In the case of Scrubs, you would have to study Exec. Prod. Bill Lawrence and what he has worked on his Hollywood history.

Seinfeld does take his cues from Cosby–he’s been quoted as saying that Cosby is his influence time and time again.

Take what I say with a grain of salt. Afterall, I’m a comedienne. “What do I know?” (lol) Honestly, nothing. I’m still learning this stuff myself.

About a week or two after this post Entertainment Weekly had an article about awkward humor. Very interesting.

Also, as a side note, I think it’s interesting that Jerry Seinfeld has been trying to do realistic awkward humor, ala the Office. During commercial breaks for the office he’s been doing these promos for his new cartoon, Bee Movie, that try to be the Office of the entertainment world. And they’re awful. Have you seen these? Terrible. I can’t even watch them. It makes me wonder if Jerry Seinfeld is done.

Nice post, I can definitely see the generational gap of humor withing my family and even between man an my younger brother. Two words, Napolean Dynamite, I didn’t think it was that funny but Joseph did. Now Tommy Boy is hilarious but not so much for my Grandmother.

Though being homeschooled I was exposed to Bill Cosby at a young age and still think he is very funny. Generation has a lot to do with it but I think it has more to do with the humor you are exposed to growing up.

Adam, again, you have hit it on the head. How do you do this? I really am secretly envious of your understanding and observation. I read a book several times and can write, oh, a sentence about it, I watch a movie once and think it was good or bad, you watch the same movie and your throwing themes all over the place. Sorry to hear about the Seinfeld episode. With all that is out there these days, Sarah and I still enjoy curling up to an old Seinfeld episode when we really want to take it easy.

We have made our way through “Arrested Development” and really liked it. Chaos is a good genre for it, however. We also enjoy watching both the American and British versions of the office and yes, I would agree that the new emerging comedy is the awkward moment. Maybe that evolved out of reality TV. People made fun of that so much and all the dramatic awkward, “real” moments so they just progressed it into their writing and now it’s a screen play. Same old industrialization we’ve all come to love and depend on. Wonderful observations.

Another curious kind of humor is what I’ll call referential humor. It’s humor that refers to something and is only funny in reference to something else. Parody would be the best example. If you don’t know what they’re parodying, it’s not funny at all. But when you know, it’s funny (Apocalypse Cow/Apocalypse Now).

This is kind of odd, because it creates a whole type of humor that requires certain knowledge. It could be ‘high-class’ humor because you need to be fairly educated to get all the references, but not always (if it refers to something decidedly low class, for example).

An especially odd example of referential humor is the way my college friends and I would throw Simpsons quotes into everyday conversation. They were only funny if you knew the quote and its context. If you didn’t, they were nonsensical. And they weren’t even that funny, it was more funny because the original joke was funny and in this new referenced context it still seems funny.

A similar example would be the inside joke. Usually the initial joke isn’t that funny, but it’s perpetuated by reference and seems to become that much funnier.

It seems there’s almost an entire class of humor that’s funny just because it refers to something or is oddly familiar (like when one of David Letterman’s jokes bombs and then he just keeps saying it throughout the rest of the show, trying to squeeze a laugh out of it, which he usually does).

I think the awkward humor is another style that’s best seen in the Office, though I think Freaks & Geeks definitely did it before them (and mosts anything Judd Apatow does has that same element of awkwardness–40 Year Old Virgin, Knocked Up, and I’d wager Superbad as well [I haven't seen it yet].

You can really notice the difference in humor and how much we have changed if you watch things you used to think were funny. We Netflixed Pinky and the Brain and Animaniacs and they just weren’t that funny (OK, Pinky and the Brain was decent). I wonder how much of it has to do with humor changing and how much of it has to do with maturing and growing older (poop is only funny to a kindergartner, etc.).