Alright, welcome to the Neuvottelija studio. I have as guests Isak Rautio, host of Futucast. Thank you. And Tuomas Peltomäki from the Uutisraportti podcast, a distinguished host. Can't we say that? Yes.
we thought that, well, we'd consider that as we try to somewhat casually in an improv spirit run these podcasts or YouTube things, so let's talk about what kind of animal this sort of, well, 'for laughs but not drunk,' well, conversation is. And we could look at the start, this week now Finland, and you've been there Tuomas, worrying a lot about NATO. So well, here George W. Bush has given a speech about this, and did it perhaps turn into comedy? Otherwise eliminated from participating
in the electoral process The result is an absence of checks and balances in Russia and the decision of one man to launch a wholly unjustified and brutal invasion of Iraq ..I mean of Ukraine!
75 75! Yeah, but this is like this kind of unintentional comedy, where George W. Bush then like succeeded quite well, but self-irony was found. But that was surely how all of us who have been like on the internet for 30 years, you get this feeling that when you've seen every joke and every meme and every
video, it creates at least in me this sense of despair that I, I'm never going to laugh ever again. I've already seen everything. Every joke, I've heard it 2,000 times and every variation of a meme, I've heard it and so on. Then a video of George Bush comes along and he's like that's like wow. That's the thing. George Bush is the only guy in the whole world who could tell that joke and say that and be funny in that way. Yeah, and laugh at himself too.
Exactly. Yeah.
That's also important to remember. But I could perhaps counter that, saying there are things you shouldn't laugh at, so here, well, before this joining NATO, so for example, a Russian and a Finn were fighting, which one won? Yeah.
Russian roulette. Russian roulette is a game that five out of six recommend.
We were supposed to find some Putin jokes for the episodes, right? This was one assignment for us. This was one assignment. So I can tell my... Yeah, but this was like a joke from the era of Finlandization. We were still laughing about the Winter War.
It was really funny. Um, this is, well, this is Googled and it's the first one that I found on Google. This isn't my first joke.
Um, actually, in a way this isn't a joke. This is, this is more of a story.
Um, so I don't know if you knew, but Biden called Putin a couple of days ago and called and said, 'Hey Putin, I had a dream. A really weird dream. It was Moscow and in Moscow there were beautiful skyscrapers, like prosperous people, new cars, flying cars, big flashing billboards, just like prosperity. And then they were talking like, 'Okay, well what did those billboards say then?' Then Biden replied, 'I don't know, I don't speak
Ukrainian.' Yeah, but Putin is a big Stalin fan, and Stalin then says that he actually likes these jokes about himself. He collects them, and then it was asked, So, how many of those do you have at the moment? 3,000 in the gulag.
Good coffee, by the way. Yeah. M But I mean, you are allowed to laugh at those in power. It's great that they can laugh at themselves, like in a democracy. George W. Bush... Stalin. He didn't laugh; instead, he put them in the gulag, and nobody else was laughing either, for that matter. Yeah, yeah.
But I mean, this kind of political humor, and there's always that power aspect, that you should always laugh upwards, never downwards, and then again, in totalitarianism, you can laugh behind their backs if you don't get caught.
Yep. But should we jump into the deep end? Shall we start talking about what one is allowed to laugh at, what can be made into comedy, and so on?
Somehow it's, um, there are so many aspects to it, because, um, generally the fact that what can we make humor about? Who is forbidding it is the first question after all, but we're probably talking more about this kind of ethical good manners, where there's some kind of social consensus on what is correct and what we can joke about, so I don't know, it's a difficult
question. It immediately comes to mind that it's somehow paradoxical to even talk about what a comedian can say, because if we define limits for what a comedian can say, then in some way it's part of their job to test those limits.
Yeah. Until Will Smith comes to punch you in the face.
Yeah, exactly. But, but maybe this relates to an even deeper thought about how, we don't actually have any boundaries when we talk about morals.
We have good and bad things. It's a bad thing to murder a guy, for example, and so on, but nonetheless, as a society—writing these segments again.
This is why I'm no longer a comedian. Yeah, but it's wrong to murder a person, but nevertheless, even in our society, we don't have any exact boundary for when, for example, murder becomes wrong.
A Ukrainian soldier who shoots a Russian. Is that wrong? For example, we don't have exact boundaries. It's a very gray area—that line between good and evil.
the boundary line, and for this we have comedians, among others. I would say.
Yeah, yeah, but I don't want to cling to some nihilistic precision right now, but a Ukrai- a Ukrainian soldier specifically does not murder, because murder means a specific thing. It means, not during wartime, a premeditated, unlawful killing of another person.
Yes. Okay. If a soldier is defined by murder, then—but murder is a matter of definition. It means exactly that. It doesn't mean just any killing. Even manslaughter means a specific thing in Finland, it has a certain kind of intention. Killing is the neutral expression, which means that someone, for whatever reason, deprives another a life, accidentally or intentionally, or planned or unplanned.
'Killing' is the word. But 'murder', in my opinion, in a way, that definition has really been right there at the core. Mm. I'll continue a bit along the same line, that what annoys me immensely is when people talk about these boundaries, if we talk about whether any boundaries exist, talking about what is appropriate comedy and so on, then many people who are not familiar with
comedy as a genre of text or a form of writing, well they might say, 'hey, you're punching down, that's wrong.' That that's like wrong, that comedy shouldn't be like that. We've noticed that, that although in Finland it might circulate, that it's used even then as a justification not even for comedy but for anything, that you punch and it's wrong, that there's this rule that you shouldn't
punch down. But you've probably read the same books as I have. And I'm no longer a funny person in any way, those days are gone, but that punch down is one rule that helps you understand, what joke is good or possible or easy to write. It's not a rule that you can never successfully write jokes where you punch
down. It's just really hard. It's much harder to write a joke if you punch down. It is entirely possible.
Louis CK does it many times, if he can punch down, but you have to be brilliant. Really good, for you to punch down, or then you have to pull a sort of escape clause into it, like ha ha, that well, or was I, so in a way a bit drunk and just for a laugh.
