Friday, June 02, 2006

The Unintentional Comedy Scale Shattered?

Bill Simmons argues that this William Shatner clip demands a recalibration of the unintentional comedy scale. As he says, "we had to recalibrate the Unintentional Comedy Scale thanks to this William Shatner clip on youtube.com -- everything once rated 100 out of 100 has been dropped to 99 so the ShatMan can stand alone (yes, even Carl Lewis' national anthem performance). This will never be topped. I'm calling it right now. We have hit the comedy ceiling, my friends."

I was skeptical. I have always been very partial to the Hasselhoff "Hooked on a Feeling" video, but at the 3:47 mark in this clip I had to concede. I was actually startled 2 times during this clip, and I spent the last minute laughing hysterically.

Comments:
See, I believe that "Hooked on a Feeling" was meant to be serious and is thus unintentional comedy.

I don't believe that Shatner's clip is meant to be serious. Thus, not unintentional comedy.
 
Also, although the video is user-made, this is Shatner singing Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds. It is much better than Rocket Man.
 
It isn't quite clear to me that this was intended to be comedy. This Rocket Man actually looks like unintentional comedy to me. (Nobody was laughing during the performance.) If Shatner did this NOW, it would definitely be intentional comedy. But then, I'd vote UNintentional. That said, I still think Hasselhoff takes the cake!
 
Yeah, but if it's meant to be funny, then it's not funny. So the lack of people laughing is not evidence that it's unintentionally funny.
 
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