Scott Tenorman Must Die - One Theory on Humor

This is one of my favorite South Park episodes. I was thinking about it the other day, and it occurred to me that it was a bit like Woody Allen's Bullets Over Broadway. Specifically, the part when Radiohead comes in and says, "What a crybaby. You are so uncool," reminded me of the philosophical question in Bullets, "If you could rescue one thing out of a burning building, either the last existing volume of Shakespeare or a human being, which would you choose?" The movie played out this hypothetical quite literally: a god-awful actress must play a part in a potentially superior play, and so to rescue the play the co-writer/thug kills the bad actress. Art vs. life? Haha!

Why did I find these moments so funny? The Allen was funny because it was a philosophical idea translated literally into life. The South Park was funny because Radiohead, of all people - icons of crybaby music - had no right to think that anyone else was uncool for being a crybaby. Moreover, we had been laughing the whole time that Cartman would even think that this could happen, so that when it actually transpires, it's absurd.

So here is one theory of comedy to keep for the file: humor derived from the correspondence theory of truth. Things said in fiction with a straight face jive so poorly with reality that it comes out as irony. And this oblivious delivery - the speaker's complete innocence that he or she is saying something ludicrous - is funny.