Humor à la Sueddeutsche Zeitung

Groucho Marx once observed that the two thinnest books in the world are the ones on edible British cooking and on German humor.

I don't know about British cooking - it might have improved in the meantime (though I doubt it).

There is definitely no change in the status of German humor. And as if there was need for another proof, here comes the left-wing daily Sueddeutsche Zeitung with a supposedly funny answer to the question: If George W. Bush were a Shakespeare character, who would he be?

John Rosenthal reports on the Sueddeutsche's Blitzkrieg against humor.

Comments

[Doughnut Boy Andy]

Tumble Weed

[Phil]

English cooking is still terrible

[Bishop Hill]

Actually you can get really good food in the UK. It's just that only the tourists appreciate it. We all still eat fish and chips.

(I'm joking)

Stefan Raab, the TV Total host (famous german tv show), said about the headline "Brazilians are too fat" in his show:
"If they were stupid too you could mix them up with the Americans"

Now that is german humor.

So what do we learn from that? Come on guys...

It is high time that Michael Meyers film the movie version of Dieter and "SPROKETS!"

Kiss my Monkey?

[Phil]

British food is bad, British humour is wonderful. Does anybody know Monty Python's sketch about the funniest joke in the world: Read or hear it and you drop dead laughing. The British translate it into German (one word at the time for health and safety reasons) and use it in the war. The Germans try to invent their own joke which is of course a disaster.
Süddeutsche is just as unsuccessful.

[Steven Den Beste]

Hoo boy. What other books are there on that bookshelf? Books about:

Humble Frenchmen
Good Italian Drivers
Sober Scots
Famous and Influential Belgians
Well-mannered British football fans

(Yikes!)

[lemmy]

That last post about the Monty Python sketch is EXCELLENT. Being a Python fan, I'd forgotten about that one, but it is, sorry to say, on the mark.

As for Stefan Raab, they are products of their system. To get 'laughs', "Typen" such as he must resort to such 'jokes'. He knows his audience, just like the (German) mainstream media.

[Phil]

Let me retract my statement a little. There is/was some funny German comedy. Take Loriot for example. Or the caricatures of Greser&Lenz in the FAZ and the Titanic-Magazin. It's just when Germans desperately try to be funny when things go down the drain:-(

[Tom Penn]

Monty Python, Benny Hill and Shakespeare fan here. I think GWB is Hal.

[Wulf Wechsung]

They are right, you know? As much as I like this blog but I'd rather not have government dictate what caricatures are 'allowed' and which are not. Free speech means defending what you don't agree with.

Looking at the bright side, the guys at the Carneval Club told us more about their stupidity then about Bush and Merkel.

[Mike]

Don't leave out "Fawlty Towers" and "Black Adder"!! I'm a huge Python fan, and have managed to convince one of my teenagers to be one, too.

[Del Hoeft]

Though I may partake in Bangers and Mushy Peas, I draw the line at Spotted Dick and Clotted Creme. Sounds like the symptoms of a venerial disease. I'm ready to hurl and I hav n't even got to Scottish "cuisine".Which of course is ofal.
As for Bush and shakespeare as it relates to Old Europe. I'd say a bit of Cariolanus and Henry V comes to mind. "I will dazzle all the eyes of France, Yea, strike the Dauphin blind to look on us. And tell the pleasant prince this mock of his. hath turn'd his balls to gun-stones; and his soul shall stand sore charged for the wasteful vengeance".
As for German *Humour*, "His jest will savour but of shallow wit, When thousands weep, more than did laugh at it".

[Don]

There is edible cooking in the UK. Many British chefs decamped to France, Italy, and even the US for training. Not to Germany however, where the food is usually even less edible than in the UK.

Edible and affordable cooking in the UK? No. Not in restaurants anyway. You can still get charged £50 a meal for trash that a french tavern owner would be ashamed to serve. Easily.

For edible affordable food the European leaders are France and Italy. The US is surprisingly strong in this category, while affordable food in the UK is normally microwaved horror-food.

[Don]

I agree; Gee Dub is Prince Hal. Schroeder is Polonius.

The fact is that nobody would bother to put together an offensive float diorama about any current leader of another country. DeGaulle might have rated it. Possibly Churchill in some circles. Hitler of course. Tony Blair might rate it but few in the US hate him that much.

Right now the European world (apart from the UK) is led by a bunch of midgets. Tiny in every way. Tiny in vision, moral fibre, statesmenship. But giants in petty corruption, that I will give you.

The state of European leadership is in such sad shape that were Blair to step down tomorrow his probably successor (the Chancellor Gordon Brown) would vault with ease to the top spot. Michael Howard (Conserative leader) would be much better than average in that group. As would Lib Dem leader Charles Kennedy, noted here for his ability to punish a bottle.

Even though this election is a big setback for Schroeder, I would not count him out right now. Even though I personally believe that his mandate is slipping by every state election that comes by, Schroeder has had a history of coming back from certain defeat. One could recall what happened back in 2002 when Schroeder was fighting for his political life against Herr Stoiber and was on his way to becoming the first incumbent German chancellor lose re-election. However, Schroeder's leadership after the German floods and the run up to the Iraq war gave Schroeder's campaign a much needed boost, and won re-election on the slimmest of margins.

I have not read much about Angela Merkel except that she opposes Turkey's entry into the EU and prefers that it gets a "special" membership, and she is a much bigger fan of the free-market than the current German PM. Her party, CDU, has had to endure intra-party fighting which could deflect much needed attention on Schroeder's weak position right now.

There is also the fact that elections are only a year and a half away. A lot can happen between now and 2006. The economy might start to pick-up, the Fischer scandal will be a faded memory, or ther government might start taking a tough line on immigration, an issue that is starting to increase prominence in voters.

I know this for sure because the same thing happened to Bush. In the early months of 2004, pundits ruled out Bush because of the ongoing violence in Iraq, the economy had failed to produce much needed manufacturing jobs in areas critical to his re-election, a yawning budget deficit, skyrocketing oil prices, and the Abu Ghraib and WMD scandal which almost ensnared his secretary of defense. With all those factors, Bush was re-elected nonetheless. Of course, credit should also be given to his highly disciplined campaign and his tough line against terrorism, which still resonated with the voters on the run-up to election day.

[Paul]

To all who are going to attend, I wish to express the same thing that Cousin Dave has said. Give'em Hell! But be safe and may God be with you! Remember, God is whatever you want to believe God is.

To Stuck in Germany: The anti-Americanism is so strong in the Ruhrgebiet that some of the wonderful friends I thought that I had, have disappeared. They never call, come over like they used too. They have something else to do when invited. In the past, they attacked me (an American) and my wife (a German) for all of their perceived ills caused by the U.S. Government. I am the only American in this group of former friends and they had no other source to release their anger on. This does not excuse them in any way. From my experience, with friends like that, who needs enemies. The loss of their friendship is just a minor glitch in my day to day life. It turns out that they really weren't my friends after all. So, my point is, the state of anti-Americanism is so disgusting at this point in time. This is a form is "Ausländerfeindlichkeit". To do the same to any other "Ausländer" would never be allowed to others in Germany, however, Americans can be insulted without limit.

The Germans aren't so humourless nor is English cuisine so horrid. This is nothing but generalised nonsense. The French, however, are a pain in everyone's ass.