Yeah. But anyway, in comedy we usually talk about it as this platonic abstract form, like what is the role of comedy, when we forget that it's a skill. It's a skill that we actually, that has to be learned. Patrice O'Neal, this American comedian, said it well: a bad and a good joke often come from the same place, the heart. The other one is just written worse. Yes and it's important to remember. And anyway, in my opinion It's a lot of methodology, like, a lot. Some wise people have outlined how this works, like okay, there are some rules,
principles for how these things work. You write the premise like this, then the punchline comes roughly at this point. What is the nature of that punchline? It means a kind of leap, like, that happens inside the listener's head and so on. So it's like a collection of thoughts on what the different tools for telling a joke are.
Yes. And generally, the discussion about how often, when we talk about whether a joke is moral or not, we're talking about whether someone was offended by it, or if someone perceived the joke as bad. And this is the big debate, one of the big debates in comedy, whether it's the joke-teller's intention or whether it's the joke's effect that determines the morality of the joke. And I think this discussion in general should be brought up. I hope that we can maintain a high standard in this discussion, because in general we cannot Tuomas, but but because I feel that in general the word 'offense'
is used on both sides as a kind of bludgeon, so that for everyone it's, that I'm offended, you are fundamentally wrong. That is one way to do it. And then the other is that oh, you're a snowflake who can't handle thinking. You can't handle funny jokes. You can't handle humor. And with both of these, the idea of what offense is is somehow nullified.
is after all. Getting offended—this is my claim—is not just about, getting a sort of immediate, detached feeling of discomfort because someone said something; rather, it's that you also feel that something morally wrong has been done.
Mm. So, regarding that Chris Rock/Will Smith reference earlier, I was referring to how at the Oscars, Will Smith's wife, who is bald, apparently due to some illness—well, Chris Rock joked that 'now you can be in G.I. Jane 2,' which I think was just a kind of fun, teasing joke for those rich billionaires or millionaire friends there, probably in some way.
Yeah, but then Chris Rock—sorry, I mean Will Smith—first laughed himself, then he looks at his wife, and then he went to like punch the comedian, I think that was quite a weak showing, and also the idea that you can attack a comedian—it was widely feared that now people from the front row, where you're being roasted, and where you're also allowed to heckle. We could also talk about this dynamic, where suddenly people start punching comedians because they're fair game. But that didn't actually
happen; apparently, this didn't become a new social norm.
Yeah, except for that one... er, I mean, norm.
Exactly, I don't think it did. I mean, these things get blown out of proportion. You can take one case and exaggerate it so much that people start to think a trend has started, even though that's not necessarily the case. But I mean, as a result of this, this Dave Chappelle, uh, thing happened. Some young 23-year-old guy went and tried to tackle Dave Chappelle on stage at the Hollywood Bowl, I think, and it failed miserably, and Chris Rock was also there then, and there was already that good joke about whether that was Will Smith,
but that's not a good thing in any way, I mean, I don't think you can disagree that it's not a good thing to go, or I mean that it's not a good thing to go and hit a comedian, which is a different matter.
But about that heckling, it's then again this kind of institutionalized thing when you go, I remember I had one, one friend come to London, where I lived for a long time, so we went to the Comedy Club and then he said, let's go to the front row now, well no, do you know what that means, that well, and then he well well, he apparently didn't know, but we then became like a gay couple there and we got some proper banter about it. Well, there you go, you got it there then, well, because in the front row you're fair game. And I gave, I tried to give a bit of heckling back myself there then.
How did it go? Well it's always great when you don't have a mic and the other person has a mic. Exactly, exactly, exactly.
It is. But that's the culture there. Usually, people laugh good-naturedly, except that in the front row, you can get this kind of confrontational dynamic, and it's a bit—I was at the Comedy Cellar in New York in the front row and ended up becoming the subject of conversation multiple times with my wife. The host of the evening kept bringing us up constantly, and then when he hears we're from Finland. 'Ah, Finland!' The host himself was a Black guy. An absolutely wonderful guy. Then like, 'Not a lot of Black people in Finland.' Then I was like, 'Yeah, everybody knows
him,' and so it was an absolutely wonderful experience. Okay, that was pretty good, that probably got good reactions, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And that gay joke was a bit tired, even back then 10 years ago, but well, that's how it went.
Yeah, for sure. What do you think? Is it a bit...
ts... offense came to mind, are people hypersensitive nowadays about this? This is this kind of meme that you hear. Yeah, well, I don't know, like, I don't know if you've watched any episodes, it's recorded over at Ivan Puopolo's, we have a shared studio, so we try to do this kind of weekly commentary show, and a constant internal inside joke is exactly like this, like poking fun at the woke bubble, meaning these snowflakes who get offended by their own shadow. So... now you kind of did what I said, that the reacti... reactive thing, in the sense that, because well,
I... I'll bring a whole perspective to this, yeah.
Well, uh, yeah, there are of course people who are quite undeniably people who have weaponized taking offense in a way, or use it in some way, use the social currency that taking offense provides for their benefit, of course. But then on the other hand, I think this cancel culture has been around for a long time, since the vaudeville era when the first black
face comedians appeared. Blackface was the first such major stage comedy phenomenon in the States, so much so that even American comedians, I mean African-American, black American comedians had to do blackface ironically at that time just to get into the scene. And back then, I think Frederick Douglass, an abolitionist like that, already said in 1848 that, that these blackface comedians are, well, er, what did he say, this was, this is a quote
from him, the filth of white society or something like that, so at that time there was this kind of thing, like okay, humor is here, or humor is a spectrum society is both conservative and progressive and this same dynamics lives on, as to what is okay to joke about, and the same thing as when Irish immigrants came to America, Italian immigrants came to America, then it wasn't okay to joke about the Irish or Italians for many decades I stayed... you young people, like I am definitely not young
lads who, well, you're moving forward at such an awfully fast pace, I'm still I was somehow left thinking about that very first yeah, thought that uh, in comedy, which I'm perhaps to some extent interested in—like social comedy—so And this relates to these minstrels, or also relates very strongly to what can be said, so I think to some extent there's this element in comedy,
that the more there are things in society that cannot be said, the more there are levels in society that aren't talked about publicly with a certain, like, certain honesty, the more there is that kind of exciting, like, in-between space where comedy often works where political satirists often find their most delicious territory
is where things are said that aren't necessarily even funny in themselves. They aren't necessarily jokes; they are just allowed to be said out loud, but this is also the area where it's easiest to sort of mess up, to think that 'haha, you're not allowed to say this out loud,' that 'you trans people, you're totally stupid.' Not realizing that there's a big
issue there where a major discussion is ongoing and things are being said out loud.
