience as they are to the people in-context?
Exactly, I was gonna post pretty much the same thing. If I deadpan the line, "and now for something completely different." Python fans will chuckle, but those who haven't seen any Monty Python will go, "huh?"
The problem today is that SOME comedy gets labeled as "offensive" and thus isnt allowed to be shown anywhere, because "easily offended people with no sense of humor" need to make the world miserable for everyone else.
I really like this presentation. I knew I found them vaguely amusing at most watching the episode, and wondered how Penn & Teller turned out to not be used to their full potential, but the idea that I'm not supposed to get the jokes had never occurred to me.
Once you understand that, and also understand that Penn & Teller are carrying on the tradition of the busker or Vaudeville performers both in their own show and here, you can see that they absolutely _nailed_ this performance.
Yeah, Penn and Teller were the perfect choice. They were really making a meta commentary on humor.
A dog walked into a tavern and said, "I can't see a thing. I'll open this one." (--the worlds oldest known joke, Sumeria (c. 4500-1900 BC)).
No, the Archeologists don't get it either.
I've now looked this up - what an amazing piece of trivia!
Had I known I'd have definitely included it.
It might be a beer is dog pee joke but yeah so much missing context
If it's a play on the sound of words then maybe we're stuffed.
Depending on the double meanings of the words used to say the joke, maybe the punchline is that the dog walked into _the side or wall_ of a tavern, ie he didn't walk through the entrance, he bumped into the exterior of one. And "I'll open this one" had a meaning of "I'll open my eyes" indicating the dog was literally or proverbially walking with it's eyed closed. Maybe in ancient Sumeria, dogs were said to be short-sighted, or noted to use scent rather than sight for direction and therefore might bump into things.
Never been “blind drunk” before…. Or drunk as a skunk?
I just love that the photo is a straight up Penn and Teller publicity shot 😂
I remember the joke with Delen. I think that's about the only time her character looses her composition like that. Her reaction was the punchline there.
whenever I see that, I keep thinking she's faking that laugh to be polite to both her guests and her husband. This video was the first time I've believed she was genuinely laughing.
The fact that they still have printed newspapers is the actual joke
Maybe they have a comeback like cinema or vinyl or analogue watches.
@@markpostgate2551 Or at least the printed media not getting instantly modded by hackers?
@@FezFindie
Ah maybe that is why. It is so easy to edit virtual media after publication that in time print media becomes the closer thing to truth again, in much the same way none of us trust Kindle, and we are beginning to be wary of steaming channels or spotify, because at least with physical media what is writ can stay writ, however controversial or politically inconvenient it may become in the future. So in time print media may become trusted again, or at least more trusted than it's alternatives.
@@markpostgate2551And the fact that they choose which topics to have in their copies might be also an encouraged practice in order to save paper and recycling less of it as they *are* in a space station.
@@markpostgate2551 This is fallacious. You are only talking about trust that the publication is legitimate and has not been altered. Not that what they publish is actually true. You can already use a variety of ways to make sure that a digital document has not been altered and is the same as it has always been. You have been able to do this for decades and decades.
A physical copy existing physically is not proof against or protection from telling falsehoods or from outright forgery.
Something being unchanged and something being true are VERY different things.
Because of this and the fact that, barring some misfortune (e.g. an archive and its contents being destroyed), knowledge only increases overall, earlier copies can only ever be seen as being potentially identical to or inferior to later copies. Thus, all things being equal, forms of media that can easily and essentially instantly be updated, always have the potential to be superior to forms of media that cannot. While the inverse is not true.
Highly underrated series
They are threatening to ruin it with a reboot :-(
@@IanM-id8or The several attempts at "expanding the universe" have failed ... Crusade & Legend of the Rangers ... the first one was interfered with by the studio and had the pretty boring "Enterprise recipe" of "ship comes to problem, solves it and flies away". Rangers had a neat bunch of characters, but the "fire control" for the Liandra was frankly ridiculous ... and the villains are a revamped version of the Shadows .... which SHOULDNT EXIST, because "the First Ones" went away.
The community has been needing a channel dedicated to Babylon 5 lore and development. Some great stuff out there, but overwhelmed by the content of other good but overrepresented shows. This channel is on my subscription list now, and looking forward to your future B5 projects.
Thank you for your kind words of support!
Part of why I started this channel was because I couldnt find anyone else doing this sort of thing for B5.
I wanted to make the kind of stuff I would want to watch!
You should also check out the Grey 17 Podcast and Babylon 5 For The First Time.
During a more serious conversation with Sheridan the subject of being able to take the wind out of President Clark's sails without getting disappeared by his apparatchik...
