Germans completely humourless: Official

There is *one* german joke

What comes between fear and sex?

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answer scroll down (yes I know that doesn't work on the forum)

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funf

Erm...

Anyone who thinks Germans don't have a sense of humour has never seen Rammstein live - that's all I'm saying ;)

OMG!

I can only assume this survey based their idea of UK humour purely on Ricky Gervais; for whom, on behalf of my country, I apologise.

Actually, that's a point, country. Maybe England was pulled down by some of the other nations, Gordon Broon was hardly a bundle of laughs was he, he couldn't even smile without training, and even then it was rather creepy.

So has anyone bothered to sign up to the site to find out which countries came out on top of the side splitting chart?

I'm fearing the Aussies might have done quite well, which is odd as their humour is pretty similar to us brits, just with all the subtlety removed, that's when they're not whining about something of course.

Anon, cos, well I'm bound to have upset some people - lucky I chose not to comment on the USA coming higher than the UK...

America?

I mean, honestly, the Americans have the worst sense of humour around. At least people without English as a first language have an excuse.

How many Germans does it take to change a lightbulb?

One: they're efficient and not very funny.

German humor

I recall some Germans discussing reasons not to eat at "Kentucky schreit ficken"...

Wa ha ha

Isn't British Humour based on insulting everything and everyone (including themselves)? I can see how some might not find that funny.

Let me tell you about how we do it in America....

The few British comedy programs that do make it to American TV are anything but subtle. We mostly just get your slapstick and a few improv shows. I'm curious as to how this survey was conducted, as I always thought the French were only funny because of their stereotypes but that would mean the Germans are also funny. Also, I don't know that I've ever seen or heard comedy from Poland, Belgium, or Holland.

"it’s a bit of a pie in the face for us."

I actually like pie in the face.

German counterpart

I worked for an American company that sent out a compulsory questionaire to all it's sites which had as one of it's points that you would not consume alcohol on site. The German office proptly responded with a "Not on your life, we need it to get through the bloody paperwork."

For the Germans....

....the toilet is a mundane and functional item. For us, the basis for an entire culture.

Honstly, if farts & the word "poo" aren't funny I don't know what is.

German fork-lift video

Anyone who saw the German H&S video about fork-lift trucks that did the round a few years ago will know that at least some Germans have a sense of humur. At work we couldn't stop laughing :)

KurzFilmAgentur Hamburg

www.shortfilm.com

präsentiert

Did I read that correctly?

America is at the top?

This is a country that tries to take the piss out of it's own popular culture being almost entirely about people being kicked in the groin and big cars crashing into each other by writing a film about people being kicked in the groin and big cars crashing into each other.

To the US readers

Brit humour has lots of levels. Just watch some episodes of Danger Mouse.

we may be 4th from bottom, but our humour is intact.

The English are not usually given to patriotic boasting - indeed, both

patriotism and boasting are regarded as unseemly, so the combination of

these two sins is doubly distasteful. But there is one significant exception

to this rule, and that is the patriotic pride we take in our sense of humour,

particularly in our expert use of irony. The popular belief is that we have

a better, more subtle, more highly developed sense of humour than any

other nation, and specifically that other nations are all tediously literal in

their thinking and incapable of understanding or appreciating irony.

Almost all of the English people I interviewed subscribed to this belief,

and many foreigners, rather surprisingly, humbly concurred. ........

For those attempting to acclimatize to this atmosphere, the most

important "rule" to remember is that irony is endemic: like the humour in

general, irony is a constant, a given, a normal element of ordinary,

everyday conversation. The English may not always be joking, but they

are always in a state of readiness for humour. We do not always say the

opposite of what we mean, but we are always alert to the possibility of

irony.

From: Watching the English by Kate Fox, anthropologist, London 2004.

more of it here, and in German. (or google "particularly in our expert use of irony")

http://www.proz.com/?sp=profile&eid_s=124736&sp_mode=port

I'm gonna go out on a limb

and say comedy is intimately subjective. What may be down right boorish in one culture may be gut wrenching hysterical to another. I happen to enjoy the British sense of humor (humour), as I find it delightly tounge & cheek.

Ironically, a lot of the top comedians, performing in the US are Canadian's.

But hey, that's just my opinion...

survey

I guess the survey was ran around the international equivalent of Sun readers - those who believe the age of the page 3 model and think the rest of the paper is honest as well. If you visit these places and talk to the people they have a good sense of humour.

Agrreed, we haff no humor!

Well, maybe, a little bit, depends..

at least my colleagues and I found that one funny (despite being German):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FJVpPZB2LhQ

Prost!

It's a Knockout!

Ha ha ha ha, it's the Belgians!

Obviously untrue...

...Germans are very funny indeed if they're trying to order food at a run-down, mismanaged hotel in England.

I still remember the first time I saw that episode. I was probably around 12 (reruns on US tv)... I think it's the first time I laughed so hard I was actually in pain. John Cleese should get some kind of nobel prize for service to humanity just for that one scene.

Are You Being Served was pretty excellent, too. Wordplay much? 'I was up all night trying to find Mrs. Slocumb's pussy...' etc etc...

Dinner for one

The proof actually came a long, long time ago, as anyone who's actually seen "Dinner for one" can attest. If you find it funny, you must have had a sense of humour bypass - even it's creator, Freddy Frinton, was bemused by it's success. As it's a popular christmas/new year tradition across much of northern Europe, you can draw you're won conclusions about the rest.

Humour or lack of it seems to vary by region in Germany in any case. My girlfriend is from North Germany where my humour generally survives the divide, as does theirs, although I find it a little lacking in subtlety. However the Bavarians I've met never seem to get UK humour at all, and their own only seems to stretch as far as stating the obvious; "you have froth from your beer on your upper lip" provokes the kind of laughter that suggests we have different takes on why small amounts of material on the upper lip is funny.

Stewart Lee provided what I think is the most convincing explanation for the misconception of German humourlessness a few years ago:

http://tinyurl.com/2ynhgw

Re: Dinner for one

Trust me, no one in Germany actually finds Dinner for One funny, they just watch it once a year as a sort of weird tradition (i.e. something that's just done). It's unfortunately a very difficult tradition to describe to anyone!

Null

Germans not funny... Funnybot anyone? Enough said!

Both the Germans and Dutch are hilarious!