You just haven't seen or heard them being said.
Well, let's pick up on that. I dug up a couple of memes, and one was specifically this gender thing. So here's a meme that I slightly I chuckled, so here is this... well, in Finland we don't have personal pronouns, that would distinguish gender, so here we have she/her and then they/them, which clearly doesn't identify binarily. And then one of my favorites, number 18, which is Michael Jackson. I have to say I laughed at that, it
specifically this 'hee-hee' was a funny play on words. It's a funnily absurd meme.
Why do you think that's funny? Well, precisely because I know that he, the way he wore a white glove and, it just appeals to what is heard. So, basically, I think we are once again close to the essence of what a joke is.
writing. There's this interesting, like, the punchline is that something when writing a punchline, or in a sense the point in the joke where the word or hit or sentence where you're supposed to laugh, laugh, so that there there it's somehow—the punchline always happens in the listener's head if the comedian says the punchline like this, then the joke doesn't work; it kind of just, you hear it in your own head
and specifically it's two different—it's like two words, hihi, and they are different, different so that's what I hit on. Of course, you could find there that he was first black then white and well, blackouts, it's laughed at and also then that it combines, like, of course, the premise itself maybe a bit of an androgynous person. Yeah, but then you responded to this, and this goes to show we like have to go through this. This was your counter-meme to this. I don't know if this was some joke or what, but Michael, explain what the hell. So Michael and
is the whole image visible somehow? President of Ireland.
This was this is the whole image without context. This is the whole meme.
One should laugh politely. Let's laugh anyway, but yes, yes I'm laughing, aren't I?
But you can't explain why it is. Yeah yeah yeah. The guy is like somehow looks like a leprechaun. He's a bit like confused that he really is [ __ ] the President of Ireland. And then what's his name?
It's Michael. Michael. Yeah.
which is sort of, there's a bit of like, is it Michael the First or is it like Michael some dude, but as a continuation like this to Michael Jackson, then I think it works.
Yeah yeah, good point. But otherwise quite a far-fetched joke or absurd, so yeah yeah, I like it a lot.
Typical Gen Z humor, this kind of meta-ironic, completely absurd and in a way detached from context. Somehow that previous joke of yours can't be seen without context.
Okay. Or I mean, now we're living in the present day.
in this place. It's specifically us talking here. This is the Neuvottelija podcast.
All of these are somehow part of this moment when I see you showing that meme. But then I see this meme and I thought that I don't—I don't connect this to anything at all.
Just to the fact that this is the President of Ireland Michael. Quite a funny thing. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So plus then there's space there. I could see that being the kind of thing that any group chat could claim Michael for themselves as an inside joke, but that it would change form completely. It's slammed on the table in certain situations. Ah, Michael appeared in the group chat like this, and every group would have their own version, ...what it means. Like, there's Michael, and modern memes are often
these kind of empty vessels. Their meanings evolve over time and change completely. On the other hand, older jokes, they are clearly like, it's a few years old, Michael, and an older joke, because it's more solid in what it is. The meaning doesn't change much.
Yes. Yeah, yeah. And then there's, my joke was the most boomer of them all, because my sense of comedy, like when I started admiring and thinking about comedy. It was right during the Bush era, The Daily Show, like, that's what a joke means, that's what it means to be funny. It's what Jon Stewart did on The Daily Show.
This is funny, because I was into comedy during the Obama era.
Mm. Interesting how we're kind of the same person. Yeah, but then there was...
the Saturday Night Live anchor was also one of your favorites, this...
it was Norm Macdonald, ah, I personally tried to watch that older material then, so it was kind of like those long structural jokes, yes but then he had this certain, specific, unique pressurized way of telling them, and then he always has this he's telling the world's most boring joke, but the feeling is present the whole time that a blood vessel in his head will burst. Any moment now.
Yes. But this Uutisvuoto-style, or like a laughing-at-the-news-live kind of thing, I think Saturday Night Live did it very sharply, and Renny Harlin even tried to bring that to Finland, but it didn't last long, but in a way, Uutisvuoto, which was British humor, lived for a very long time. And actually, Norm Macdonald was also, I think, a predecessor to your favorite comedian Ricky's
Golden Globe gigs in a way. I mean, he was one of the first people to go to these sports galas and such situations. He went completely against the role expected of him there.
a routine, where once again there are, they are some certain levels that you aren't like supposed to cross. But then a comedian's job is specifically to puncture them. Yep. I mean, this OJ thing was right when OJ I think was convicted or, wait, was he convicted? He well, was convicted in civil court. Not in criminal court. No yeah exactly. That's how it went, anyway the scandal was huge and then there was some guy like this where I got, well, in some crowd somewhere white people were judging. Hey, I was in the Southern States, I was
in New Orleans in '95 when this happened, so we watched it there on TV then and there were many disappointed white white faces when the verdict came. That this was, you know, a classic racial issue there. Yes, it was strongly, strongly, and specifically you have Norm Macdonald, a comedian, comes on stage and then says to some American football player like this, who won a Heisman Trophy, an MVP award from that season, and said that
congratulations, blah blah blah, whoever you are, congratulations on this win, no one can ever take this award away from you, unless you kill your wife and a waiter, then they can. 'If it doesn't fit, you must acquit' was the one where Yeah, that was won, yeah.
Yeah, but anyway, maybe about those memes, they always have this kind of image context, and often the basic framework takes on a life of its own and you just swap the words then and they work. But then there's this sort of truism, that 'left meme', which partly means that you see quite few left-wing memes, memes created by the left about the right.
You see a lot of memes created by the right about the left. So what do you think of this claim? 'Left can't meme'.
It's interesting, because in terms of political satire it used to be the exact opposite, that was a big discussion back in the day, specifically back then it was, that why is all comedy so left-wing. That was the question that was addressed, and then in a way like everyone was like, 'well of course it's leftist,' there isn't really anything funny. So this is the point, like in some American high schools, all those kids from conservative families were like, 'you go to that drama club? You're that kind of a
wimp.' No wonder the left won the culture war if that was like the so-called conservative right's attitude toward these kinds of light arts specifically. But to your point, it depends a bit on where that claim comes from. If you claim, like, the whole internet, the whole internet universe, and then we take it as a sample and then measure it. Hard to say. But of course depending on the algorithm and what the internet feeds you.