The same way current and past comedians have done so for ages... By undermining their authority in subtle ways... Not by attacking them directly...
That’s a nice little scene. Especially contrasted with the politician we meet at the end of season 4 - ‘It was never the right time to move against Clark..’
You need to be big enough / UNCANCELABLE to be able to pull it off ... anyone else who doesnt like "swamp monsters" gets canceled.
Thought-Terminating Clichés are a terrible thing ... because dumb people easily BELIEVE them. MOB justice ...
You have not experienced Rebo and Zootie until you have heard them in the original Mimbari...
Lol!
It reminds me of "Parks and Recreation," when Ben didn't understand the popularity of Li'l Sebastian.
"he has 2 PHDs son!!" always gets me
So as to your point about Rebo and Zooty's performances mostly being references that we don't get, but the "cast" do and so we generally are more forgiving and likely to see them as funny. Also matches with how most jokes in movies and shows are done, with a cut to the Punchline and everyone laughing. Since the audience doesn't see/hear the joke we can't find it unfunny.
Interestingly, Babylon 5 does this quite a lot with real jokes.
There’s a scene with Bester and Lochley where we catch the punchline of a gag about Descartes.
It's odd because when movies and shows do that cut to the punchline thing, audiences hate it and recognize it as a lazy way to shortcut humor without doing the actual work of comedy writing. The way it's done with Rebo and Zooty is smarter, as pointed out in the video, not just saving the episode from the demand of having to write comedy that holds up to their reputation in-universe, but also letting the audience share the experience of the few characters who are also not in on the joke, which is interesting and unique. That said, even knowing that's what they're doing, it ultimately still isn't that fun to watch, frankly.
@@Phintasmo Bester has quite a few "punchlines" in situations that arent meant to be funny.
- "I'm a telepath, work it out."
- "So you think of me as something bright and cheerful for children?"
Funnily enough, you can also tie this back to Episode 1 - with Garibaldi showing "Duck Dodgers" to Delenn, who's staring in utter confusion while Garibaldi laughs his ass off. It's a hilarious scene *and* a really great early character moment. Plus it also kind of foreshadows that the show will have a huge emphasis on cultural understanding, and lack thereof.
You beat me to this post. 😊 As I pointed out, Delenn does have a mildly amused reaction to the physical comedy, but is confused by all the cultural references.
And her reaction is nowhere near as intense as to Rebo and Zooty's joke.
This reminds me of those who love Mel Brooks but hate Monty Python. Personally, I find some of the greatest humor in both, with quotable lines in each. But some of my friends will stand on a hill and yell at the top of their lungs that one is funny and the other is not. The funny thing to me is, both Brooks and The Pythons use the same method of schtick. It just doen't always translate well to those who aren't versed in the "other's" culture.
This reminds me of Monty Python "The funniest joke in the world". They never actually tell the joke, but they show the effect. It's the same here: You don't get the joke, but you see the effect on the people in the show. And looking at the effect, they are in fact hilarious.
Actually you do get enough snippets of the German translation in that sketch to reverse engineer the old English joke. "What time is it when your watch reads 13? Time to get a new watch." In particular, you can hear soldiers saying, "Um wieviel Uhr ist es,"
That they have a Minbari joke, with Sheridan as human not getting it just shows this, that these jokes are subject to cultural influences. We as the 20th century (back then) audience will not get 23th century jokes, similar to why Sheridan doesn't get Minbari jokes.
Reminded my of the Alien Nation episode dealing with cross-cultural interpersonal relationships were newcomer Kathy loves earth clowns but finds the Three Stooges cruel and human Sikes finds them hilarious and clowns juvenile and creepy.
@@LordGertz Do you have any idea what "Nyuk" means in Tenctonese?
@@davidkoritan1692 Cathy was always my favorite. Along with Uncle Moodri.
Heck, people from 20 years ago will not get jokes today. The video of the bread falling down with dramatic music cracks me up, but many people back then would not get it. Comedy is subjected one's personal preferences and the cultural context that created it.
...The best part, to me, is that Zooty spent YEARS setting up a joke, and didn't tell the punchline to the same person.
I didn't see what it was (and don't actually watch Babylon 5) is this setup and joke ever explained, in the show, or is it just one of those "and this is teh punchline!" with an implication that it's had a massively-long setup?
@@weebjeez It's actually 50/50 whether it's a joke or another hint of the bigger world and other mysteries that exist in it. Actually explaining it here would take too much context, but you do get told both lines and given all the context in the episode to "get it," however, which I think is what you're asking.
@@TheJestersGhost I mean, you say that, but you spent a whole paragraph explaining how it would take too long to explain.
