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Political Humour
Feb. 21st, 2007 10:20 amReaders of my comments page might have noticed Comrade Desbrovitch denouncing yesterdays post as unfunny because it didn't match his political views.
Political humour is a strange beast, and how funny we find it often depends on our perspective - so one sector of the audience will remain stony faced at comical observations of Gordon Brown's manifest shortcomings, whilst others will fail to see the funny side of cartoons depicting Margaret Thatcher tumbling down a lengthy flight of stairs. It's horses for courses, really.
One of my less-than-nonymous commenters observed that humour tends to come from those whose views are out of power at the time; certainly it's been a long time since Ben Elton has been able to raise a sycophantic guffaw by swaggering onto stage in a sparkly suit and mumbling "Fatcher, eh" into the microphone - these days he has to rely upon his innate wit and talent to get work, which I suppose is why we haven't seen much of him on TV in the last decade.
However, I'm always open to new experiences and so decided to look into humour from the pinker end of the political spectrum. Certainly, Socialist regimes have never been known for rib-ticklers but that might have been due to the iron curtain. According to Pravda, by the late 1980's the Red Star People's Comedy Writing Collective of Smolensk was producing more and funnier jokes than the entire Groucho Club on a daily basis, and when did Pravda ever lie? Looking up the former Soviet Union's foremost comedy duo, The Two Roninovs, here are some of their most famous corkers:
"My wife has gone to the West indies!"
"Jamaica?"
"Niet! Cuba, where she will continue the people's struggle against the oppressive running-dog imperialist regime of the United States!"
(Applause)
"My dog has no nose."
"How does he smell?"
"That does not matter, he is valued for his differences."
(More applause)
"Comrade! What is that?"
"It is a Greek urn."
"What's a Greek urn?"
"Nothing! He labours freely for the greater glory of the people!"
(Slavic hilarity)
"How many workers does it take to change a lightbulb?"
"I do not know, Comrade. How many workers does it take to change a lightbulb?"
"All of them! Backsliding counter-revolutionaries who do not contribute should be shot!"
(45-minute standing ovation, at the end of which the first person to stop clapping and sit down is sent to the Botslavian pepper mines)
And then we have these gems from Roy 'Chubski' Brown, Hero of the Soviet Peoples, holder of the order of Lenin (second class).
"I'm not saying my wife's fat, but she's fortunate enough to live on a glorious collective farm where she has all the potatoes and cabbage she can eat!
Eeeh, but it's a funny old world, Comrades, when we can put a woman on the moon, but we can't put one on Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky."
Ah, the finest witticisms ever produced by a command economy. Makes you proud, doesn't it, comrades?
Political humour is a strange beast, and how funny we find it often depends on our perspective - so one sector of the audience will remain stony faced at comical observations of Gordon Brown's manifest shortcomings, whilst others will fail to see the funny side of cartoons depicting Margaret Thatcher tumbling down a lengthy flight of stairs. It's horses for courses, really.
One of my less-than-nonymous commenters observed that humour tends to come from those whose views are out of power at the time; certainly it's been a long time since Ben Elton has been able to raise a sycophantic guffaw by swaggering onto stage in a sparkly suit and mumbling "Fatcher, eh" into the microphone - these days he has to rely upon his innate wit and talent to get work, which I suppose is why we haven't seen much of him on TV in the last decade.
However, I'm always open to new experiences and so decided to look into humour from the pinker end of the political spectrum. Certainly, Socialist regimes have never been known for rib-ticklers but that might have been due to the iron curtain. According to Pravda, by the late 1980's the Red Star People's Comedy Writing Collective of Smolensk was producing more and funnier jokes than the entire Groucho Club on a daily basis, and when did Pravda ever lie? Looking up the former Soviet Union's foremost comedy duo, The Two Roninovs, here are some of their most famous corkers:
"My wife has gone to the West indies!"
"Jamaica?"
"Niet! Cuba, where she will continue the people's struggle against the oppressive running-dog imperialist regime of the United States!"
(Applause)
"My dog has no nose."
"How does he smell?"
"That does not matter, he is valued for his differences."
(More applause)
"Comrade! What is that?"
"It is a Greek urn."
"What's a Greek urn?"
"Nothing! He labours freely for the greater glory of the people!"
(Slavic hilarity)
"How many workers does it take to change a lightbulb?"
"I do not know, Comrade. How many workers does it take to change a lightbulb?"
"All of them! Backsliding counter-revolutionaries who do not contribute should be shot!"
(45-minute standing ovation, at the end of which the first person to stop clapping and sit down is sent to the Botslavian pepper mines)
And then we have these gems from Roy 'Chubski' Brown, Hero of the Soviet Peoples, holder of the order of Lenin (second class).
"I'm not saying my wife's fat, but she's fortunate enough to live on a glorious collective farm where she has all the potatoes and cabbage she can eat!
Eeeh, but it's a funny old world, Comrades, when we can put a woman on the moon, but we can't put one on Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky."
Ah, the finest witticisms ever produced by a command economy. Makes you proud, doesn't it, comrades?