I don't really buy that either. Well, okay. But I mean, since in the States, Yeah. But then maybe this is a US misunderstanding, that like there, liberal means Democrat, and then libertarian, or a supporter of freedom, is then right-wing. So in a certain way, the left is perhaps suffocating. I can still support your claim, though, by the fact that a large part of internet culture, a certain kind of internet culture,
is created and brewed in bubbles on 4chan, which is definitely right-leaning in the stuff it produces. So that might be behind that idea, that a large part of the deep-fried memes that come out, they come from those sorts of basement-dwelling right-wing circles.
from thoughtful young guys. Yeah, it will go really well, I must say. Right, right. Yes, yes, yes. Very well.
Well, could it be linked to the fact that it's not censored, that in a way it's completely like, plus then of course, like the left has, in certain activist circles and then in some way like in wider circles, a certain kind of caution in how people speak, so of course it holds it back.
Yes. Yeah. Somehow like about leftism, liberal, er, or progressivism in general, if we want to model like conservatism and progressivism, then you have more, er, progressivism is more corporate in America nowadays, so they go more by those rules of the game. Like, respectability is more important.
Nike is involved in Black Lives Matter stuff and so on. So it's like so fake, this kind of corporate ad-washing. And sometimes and actually, I... well, and I'm maybe a bit, if I had to choose which side I lean towards, then yes, I am more progressive and I look at the world from that perspective, so you should also look at my statements through that lens, but... but yeah, many of these like, groundbreaking and truly the kind of comedy you see nowadays, where
you feel like, okay, now they've really hit on something, it's often that uh, the so-called opposing side, or like, questioning this progressive, uh, canon in some way, that's forming in this culture.
I think it's really fresh to see that, and in a way I understand that since we're talking about this 'punching up', people always want to see, when talking about comedy, people want to see who's punching up, so nowadays I think people are punching up, quite rightfully, against this like progressive mainstream somehow sometimes, and I think it is—from that perspective, that's how I see it.
that, well, right now at this moment, uh, there's a Democratic president in America and overall, like, this corporate scene looks more liberal liberal than from a conservative [perspective], it's targeted more by humor attacks, so that's it, and since in Finland there wasn't really anything but the left in power here, well, one could think there would be more like
humor in it, but I don't know if after Kari there has been such biting right-wing humor in Hesari since then.
Yeah, you can't say that not necessarily. But then about these types of humor, well one formula for this kind of gag humor is like a surprising truth, meaning you just blurt out the truth and then the brain registers it.
That's how it was, and surprising. Hahaha. But then, well, first of all, about that statement, do you more or less agree?
Yeah. Or I, I, what, gag, what, so but can I, I, a little, I'd change that a bit, um, because I have with that word 'truth', it's sort of a truth but it's, it's more a perspectival truth, I'm such an anal nerd, sorry. So, what is a gag, because 'vitsi' is a joke, but is it like a fictional joke to be performed or a written, sort of, sentence structure that needs to
cause a laugh. So it's like a joke. Yeah, but I, I still perceive that a gag is like a small fictional, for example, Yeah, but I mean, yeah, but this also applies to longer development, that you can have three men walk into a bar and blah blah and then at the end comes the flip, so that's the surprising truth here. So it's not like I'm claiming that this is like the only form of humor either. Okay. This is just like a synonym for a joke. Yeah, specifically I understood the question as, what what what makes a punchline work. Yeah.
Okay. Exactly. So so so in a way I, I agree with you in some way maybe, but I would change that word 'truth' into like a perspectival truth or in some way that we're not talking about fact in the same way as a fact found through the scientific method but I mean, specifically in a way that as a comedian you can bring out some part of your worldview or a certain view on something, a new perspective on a matter. That, I think, is the truthful part, but it doesn't necessarily
have to be literally true, the punchline, but you found some insight, some new perspective, some...
Yeah. And in English, that works better because you can play with the ambiguity of words. In Finnish, unfortunately, words aren't very ambiguous, because we have a phonetic language, so in English, you can have very different words with the same sound combination and, oh, puns.
No, not necessarily puns, but like, well, let's take a shitty example, uh...
...like about marriage or divorce, so, like, over in...
America you have several rings, whereas here we often...
get married with just one ring, so three stages: it's the...
engagement ring, the wedding ring and suffering.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. So in that case, the 'ring' kind of changed its meaning, even though it was just a part of a word, but as an example that it doesn't necessarily have to be a gag, but it kind of carries that word 'ring' in different meanings through the marriage.
Mm. For us, if it was about what makes a joke work, So, in my opinion, it's that mental leap happening in the listener's head.
Mm. That's what causes that burst of laughter. It's like what the whole setup is aiming for, in a way. The setup often takes you, like it directs thoughts toward something specific. It guides the listener to think along a certain track, and then what the punchline does is reveal that, haha, the track should have been here all along, but you have to make that leap to that different logical path, so it has to, it has to
be in the same logical context, so it can't be completely absurd, like, 'haha, a fox walked into a store and a fish like this', so it can't be like—okay, it could be the funniest thing you've had in the episode like this, but the mechanism is the fact that in the listener's mind, a small, small—but sufficiently long leap to the reality revealed by the punchline occurs. It
is the mechanism that is consistent with the previous, as it were, chain of reasoning, which is a very essential point.
In political satire, this leap happens in such a way that during the leap, something is revealed about what we thought about these people all along. Often, it's like, 'I didn't know you could say that about the president.' It adds a kind of extra satisfaction because it reveals something about the world around us.
At the same moment we make the mental leap caused by the joke, we like we get a grasp on something new about this society.
Yes. Yeah. Then other things, since you picked up on...
that gag, the running gag is that you kind of repeat those...
themes, like whether you're continuing this shitty marriage joke of mine. So when...
we established where this is going, then 'love is grand but divorce is at least...' 100 grand, meaning it costs 100k. So, so, like this...
so in a way, I just repeated that previous shitty, like...
marriage joke by bringing it back into the game.
Yeah, yeah. But it's the same, with that setup 'Love is grand' you create...
the kind of path for thoughts to follow, that yeah, love is like great and wonderful and...
this kind of stuff and so on. But divorces and you still get told in your career that, yeah, something great, I wonder what's coming from there, something like this, terrible, awful, something this kind of 'divorce is 100 grand'. It turns out it was about money the whole time.