And it's not like the show had hours to get into this particular joke setup. I imagine it was two lines, and a sentence or two of context.
But thank you for confirming that it exists, I guess? I would have liked to know WHAT the joke was, even if I wasn't "in the know" but... sure.
@@weebjeez I can try, but it wasn't necessary to answer the original question :)
Teller(Zooty) sticks to his characterisation from their magic acts, and never speaks in this episode.
Penn(Rebo) explains to Sheridan that he never breaks character (you get some of this voice line in the above video), and only communicates through the weird slide-whistle device he carries at all times (which he uses to tell Delenn the joke she finds hilarious) and has only said one word to him in the entire time they've worked together: "Why?"
Right at the end of the episode, Zooty approaches G'Kar and whispers something in to his ear, points at the device and nods, before walking away.
Sheridan asks G'Kar what he said, and it was apparently, "Because it tells me to."
As I said, it seems to me me less like a joke and more a fun hint into a deeper background mystery (deliberately left unexplained), but, y'know, the whole point is it's left up to each viewer to decide :P
@@TheJestersGhost On re-watching I thought it might be that Zooty has a 'keeper', foreshadowing what we see happen to Londo...
Come on, Rebo and Zooty’s act is the funniest thing since that Sumerian dog joke!
Amazing. I’ve watched B5 at least six times, and I never noticed the newspaper article about Londo before.
I thought Rebo and Zooty were funny because I knew that Penn and Teller were funny. That’s why I think the casting choice was excellent. Even though I didn’t get the references, I could believe that they were top comedians in-universe.
Keep an eye on the background!
I think the pilot movie has a few of these - including a news piece on Elvis being sighted!
I love your takes on B5 and how you break down certain elements of key episodes. Your love of B5 seems to mirror my own, and JMS's story lines and seasonal arcs make B5 among the elite of Sci Fi entertainment, in my opinion.
My wife had never seen B5, so about a year or so ago, we started watching it all the way through. She wavered a bit during season 1, but once S2 was underway she was in. And like a good B5 fan she shed a few tears when B5 was razed in the finale. (oops, spoilers)
I look forward to more B5 commentary!
Thank you for such a kind message!
I introduced my wife to B5 a long time ago and it was such a joy to watch it again through another person’s eyes.
Hope to watch it with my kids someday if they show even the slightest interest!
Fasten then zip is comedy gold.
This was actually a really pleasant watch. The pacing almost made me feel like I was watching a show from that era
Rebo and Zooty were intended to appeal to the comedy tastes of that particular era- not to me, but I do like Penn and Teller.
Neil Gaiman's script covered more than just them on the station, and it is one of our favourite episodes. He is probably the only one who could have written that particular episode with all that was going on in it.
There were plenty of comedy moments throughout the B5 seasons, some of which were ad-libbed like the scene in the damaged elevator with Londo and G'Kar.
My wife and I have just watched the entire series again, (this time on Blu-Ray, a great improvement) and still see and hear things that we missed before. Best Sci-Fi series ever.
Nothing was ad-libbed ... it was all written... especially the scene in the elevator ... sometimes the cast suggested changes to the script ...
Neither here nor there for the purposes of this video, but when talking about how the sketches on Studio 60 were distinctly unfunny, which directly counters what we're supposed to believe about Mathew Perry's character, I always thought it was telling that the OTHER Saturday Night Live inspired show that premiered the same year, 30 Rock, mostly avoided showing us the sketches on the show within a show. And when they did, it was generally just as a punchline about something having gone wrong or something. 30 Rock, having been created by people who had actually worked on SNL knew this was the smarter play. And sure enough, 30 Rock ran for 5(?) seasons and was generally pretty critically well regarded. Whereas Studio 60 I think had middling reviews and ran only one season.
Excellent video, well thought out thesis. And a generous serving of nostalgia for me. Thanks for making this!
Studio 60 had a moment during its short run where the public conversation around it was how unfunny the comedy on it was. Multiple articles were written about it--I was actually in a sketch troupe in LA at the time and we did a whole parody show based around trying to make the sketches that were shown or referenced on the show actually funny.
Sorkin was not pleased. He called out our troupe by name in multiple interviews and just called us bitter wannabes....
Rather than take the note that the entire comedy community was saying "Um.... staff some sketch writers to write the sketches if you're going to keep doing this."
Ha! That’s hilarious. Sorkin always comes across as so full of himself.
Congratulations on puncturing his pomposity!
It is not "old Marx Brothers physical humor" many of the physical comedy parts (not all but many the parts when they perform for people in B5) are based on Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy.
Ooooh jeeez 😒
I also got a bit of a Hope/Crosby vibe from them.
