Page 100 - The Language of Humour

Unit seven
Spoken humour—television and radio

Television—and radio to a lesser extent—have replaced books as the
main source of verbal entertainment. This means that a lot of
contemporary humour is spoken and that you are more likely to watch
and listen to humour than read it. Even though there are recordings,
such humour is generally less permanent than written humour. The
programmes that are popular in a given year may well disappear from
popular culture within a matter of years. There are exceptions: some
may be preserved on audio and video cassette, or be repeated At the
time of writing, Monty Python, for example, has become a comedy
classic, but it is difficult to predict the current shows that will have a
lasting popularity. This unit first surveys the different types of humour
that are broadcast on radio and television, in order to guide your
selection of suitable texts for analysis. There are two texts that indicate
some of the different approaches needed. The activity hands over the
choice of text to you. The framework of analysis established in Units 2–
5 can be applied to any example of humour in language.

Radio
Radio is a good source of material for language analysis. It is important,
first, to distinguish between the types of humour that occur.
On radio the spoken word is not supported by visual humour. In one
sense, television has the advantage, but there are types of humour which
can work only—or work best—in a purely spoken medium. The
absence of a visual element allows ideas to work with the full range of
the human imagination. The sci-fi comedy of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to
the Galaxy would have to waste money and time on special effects on
television—although Red Dwarf manages to present a spaceship scene
with economy. On radio the element of the unseen can be used to create
laughs, as the listener (who cannot see what the characters can) follows