My Joke / Video annalsis
Ok, so if you watched the video, you know the subject matter. Now I don't know if the writers of South Park just got lucky or if they really are that brilliant. As far as this one goes, I'm going with brilliant. I don't watch South Park--someone--one of the most liberal persons I know BTW-- showed this video to me. Apparently, it's old news by now.
My breakdown: So obviously somebody at South Park noticed that naggers is spelled very similar to an socially unacceptable word. Now I'm not an English major, but I think "nag" is a verb, while nagger or naggers is a noun. I guess nag can be a noun too. The thing is, nagger is a little known word compared to the wrong answer, which makes the "joke", more accurately, the bit or scene, work.
So they use wheel of fortune as a backdrop, which works perfectly. Then the vague category"people who annoy you" is used, which most Wheel of Fortune categories are vague.
Then, magically, the guy is left to solve a puzzle with only one missing letter, which looks like this: N_GGERS
The thing is, there's only one word that going to come to mind to most adults--so the whole thing is a play on what you might call "life experience".
So the guy knows it's a bad word, but then faced with not winning a bunch of money, he blurts it out anyway. Again, it's a play on life experience--many people have seen the word used by people who knew better but for whatever reason, they used it anyway.
And it's a play on life experience in general: You see, how many times have we offended someone without meaning to? How easy is it to do? The poor cartoon guy is just supposed to be someone on a game show trying to win some money. But he end up saying something inappropriate, which in itself is humorous.
So the answer ends up being NAGGERS, a version of the word nag that I personally had never even heard until I saw this video. And I bet most people are not familiar with the word either. So you end up learning a new word as well as getting a laugh. And without even getting preachy, there's an obvious, yet unspoken social commentary built right in.
So there's so much going on in this bit, as comedy goes, it's a gem.
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Mon Jan 05, 2009 4:34 pm