@@emsleywyatt3400 You are right I didn't realize that.
After watching this video and reading many of the comments, it's amazing to me that nobody has mentioned that Rebo and Zooty were the backup storyline of the episode. It was the main storyline that made this stand alone episode so great and memorable. The comedy stuff with Penn and Teller was just a minor distraction, yet still done extremely well.
And I hadn't realized until recently that Neil Gaiman had written this episode. I'm not the least bit surprised that the Day of the Dead story was written by the same guy responsible for the genius Sandman series. The idea of him writing this comedy story into it is the surprising part.
You may enjoy my other video that covers the rest of the episode!
JMS, Ellison, Gaiman, and Penn & Teller on the same credits roll. It's impossibly legendary.
"Is that your ass or mine?" *HEE-HAW*
That genuinely got a laugh out of me back in the day.
I stand corrected - some jokes do indeed have universal appeal!
@smo Yeah, any (and there are many) that rely on simply being a human. For the most part this seems to be physical comedy. But there are plenty of jokes meant to be spoken, which rely on human physiology as well. There are also interchangeable jokes. Where the subject doesn't matter nearly as much as the punchline itself.
Here is what I mean by an interchangeable joke...
A Giants fan, Redskins fan, Eagles fan and Cowboys fan are hiking up a mountain and pause to take in a stunning view over the edge of a cliff. All of a sudden and in a crazed manner the Redskins fan screams "This is for the Redskins!" and throws himself off of the cliff. Sacrificing himself so that his team would do well in the coming season. The Eagles fan, not to be outdone by the Redskins fan, screams "This is for the Eagles!" and follows suit. The Giants fan and the Cowboys fan look at each other, then the Giants fan grabs the Cowboys fan and screams "This is for the Giants!" while throwing the Cowboys fan off the cliff.
Those are 4 teams from American football. They are also the 4 teams that make up the Eastern division in the National Football Conference (The NFC and the AFC, American Football Conference, each send a team to compete against each other at the Super Bowl.). You can change this joke to include 4 (at a minimum) competing things. It doesn't matter what they are. Just that they are in competition with each other. All that one needs to understand it, is to know that the 4 subjects are all in competition with each other for something. I used this specific form of the joke because this is the first version of it that I had ever heard.
@@whyjnot420It is somewhat funnier when you understand that the Cowboys fan is supposed to be the most hated of the four. Understanding the cultural reference still effects how funny the joke is perceived as.
But of course it is also just a funny twist. The cultural reference is kind of an additional layer on top of it.
@@richardryley3660 The way I structured it, that was a deliberate bonus to the punchline. You still need some understanding to get the joke, like knowing that the 4 people are fans of 4 competing teams. But the punchline needs no explanation and is universal in that regard. (more or less)
I think that joke works because at its essence it is physical comedy in spoken form. Akin to how a math word problem is still just a question about numbers. You don't care what Bob or Jane are doing with whatever they have 17 of, all you need to know is that they have 17 of them.
Bonus joke:
One hydrogen atom goes up to another hydrogen atom and says "I've lost my electron". The second hydrogen atom asks "Are you sure? How do you know?" The first responds with "I'm positive."
In the game “Morrowind”, back when Elder Scrolls was still a great series, someone approaches you needing an actor for their play.
You are given a script to review, with a specific instruction to pause for laughter at a certain point (don’t worry, the joke is hilarious, we promise).
Then you stand on stage and can choose to get the lines right. The play is mostly out of context nonsense. Then the joke comes up, and you are compelled to answer correctly.
When you say the punchline, someone in the crowd yells “No Inwah!” and charges the stage with a knife.
I died in game the first time because I was laughing so hard.
Dude!
Spoilers!
hold on, where do you pick up this quest? I still return to play morrowind every few years, and I've not come across this in any of my playthroughs.
@@xephy89 It is part of Tribunal, in Mournhold.
Please reference the "Dick VanDyke Show". They had a similar problem. Also note "Bewitched" regarding advertising.
I wasn't sure. I know American humour is different from British humour. I've seen Americans laugh historically at a reference to a line, "I've got a fever, and the only prescription, is more cowbell." I'm told this is comedy genius, but I assume I don't get the cultural reference so it's completely lost on me. It's like an in joke that countrywide. And we all do it. I have an in joke with my kids where the words "ee-uhm" mean something very funny in certain circumstances. But nobody else would understand, because "you had to be there." Maybe I was supposed to feel this way at this comedy duo. But I also wondered if that would be funny if I was American. So I get where Londo doesn't get it. But I still don't get it after seeing it and ended up empathising with the captain as she looks around thinking "WTF?"