There's that little leap and it's like, that's like the basic psychology of a joke and repetition is important. Andre, a joke has to be repeated at least three times before it's funny, or then it becomes funny again. It can be funny the first time, the second time it's boring again. The third time it's like why are you still repeating the same bit. The fourth time it's funny again. Have you guys seen that really famous Family Guy clip where Peter hurts his leg? Uh, yeah, he repeats it and it lasts.
Yeah, that dog is my favorite in it and then it like and it doesn't continue and then it has continued for a little while and it like it goes through phases it gets quite hysterical it continues then it's not funny it still continues then it starts being funny again and it's it's great yeah those cartoons are interesting I mean I haven't really had the energy to watch The Simpsons for quite a while now but I lasted for a long time though, several several seasons
several decades yeah then well related to this humor a relatively close genre is that improv comedy and and well I mean can I hey I want to say out loud why I'm not funny anymore.
Well anyway and I want to like complain and I think this next complaint of mine sort of reveals a lot about the principles of how comedy works and especially about writing jokes.
I had my own TV show, a political satire show.
I think we did it for four years, five years, something like that. And it meant that once a week there was an episode. They covered that week's news and then we joked about it and so on. It was made by a fairly small and tight-knit crew.
Henri Lehto was our main 'punch' writer. Ah, Henri Lehto, yeah, a familiar stand-up comedian. Yep. Yes. And he is a real professional and all that, and of course I did my best too even though I like I was responsible for writing the segments, like, there was always also some like real thing we were talking about, but I tried my best to make it, to write it as funny as possible. Of course I started from zero, I didn't have any clue what a [ __ ] punchline was, never even heard of such a thing when I started making a TV show, which is my [ __ ]
stupid way of doing things, starting things without knowing how to do them and learning as I go. Then eventually I like learned gradually how it works, and then when you write jokes, you're constantly thinking like, you come across something or a minister says this. Then you think all the time that it's a bit like this another thing like this. The minister says that, well, 'if only there were nickel from some
mine,' and then that's just a bit like that 'wish I had a beer' meme, so you your brain gradually gets trained so that it's constantly, like, thinking about what is almost exactly the same, where it's possible to make that little leap. Mm.
Then when you do that for years, so that every thing you encounter in everyday life, you are just constantly like, 'what is that almost like, almost like that is a bit like this and that, like this.' And it's a very pleasant feeling, because then the brain, like, gets trained to be a lightning-fast seeker of connections, like 'this is a bit like this, this is a bit like, hey, that one says this now, but last year they' says it like this. These connections keep coming all the time. It's almost like a kind of brain-muscle workout, and that's how the best, at least, the
political satire writers work; their brains are like these connection machines—every second it's like, 'that's a bit like this, this, this,' and it's a very pleasant feeling because then the brain is sparking continuously.
Okay, then the show ended, the money ran out, everything ended, when there came the great recession to Finland, and so for me, comedy writing stopped, and that brain-muscle exercise, making those constant leaps stopped, and then that skill starts to atrophy, and then when you don't train that brain—then I'm not able to anymore, if Putin
no matter what anyone says, nothing comes to mind like, 'hey wow, this...' ...is just like that parrot, and like, that doesn't happen to me anymore, and I...
miss it, I really miss that feeling where constantly, like...
a lightbulb would go off in my head. Yep. And comedians have exactly that.
I miss—I remember that from my stand-up days too, how you were much faster in conversations as well, really, like, when socially friends were talking like this, then you...
could throw in like three letters that woke everything up, and it was a wonderful feeling, and then people are like, 'well, but Tuomas, that would be...' a comedian show, it's that kind of comedian validation from that.' Well, but you should take the joke of the week to the news report podcast again, so...
that's where it starts, and it's crazy, it's enough to tell one joke a week. Yeah, but I did something really annoying between marriages, when I was trying to charm women probably or something, so you can definitely get by in England. I mean, in a way you can always take those, well, is it Leikko who does these and others that are really good, so in a way an outsider sees that funny English word structure better, so you can always grab a word and make like a flip out of it
based on its phonetic form. Or sometimes you can split those words into pieces, like what should I say, for example 'm date' which...
I mean the investment banker's assignment, this mandate, so...
...'man date', so then you can make a joke about it...
...that here men are buying companies among themselves, or something like that...
...just as an example, when the word first comes up, you can...
...throw that out and get a few laughs from the group, because...
...the English speakers really don't get that internal structure; to them, it's...
...just like one. Yes. Mm.
So English is much easier. Yes, English is the best language in the world.
Alright. But we left off on this improv joke, really, that it's...
...apparently a bit different, I mean in my opinion, but...
thanks for the things you brought. Yeah, indeed, and you're a recovering comedian, but you can return there. I recommend the closing joke of the News Report podcast.
I challenge you next week with strictly gags about NATO. I always after Pori, somehow like that, I get all kinds of t and actually, I get from that News Report podcast of yours, you guys have already started joking about it among yourselves, about that backlog of yours, that it certainly it will come out, it's that P, maybe more like there have even been some memes made about how loud it comes, you're popping your P's already hey, let your P pop, yeah, but here is like an example already of a good improv start, so in a way we're following the theme, so we go like
leads, and I think it's great how people have such a benevolent attitude towards how a partner starts to lead and the ball is moved in that same direction. You've definitely taken an improv course. I don't know if you have, but you always have to say yes, always specifically go along with it.
That's the most important thing. Yeah, yeah, yes. And you can always test it with the basic formula of 'what comes next' or by going along with it the whole time, and then the gag. A gag ends it. So you can't go back from a gag to improv. So it has to stop the, development when someone throws in a kind of closing joke there.
