The Powerful Hilarity of Weird

As stated in the prior post, in order for a spoof to work, a common cultural understanding must exist. 

That is, like it or not, in order for comedy to work, "normal" must exist. For a thing to be weird--and therefore capable of tickling one's funny bone--the distortion of the expected rests on something being expected in the first place. 

In the Last Man Standing examples, the hilarity of the first scene is that Ed is the "weird old man" talking to Mandy on the Internet. "Weird old man" may conjure up images of sketchy guys peering voyeuristically from behind newspapers at shoppers in the local convenience store. This time, the "weird old man" is a wealthy business owner! 

The hilarity of the second is that Mike is conflicted between his desire to keep a "male only" space and his anger at people dismissing his daughters:

"But when people tell me my daughters can't do something that I know they can, I feel like punching them in their face--but I don't want to be a jerk. And I don't want to punch myself in the face. That's--that's--just weird."

Conflicted feelings are normal. Seeing oneself as weird (because one expects more consistency from the self) is also normal. We can all relate! 

My favorite is "Dogs are weird" from Martin in Frasier. It's such a perfect line for summing up anything that bugs us or surprises us or make us uncertain because we do have certain basic expectations: "Cats are weird. Taxes are weird. Other drivers are weird."