I suppose that could be deliberate, in which case it's worked as I feel more like watching a different time and place from where I am, as much as I shouldn't be able to understand 22nd century technology. Which is what technobabble is supposed to achieve.
Thats a nice parallel.
The technology of the future is recognizable as an outgrowth of what we have today but removed enough that we sometimes cant quite understand it or figure out how it works.
So too with comedy except it also applies to things of the past.
I wonder what the B5 crew would have thought about comedy of the 1990s?
"More Cowbell" was a 24 year old Saturday Night Live sketch about a music producer focusing on the most meaningless instrument in a recording studio. ua-cam.com/video/cVsQLlk-T0s/v-deo.html
If you just hear the line it means nothing. You need the full skit with Will Ferrell's physical comedy.
This reminds me of one night that I was down my parents and my parents were watching a DVD of Robin Williams stand up from the 70s and John Ritter was in it. I love Williams and Ritter but the references were so obscure I did not get the humor in their routine. My parents found it funny but I did not.
I loved the hat gag. Vladimir and Estragon forever!
This is one of the things that I’m most impressed about The Marvellous Mrs Maisel - Amy Sherman-Palladino managed to write actually funny standup for a show about a standup where there’s also funny drama. Frankly, the confidence required to even think such a thing is possible, let alone attempt it is mind-boggling to me.
Because it tells me to.
I think “well excuuuuuuuuuse me!” Actually would translate regardless of age or context. It’s all in the delivery. Even just hearing it out of context made me laugh. A lot of Martin’s jokes back then were just raw absurdity and manic energy. I don’t think that kind of humor ever loses its appeal. Like Airplane, it’s mostly timeless.
A better example (from SNL, at that) might be "Choppin' brocollay!" Cracked us up in high school in the late 80s. Probably means nothing to anyone today.
Cocaine's a hell of a drug. A lot of comedy from that era (inc. Robin Williams et Richard Pryor) would not have have been as funny without its influence.
Shirley you jest.
@@SilortheBlade Beat me by 12 days.
They were aweful. Just god aweful. As usual our favourite, GKar is the only one who left with true insight about the whole experience. Nobody can ever replace him.A great actor.
If you've read any Shakespeare you know a few things are still funny after centuries, but most of his humour is either faintly amusing at best or completely incomprehensible (the porter's french tailor / goose joke in Macbeth comes to mind as an example of the latter).
I've alwaysa said this is actually the best sci-fi episode about comedy in the future.
Reminds me of the character on The Fast Show who was an old musical hall act doing catchphrases we don't know the origin of.
"Where's me washboard?"
'Ooh sir, I see you wrappin' presents when it ain't no ones birthday!'
Classic.
The Fast Show is a great example. I think you had to watch two or three episodes before much of it made any sense.
It was done like this intentionally and it would not have worked any other way considering the wider context of the show. I think this worked out real well, it was not meant to be a comedy episode to make the audience laugh per se, it was deeper.
What I found interesting is that in real life, as it was written into the show, people's taste in comedy tracked largely according to their ideology, philosophy, and politics. Only those who were specifically targeted by the comedy team who extensively studied their taste in comedy, did anyone change their mind.
That which is universal can also be very particular.
Laughs are easy.... comedy is HARD.
As Delenn describes it, Minbari humour is basically double-entendres
And Rebo further explains that it’s based on failure to achieve emotional or spiritual enlightenment - whatever that means!
For Minbari spiritual enlightenment is sex 😉
@@Phintasmo A priest dies and goes to heaven. Being into holy texts he rushes into the heavenly library to see the originals.
After a while the heavenly librarian hears him scream out followed by a loud thud. They find him unconscious, wake him and ask him what shocked him so much to faint in heaven.
All in tears he replies: "It said CELEBRATE in the original text!"
Great stuff! Oddly enough, as someone who once had the script book of the episode signed by Gaiman, DotD is now one of my least favourite JMS episodes and the lowest point in S5. But that's more to do with the Brakiri storyline and not this one. I have to agree that Gaiman's approach here is brilliant and you explain it perfectly.
Comedy is cultural, and culture is affected by time. Humor unites the living, and those that truly live, suffer. Gallows humor is one of the greatest unifying forces.
Getting a bit meta, Captain Lochley was added to the show near the end of its run as a replacement for Ivanova, who had been with the show since Season 1. Getting fans to support the new character in that situation is hard, and making her the only one reflecting the audience's feelings is a neat way of getting that support.
(Few things unite us more than complaining about someone we dislike with someone who agrees)
You are so right!
Nothing brings people together faster than being the only two in a room rolling their eyes at something.