But until then, the viewers like it the wave of going along with things, what's happening there. Do you remember back when I was a young, sprightly six-year-old, well, back then there were these shows when in Finland there was this, like, Nyhjää tyhjästä, which was absolutely bloody it was specifically improv, and then this famous English or I mean, the American version of this is what Drew Carey ho-
I was warming up, I opened for Greg Proops in Helsinki, well, at the Savoy Theatre, it was one of the finest stand-up experiences I've ever had, for sure. And then, well, I— we were talking with Greg Proops outside there, and I said like, yeah, I'm sorry, I'm just this, like, open mic comedian, but it's funny how he was like, don't, don't ever say open mic comedians, we're all, we're all always comedians and then I quit six months after that yeah, here are those recovered from alcohol, but improv was also, it was
really hard, I mean I took one course in it and never, like, performed in improv anywhere, on the other hand my whole life is just improv, but I mean it, it's it's, it's something that requires massive amounts of training, but then there are a few things, like totally true, and that you always go along with it, but then this status interaction, that in a way sometimes you're like pompous and then the others laugh behind your back and I don't know if that person is laughing at me there, but it would be good, they could be giggling or something over there while I'm here
I jump around and explain, and then you catch on to it, and then there you go explaining something again, so there are these certain, like, techniques that you can use there. That sort of liven up the dynamic. Yes. What, well, what do you think about that? Or this is a very open question. Um, what does it say about a person if they have a sense of humor? Well, openness—here we have this Big Five theory, which is probably the most validated psychological profile, so then that openness is like a certain
way of seeing those connections. So, in a way, because your mind is looking for those combinations, then you're like open and, in a way, creative. Mm.
So it's like good, definitely a good feature.
I think it also involves, to some extent, the ability to visualize.
The ability to visualize stories. The ability. Someone starts explaining something, so you somehow see them in your head, what it looks like.
No, not a requirement. By no means a requirement. But it somehow helps ensure that you're very likely able to see that something funny happens, so you might have a funny expression or something, like some kind of imagination involved. Yes. Yeah, definitely. I didn't have any answer to this. This was just a question that came to mind, but but well, but but probably—but doesn't it involve in a certain way at least in some cases, a certain kind of courage is also having the nerve to
say what you think and daring to verbalize what this, this maybe I mean, I don't believe this is an evenly distributed trait among comedians. Of course, it depends on what kind of comedy you do, but generally, this isn't my idea, but I think it's a pretty good, er, metaphor of sorts for what a comedian is at their best. Er, in some way you are a moral detective. Er, you examine specifically that blurred gray line of morality between right and wrong on some level. You do it either well or
badly. If you do it badly, then you'll get the mud. If you do it well, then you'll become a successful superstar like Rick and, well, and then, well, the courage to be. As a society, we don't give a comedian any legal exemptions regarding freedom of speech. I mean, a comedian is under the same laws as the rest of us. But in some way we give some kind of ethical and artistic freedom to them to explore these things, because we trust that this person knows their craft, and to that expertise
courage is quite essentially linked for many, in my opinion.
Yes. Maybe we could pick up on that from a slightly stylistic perspective. I made this new negotiation mandate, and then I interviewed Taina Vuorela, who did her doctoral thesis on humor, who had studied the use of humor in work communities. So from there then there are these completely different dimensions where a customer can signal to a seller, that they are, in a way, de-escalating the situation by using humor, which of course
the seller laughs at, because, well, they want to please the customer and create a good mood, and in a way, there's a slight power dynamic there, so in a way, you can open with a joke, but only the seller—if the buyer jokes with the seller, it might backfire quite badly, and the boss's joke is always laughed at. A subordinate's joke might be met with an attitude like, 'well, what are you trying there?' and it's not funny, a bit like a school bullying mentality, where even if as a bullied kid's friend he
were the world's best comedian, no one would laugh, because he is so low in the power hierarchy that it just doesn't fit the dynamic.
Yeah, and people are total assholes, so there's that. But then again, the shitty big shot—well, he is laughed at through the joke of him coming into a power position.
But I mean, there is this thing here, like, it is not voluntary, that humor; instead, it is related to the power structure.
Yeah, probably in many ways. Yeah, or I mean, like, humor is not in any way detached. It relates a bit like your meme in some way, and I recall—I mean, like, judging—I am not triggered.
Yeah, clearly. Yeah, you are looking for the woke meanings there, thinking that there was some closet racist there, throwing out bad bad gender jokes, and dysphoria is not understood. But all this comes to mind I mean, this whole setup, like, how I see it, then of course I get, I mean, this is more than Michael or the President of Iran then, when we're talking, we're talking about trans people's pronouns in general and these things, it's much more in the spotlight, so my mind immediately rushes
into that context. Yeah, and Ricky Joice, who, well, he was surprisingly crap when he was on The 11 O'Clock Show, I mean back when I lived over in England, he had these like rambling bits that didn't make me laugh at all. I only started laughing at him reluctantly in The Office, after which I've laughed at all his stuff.
But he—you referred to these Golden Globes here, so, well he delivered such a really classic, well, roast of these Kardashian families, because there's like, partly—and I forgot the structure, but some Kardashian stepfather changed their gender, well, from male to female and then had a car crash, and then the joke was basically that but she didn't do much for the reputation of the women drivers.
basically after she had like changed her gender to female and otherwise, and everyone laughed quite good-naturedly and he wasn't like canceled for it, even though it was like really, really like harsh banter specifically within that framework. Yes. Yes. Yeah. So, well, let's say in a way that, when you asked here before this episode, you also look like your to say, but it's quick, so, well, when you ask somehow, I don't remember the exact wording. If the wording is precise, then correct me. But well, can Ricky Gervais, can Ricky Gervais be cancelled, then I think one has to be precise
about what is meant. One, does it mean that Ricky Gervais can go on stage and say anything and not be cancelled? I don't think so. If he goes and reads some sincere racist manifesto, then he'd probably get cancelled quite quickly. No one wants to go see Ricky's shows after that, what would anyone perform? He can tell a good joke.
Exactly. So that's the thing, meaning, let's drop this assumption. So, it's not like, immune as a character in any way, but if Ricky continues with his current style, can he be cancelled? In my opinion, Ricky Gervais is perhaps one of the best-protected comedians out there, specifically because he's a superstar. There's clearly a massive demand in the world for the comedy that Ricky Gervais does, plus cancellation is somehow still like, a bit of a matter of belief. Louis C.K. had to leave, and well, yes,
in a way, but not because of his comedy; it was because he was jerking off in front of people, apparently with their permission, like I...
so it was a bit like... he isn't a... he isn't like, who was that, this guy really, the one who put pills in women's drinks, I mean this...