Insightful.👍
It's outside the scope of this video, but it's worth saying that their explanation of their joke to Delenn sets us up to understand why Marcus gets such a belly laugh out of Neroon after their fight. It's a perfect example, in English this time, of a joke told in the Minnari sense of humor.
I’ve got to rewatch that bit.
I think it was well done because it would be odd for it all to translate so well since it depicts a very different time period. Some parts i found funny but Delinn busting a gut was probably the funniest part because Mimbari are always so serious.
Especially since there is comedy in B5 that is very obviously for the audience, like the time Londo got that plant and was taunting G'Kar with it. So, it was a nice change of pace to see how celebrity comedians are treated.
Just like Daffy Duck being Garabaldi's "Household god of frustration" is funny only because we understand the frame of reference... 200 years from now, it would be a very obscure reference...
When I saw this episode when it first came out I distinctly remember thinking that the question of what was funny about Rebo and Zooty was deliberately intended to be entirely inscrutable and baffling for the whole episode, at least to us 20th century viewers, and THAT is what I thought was funny. Really funny actually. For some reason the otherwise super serious Delenn explaining in hysterics the linguistics of why a joke in minbari was funny - “a lecococ means both a small fish, and the pleasure you get from meeting someone for the first time” - and it still being entirely inscrutable was the point where I thought “this is actually the most whack deconstruction of comedy I had ever seen on TV”. Just like the panda joke, it makes no sense in another language, even if you try to explain it. The whole thing was kind of like if you were an newly arrived visitor to an alien world and you were forced to listen to their comedy for the first time. I thought it was brilliant, but far too interesting for, and probably wasted on TV. But I didn’t know at the time Gaiman had written the script. I just assumed It was one of those JMS stand-alone side things he had as random drafts at the bottom of his desk drawer (some of which were pretty good) and sometimes used to pad the series out. While there is a message from a dead Kosh, and some predictions for the future from a dead Morden, there is literally nothing in that episode that advances any of the series plot lines.
You seriously telling me that Heather in Silent Hill 3 was making a joke about Pandas?
There is a bit of a real-world analogue to this in the comedy world as well: When comics get hired to play at trade shows and corporate conferences and such, many of them (including big names, I've even heard of Robin Williams doing this) will actually wander through the crowds and the stalls, listening in and chatting people up so that their jokes at the end of the day are tailored to the audience they're playing to.
I actually know enough Japanese to get the panda joke and had to remind myself that I was supposed to not get it. This video is making me want to watch Babylon 5, I had no idea Gaiman wrote an episode for it.
Great analysis!
Thanks!
This was the joke that The Fast Show made with Arthur Atkinson. A "music hall comedian" without the cultural context. A meta-joke on the Fast Show itself that relies on repetition, catch phrases and subverting expectations. "Where's me washboard" he would shout. The crowd go insane, "I saw you wrapping presents when it was nobodies birthday" is a particular favourite of mine. ua-cam.com/video/6_h0_OUSScc/v-deo.html
The Fast Show was brilliant and I really considered talking about it in this video.
Any of the sketches in isolation aren’t actually all that funny - but the humour is in repeating it every single week and making small variations.
They really had to train the audience on that one - I’m amazed they lasted long enough for it to catch on!
Can we appreciate that in the galactic future, Aliens will receive their News from papers? A News paper if you will.
That was the first time hearing the panda joke it got me.
In America a Panda eats, shoots and leaves.
0:47 oh piss off, these are goddamn hilarious
Mostly because you know the characters. Coming from a complete stranger, those comments wouldn't be as good. As is, they're cute lines from Talon and Lenier.
@@yagsyags5694...yes, that's how TV shows work.
It is also particularly in universe with Giribaldi loving Loony Tunes - the anachronistic style of the humor makes the dated feel of their routine feel consistent in-world with other experiences of humor we see in Babylon 5
Brilliant review 👏
Just as I thought there's not much ft for me to enjoy in the nostalgia that is Babylon 5.
There was a similar scene with Delenn when Garibaldi shows her "his second favorite thing in the universe" It's "Duck Dodgers in the 24th and a half Century". They show Daffy as Duck Dodgers launching his spsceship, and instead of going up, it sinks down into the ground. Delenn laughs. Daffy says "I had the silly thing in reverse" and Delenn stops laughing and looks confused.
The physical humor was understood, this ship.was to go up, not down, and Delenn is amused by the subverting of expectations, but she doesn't have the context of a car being accidentally placed in reverse. I thought this scene was incredibly funny in the insight it gives into the nature of humor.
Everyone knows that pandas eats, shoots, and leaves.
I approve of this grammar book reference!
This is a brilliant episode of B5, works on so many levels
I wonder if Zooty could make a Vorlon laugh...
And would you know if they were laughing?
@@PhintasmoThey have always been laughing,
Yes and no.
Well put!
Thanks!
This was interesting. Thanks
You are very welcome!
I figured it was their way of saying "Who the heck knows what's going to be funny in a few hundred years."
Given that Wokeism has killed traditional comedy, (with very few exceptions), that question is very relevant now.
@@Thurgosh_OG 100% agree
Rebo and Zooty are like THX-1138. Remember what George Lucas said on the commentary. If you don't and haven't watched the movie with the commentary I encourage you to do so.
How delightfully cryptic.
I havent seen THX in many years. I remember admiring it more than loving it. Lucas got a lot out of a limited budget.
Maybe I should check out that commentary…
I believe the reason he made them unfunny was because we'd be highly unlikely to crack a smile, let alone give a belly laugh to a 200 year old joke, let alone one in 200 years time because comedy is also contextual. If you're under 30 you're probably not going to get a joke from the 80s.
It is hard to imagine what comedy will look like in 200 years time.
But one thing I really like in B5 is that you feel like there is a contemporary Earth pop culture going on. The in-universe music in bars is usually original, acts like Rebo and Zooty exist.
Compare that to Star Trek where all human culture we see is usually old even by 20th century standards. (Classical composers, 50s-style nightclubs, Beastie Boys…’
@@Phintasmo To a degree, Trek embraces music and culture that are already engrained as feeling timeless or evergreen. Thus, there's little chance of the show feeling outdated by referencing things that didn't age so well. This approach for B5 makes it more unique, but can be a tad harder to grasp onto. You're either going to be Lochley or everyone else in this episode in how you absorb it.
True, the Trek approach does prevent the references from dating badly.
I’m sure Discovery probably regrets throwing in that Elon Musk reference in season 1.
@@Phintasmo it still works after you watch the entire season 😉
@@Phintasmo The way Trek does it isn't **just** to avoid becoming outdated (there was a lot of "future rap music" in 90s scifi, oof), but because Trek is one of the only scifi properties that says that it isn't just technology that will be different in the future, **we** will be, too. So while most scifi is happy to come up with a bunch of examples of "pop culture thing, but in space," Star Trek mostly doesn't assume that culture will be the same at all, and doesn't imagine that there will be a "Space Billboard Top 100" or a "Space Academy Awards," because whatever does exist will look nothing like that.
I've been putting up your videos on my x profile for a couple of days. Good stuff, man.
You are very kind, thanks for the support!
It's hilarious, considering who is playing them.
I forgot Penn and Teller were in Babylon 5.
B5 was a great series.. The 5th season wasn't supposed to happen how it did. The studio was going to cancel the series after the 4th season, so they crunched the stories from 4th and the planned 5th seasons into the 4th season. However the 4th was so great the studio extended them for a 5th season which is why the 5th isn't as cohesive as the rest. Also the CW is supposedly rebooting the series but there's been on going issues for the past few years so who knows if it will ever be started or finished.
You present a well written thesis. I appreciate the video. However, I disagree on some key points.
You mentioned drama writers like Aaron Sorkin, and them trying to dip into other genres wirh shows like Studio 60 which is supposed to have some comedy. I respect Sorkin's work and his dedication to his work. But comedy was never his strong point.
But more importantly, you failed to mention *dedicated* comedy writers. There are writers out there who dedicate *their* careers to writing comedy and humor (like how Sorkin focuses on drama).
Your video presents this notion that presenting comedy on screen is hard and can be difficult. But I counter by saying the real issue is that the "comedy" being depicted on screen was written by a drama writer. And unfortunately, not everything they write can be a success - especially when they writing outside their element.
Writing is often about writing what you know and drawing from your experiences. A drama writer trying to write comedy will generally not go well. That's why Sorkin's Studio 60 TV show failed, and was cancelled after one season. I actually watched the show and hoped it wouldn't get cancelled. But....Sorkin can not write comedy. It has nothing to do with comedy being hard to present on screen. Sorkin is just bad at it. It's NOT what he knows.
I counter your argument that If Rebo and Zuti's Babylon 5 scenes were written by actual talented comedy writers (and I could name a lot), then they could have found some way to present the humor better on screen for the audience to enjoy. Sorkin and Neil. Gaiman were not the correct writers to do it.
Heck, look at UA-cam. Fans on UA-cam will find something funny even in the most serious franchises or subject matter. They are able show us some really funny jokes and memes - even in the most serious subjects. It IS possible show humor on screen.
Neil Gaiman wrote episodes of B5?