Black comedian, um, Bill Cosby, it wasn't any Bill Cosby, but anyway, in a way that it wasn't related to his comedy at all, it but it was like, well, he did tell a lot of jerk-off jokes he did tell them, but specifically he had this very—how did it go his joke like, Louis C.K., specifically this was way before his cancellation, he made a joke about the fact that, that, well, that that about pedophiles, that, that pedophilia, I mean it was on Saturday Night Live, his
opening monologue, pedophilia, the neighbor Jack himself local pedophile. Yeah, and I mean, no, this didn't cancel Louis I mean, like, if you're a good comedian and you can bring it out so well that I—this isn't supporting a pedophile in any way. This is a different angle on that human experience of what it's like to be a pedophile, which opens up some kind of this, like, very very very taboo part of humanity. But anyway, this doesn't involve any new moral angle, like, 'hey, maybe we should,
maybe this pedophilia is actually okay,' but rather it's more that maybe we've lulled ourselves as a society into just condemning this, like, completely terrible thing without understanding it. That's maybe more the angle that Louis C.K. wanted to raise in his show, which I think is quite reasonable. Louis, I want to say out loud: Louis is one of the greatest geniuses to ever live and like, I'm all for all the oppressed, but that guy really should
...get back quickly. Yeah, so he was a good comedian. A really, really good comedian.
Earlier Jimmy Carr was mentioned; he's doing, like, he has...
...this last tour is, like, exactly this; its name was just, like, 'Last'...
Tour. In a way, for the last 10 minutes, he says, 'Now I'm going to...' ...tell these kinds of jokes, and then I'll be, like...
...after this, you won't see me anymore.' Then he tells some really edgy stuff, like...
...well, shit, I should have thought of these...
...beforehand, but there's like, thanking Nazis...
...well, or apologizing for the fact that they didn't, however, like, finish off those...
...Gypsies; that was the punchline of that joke, so it went...
like, yeah, pretty much into the deep end further there.
One was funny. I actually saw a Jimmy Carr joke today; you...
have a heckler who said 'when does the comedy start?' yelling at Jimmy Carr, 'when are the jokes coming?' Jim's like, 'ah, ah, okay,' and he goes, 'what's your...' name? Rick. Okay. Rick. Okay. Well, yeah, shame. The jokes will start soon.' Then he just starts talking. 'Have you ever thought about how unfair it...' is, that if men sleep around a lot, they're called players. And this...' is a fact. In society, if men fuck a lot, they're called...' players. It's a status symbol, but if women fuck a lot, they're called...'
Rick's mother. Everyone...' Yeah, I just got stuck—sorry for reacting so slowly to these plot twists in this podcast, but I also want to say out loud that the reason why I often don't find it funny when white men my age start telling jokes about trans people or Black people
or about Abdulkarim, who left some show on Channel 1 because things were done this way, I'm not interested in the power dynamic there. That's not the reason why the joke—the joke doesn't—it’s not because, 'Aha, here's a successful 40-year-old podcaster laughing at these, you know, gender-insecure people. It’s not that; instead, I think the joke is quite genuinely in the fact
that by telling the joke, that person reveals that they don't know anything about this.
He suppresses the thinking that could lead to a better understanding of this situation.
Not even that far, it just reveals that oh okay, that one tells a joke about something they don't understand at all, like they've genuinely, really just read a bit of Twitter and formed this whole picture based on that, they don't get it. They've never met any of these people. There are no people like this in their family, the ones they're talking about. They have no insight into what these people have ever said. They don't understand where these words come from. They have nothing. And they tell that joke and the
joke does nothing but reveal that this person doesn't understand what they are talking about. And that's why it's not funny. Like, for the most part. In my opinion, like as a white, infinitely wealthy heterosexual man, I could mock all black, oppressed trans people at every stand-up gig.
If I can do it in a way where I simultaneously show that I understand where they're coming from—but it's very rare that this happens. Those people, just by opening their mouths, they reveal how clueless they are.
That's why there's no laughter. I felt a pang of guilt—Ivan Puopolo is like destroying this episode, so we were waiting and went to that, well, mindless pundit show or, pundit show Jälkiviisaat, where indeed Timo Soini replaced this, like, Abdullin, and we were joking around there, 'well, would we have some character so we could survive this,' and then I said, Well, it would be a bit exhausting with Johan Bäckman and Jaanus Putkonen, hosting that show week after week, so it probably started...
at that point, even my limits of tolerance would be reached.
Yes, but in a way, I did disapprove.
Him—I would have wanted to see that, as it would have been good...
entertainment when they would have debated each other; I think it was a bit...
like a cop-out, yeah, it bothers me too, but it isn't...
my choice, but it also bothers me that it's happening.
I'm quite sure that Ma and Abdulkarim could be mocked relentlessly for this decision in many, many, many different ways, but the most obvious ones...
Yeah, they're not funny; there are stupid ways to do it.
Exactly. But watch that episode and give it a thumbs down, and then, well, it's otherwise this political like kind of smart-aleckry. I mean, there aren't really many jokes in it as such, except for my bad singing, but that, well, this kind of light banter on the topics of the day, well, that's maybe a bit like what you did, but sounding lighter, where we go through the week's news but like twisting the angles into new
positions, so it has this surprising element of truth again, and it might not make you laugh, but it makes you chuckle. I also have, well, I I can also say, kind of backing up that point, which I think was well said, that the quality of the joke and what it reveals about the teller is very essential to whether a joke is funny or not. So it's not just like, oh, are we not allowed to make jokes about this guy, so of course it's not just that this was a bad joke, but that I don't like this joke.
Yeah, there's also that, and I've noticed a bit that, now, I still like Dave Chappelle. I think he's a good comedian too, but I've still noticed that during these last few years I've started to feel a bit like, oh okay, maybe we don't see— we see the world in a bit of a different way, and it affects how I see his comedy. So I I've maybe like 5% canceled Dave Chappelle in my head. No, I don't have any judgment, but I mean this is a bit of what this canceling is partly also about, that sometimes comedy and the zeitgeist somehow pass by certain
art, and and and I don't judge Dave as a person, not that I've met him, but specifically how much I like his comedy and how I'll relate to his jokes in the future that might be sensitive, because it occurred to me that, ah okay, but I'm not quite sure anymore if there's the same thought behind this as I have, or or if there's the kind of thought that I can stand behind when he tells a joke. My friends when we
were, like, comedians, uh, I mean like in stand-up backstages, everyone there is cracking jokes that can never be said publicly I mean. But if we say it specifically because we are friends with each other and there is that trust that we can throw out absolutely anything to each other, but we trust each other and this is love in a way, sort of. But I remember an American comedian, I won't mention any names, then he, uh, over a six-month period, well, [sank] quite deep into these, like, harsh right-wing Christian
conspiracy theories and it really started to color his worldview a lot. So the same guy, whose otherwise similar, equally crude jokes were perceived as funny, were no longer perceived as funny specifically because we we couldn't be sure about what this guy was thinking. Yes, exactly.