Know i hope that when by dividents are paid i can start a tv production space soap opera of my own
I didn't really find them funny. And I WAS a little more than disappointed by that. But once you watch the whole episode, it becomes clear that (like you said) we aren't getting the joke because it references stuff we never get to see. The more important thing about Rebo and Zooty is that through their humor and interacting and learning humor from other alien species, they seem to have acquired a decent amount of wisdom. If they ever got tired of their comedy bit, they can actually be fairly decent ambassadors between Earth and other alien worlds.
Zooty? Zoot! Zoot!
Comedy gold!
It was not about the humor, it was about the wisdom of finding common ground through culture.
Interesting. I remember this episode, and I thought it was boring because of those two. I didn't know who Penn and Teller were back then. Now, I know who they are and I do like them - still find that episode boring.
Damn, annoyingly, I started smiling at that panda joke...I got it before it was explained.
Interestingly, I never found Penn and Teller that interesting or funny before B5 and I was annoyed when they showed up in this episode. However, either I've mellowed or they've mellowed because I do like watching "Fool Us", in particular their trick at the end of the show.
A dog walked into a tavern and said, 'I can't see a thing. I'll open this one'
This joke is 3000+ years old.
In the same way the issue of religion was promoted in a season 1 episode with the first representative of religion being a non religious person (An Atheist) was meant more for the aliens on the episode more than for the humans (us) watching the show. As a result, the impact of the aliens seeing humanity's "conflict" of ideas yet able to unify as Humanity, was a foreign concept to the aliens. But for us the watchers, promoted a message that our differences could be seen as astounding, to aliens.
I'd say Rebo and Zotty are more Laurel and hardy than the Marx Brothers. If Gaiman had created the greatest comedians ever, why not make that instead of a B5 script?
niel gaiman should have written the last hitchhikers guide
I for one will still be reading the paper in the 23rd century.
I thought this was O&A "NOT FUNNY" gagline 😂 IYKYK
I always thought of Neil Gaiman as Dollar Store Douglas Adams.
I think Douglas Adams would look down at that analogy. It's a different style of comedy, much like Terry Pratchett... (GNU Pratchett)
@@petertrudelljr No.
@@petertrudelljr Dude, Terry Pratchett is even worse. If Douglas Adams were Anthony Hopkins, Terry Pratchett would be Gene Shalit.
Best sci-fi ever in my humble opinion, this episode was in the top 5 of the final season (the weakest season of them all but had a few gems (I know the story about the renewal by the way)).
I really liked that episode Zooty Zoot Zoot.
4:40 I always try to watch every new movie and series in both my native dub and in the original English. Ukrainian dubs are usually very good, but also a lot of jokes can be just lost because of the language differences.
I think Sci-fi can get away with writing the "perfect Comedian" only cause it's set in a future where people can fake it and You can't relate cause you don't live there and you the member of the audience can accept that. The key is you can accept oh they're super funny even though their jokes aren't making you laugh cause this is supposed to be a view into that world and you can accept not knowing why is it funny. You can kind of get away with it in Fantasy but you have to at least make some relatable funny jokes to at least get a chuckle but a Modern drama or period piece you either have to build up the knowledge for the audience or you have to force the audience into accepting the proposed sketch is actually funny in that setting and it's really difficult to pull off cause the best jokes are indeed timeless and when you're watching the comedy unfold can be made relatable and funny by nature.
Zooty Zoot Zoot!
Comedy isn't subjective. Humor is subjective. Comedy is objective. It follows rules. Which is why intended jokes can fail to land. They falter in following the laws of comedy
The first thing I notice about moving countries is that my jokes don't work. Also some people don't put as much effort into jokes. I think the British joke all day long about everything and that attitude doesn't work in America where we think we are going to be understood but aren't. The kind of jokes change too. I'm part Irish and I find their jokes more satisfying than English ones. Zimbabwe->South Africa was my first transition and that was very debilitating - to not be able to rely on one's humor anymore and just get a series of blank looks. Germany - just again I was very aware that the continual unserious nature of British communication was not expected. Nowadays I think I try to joke less and not to use sarcasm much and never use irony. I work with people from all over the place and I don't think it helps. Being more straightforward and also more positive is better.
I sent a message to Neil on bluesky when I learned that he had written the Reebo and Zooty episode on B5 and I mentioned that it had blown my mind when I realized that humor wasn't universal, cultural and language would always hinder the meaning or intention of the joke. He replied "That was my hope when I wrote it."
I bet he really loves getting questions about his slightly more obscure works.
I’m sure he’s answered every question about Sandman a million times over.
Well when you say "well excuse me" like that, you gotta add "princess" on the end and then it becomes funny again.