I think we're hitting on something really essential there, in that I've been building a house for a year, which means that every evening I'm alone at the construction site doing some hammering.
Yes. And like, I'm always on the phone with my friends, so I have headphones in and we're just talking, and like, whatever topic ended a year ago, but every night on the phone we just talk, talk, talk. What I—okay, my friends don't—what I'm guilty of is like, just absolutely [ __ ] terrible jokes, an endless stream of just pure disgusting misogyny and like racism and crap
things like stupid stuff and idiocies and so on. And of course the reason why I say it is that I'm trying to make my friends laugh. Like that's the motive behind why I throw out such awful things. I would never say anything like that publicly, uh, because I know perfectly well that my friends know that I don't think that way, which gives me that like, safe space. To say a horrible thing. You kind of reinforce with each other, that we don't believe this, when you say it like that, that we don't actually mean it; because when we say this out loud, we both kind of
we laugh at how horribly it was said, like, how your sick head you can come up with something that is wrong on about seven different levels. It is sort of like, if you manage to deeply offend all the groups of people in the world with a two-word combo, it's like some kind of [ __ ] sick genius and then we laugh at it like this. That is perfectly healthy like this. But then the context is specifically that we are completely, we are together, we are like this, talking to each other, there is nothing
else. No danger that anyone could think anything else about this matter. But moving it somewhere else immediately makes it impossible. Then you can no longer say these things, because you can't trust that everyone else understands that you don't mean these things. Mm.
Then, ah, I'm rambling. Sorry. I was supposed to explain that, but this is a...
method we first used when we were writing that TV show. We used it as a warm-up before we started scriptwriting. Yeah, and this just absolute crap—like, horrible things were said out loud so that we could break free from them, like what is, what is like the, sort of...
permissible way of speaking that we all somehow get stuck in. Then we, before the scriptwriting meeting, we sat around the table. Everyone just threw out unbelievably horrible, offensive things about Finnish politicians and stuff like that, so that we could break free from the conventions we usually slip into. And then we were, like, a bit relaxed and were able to start writing scripts more freely like this. So, so I don't know what this relates to, but I wanted to say that regarding the previous point. In my
opinion, this is good for what I said at the beginning of the episode, that there's the effect and and well, the intention, so I think this somehow, that first point of yours returns specifically to the fact that in an ideal world this isn't just a confrontation. I mean, many of these, if you watch The View, which you know, this TV show in the US, where there are these four women, who like always talk about how now some comedian has told some joke and that, like, these comedians never thought about the
effect of these jokes and so on, and that's why this is bad. And then you have Ricky Gervais, which actually, in my opinion, I have in many, uh, debates, or rather in many podcasts, in many interviews, specifically taken that other side, that like, it's true he represents this, like, intention school very strongly, that like everything relates to intention. I think in an ideal world these others relate to each other in some way. This cannot be defined then. This is the role of society, that like in what way my intention, what I want to achieve with a joke, how how it's influenced by how it
is received and also that ideally how it's recei- how it is received, then it's influenced by my intention, that's how it would be in an ideal world. There is an actual joke format. One like It's sort of like a punchline that has a kind of tag or maybe a callback—meaning, the basic form of a joke is that there's a premise or a setup, meaning you lead the thought down a certain track, then a punchline,
which throws it somewhere else, and then that new track from the punchline is somehow decorated, built upon with wit; then later in the set, you have a callback where you return to that previous joke, and it causes another jump in the listener's head, which triggers laughter and so on. But there is a form of joke where you play with exactly that—leading the thought—'haha, I'm telling a
joke now where the punchline is, for example,' about a Gypsy like that. Then it's revealed later that it was just a setup for the next joke, which reveals that you, the listener, thought it was about Gypsies, because you have ugly thoughts or something like that. It is like one joke, what is it called, what do you call uh, a guy who flies a plane, or a Japanese
pilot. Why do you viewers—no, it doesn't matter what he was, the pilot, so the pilot, yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly, yes yeah, great, five out of six liked it oh right, it's this roulette, yeah, well, that was an hour, shall we take one more, a better punchline for the end, or?
Um, I don't know, I think it was pretty good, or should I come up with—should I tell some jokes?
You came up with some relationship joke, weren't we supposed to do something like that? Well, no...
...need to force it. We can even end it there.
I had... I had, well, I remember this was one of the very first stand-up jokes...
...that I ever wrote. Uh, I don't quite remember it, but it goes...
...roughly like this: I'm, I'm, I'm single. I've, I've just...
...broken up, and I don't know what's happening. Mm.
When my girlfriend gave me her final warning, she told me that I...
...deserve better treatment. I deserve to be treated like an angel, and...
...you don't do that. So I thought, 'Okay, then I'll just pretend' like...
would exist. I don't know what it was, it didn't quite go like that. That was the idea.
I remember from my first stand-up gig, I mean the very first m I was so, so fucking nervous and it's such a terrible situation.
Where were you? At that Open Mic.
The absolutely legendary Oulunkylä one, yeah yeah. At the Open Mic.
And well, I was in a total panic. I had written a set like that and I was at that stage, I had already had a satire show like this, so I like and then I started doing stand-up, yes a very short period, but anyway started and I specifically wanted to do something other than political, because I had been doing political stuff for years, so I wanted to do something of that my set, like, we talked about baby erections and everything like that, and well, but in it like I had
some joke, where the point was somehow that, and then that what guys are like these days, it's that they have their Xbox like this and then how life revolved, it was somehow in there, I don't remember how it went, but it was somehow the punchline, and then like that, it was a big part of the set, and then later, like, the whole set culminated in the fact that in the story, like, then my girlfriend came and gave me that Xbox like this
and it was like such a fucking great joke and all. Then I went to perform my set and I forgot to tell that original joke about the Xbox, but I told the punchline at the end, where my teammates came in. They gave me an Xbox. No one understood a thing. Suddenly some guy comes to give an Xbox. How does this relate to anything? And it was, I don't know if it was better that way.