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Selected pictures list

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Portal:Comedy/Selected picture/1

Tickling
Tickling
Credit: Kyle Flood

Tickling is the act of touching a part of the body, so as to cause involuntary twitching movements or laughter. Such sensations can be pleasurable or exciting, but are sometimes considered highly unpleasant, particularly in the case of relentless heavy tickling.


Portal:Comedy/Selected picture/2

Laughter
Laughter
Credit: David Shankbone

Laughter is an audible expression or appearance of merriment or amusement or an inward feeling of joy and pleasure (laughing on the inside). It may ensue (as a physiological reaction) from jokes, tickling and other stimuli. Inhaling nitrous oxide can also induce laughter; other drugs, such as cannabis, can also induce episodes of strong laughter. Strong laughter can sometimes bring an onset of tears or even moderate muscular pain as a physical response to the act.


Portal:Comedy/Selected picture/3

Girl smiling
Girl smiling
Credit: C. Szeto

In physiology, a smile is a facial expression formed by flexing the muscles most notably near both ends of the mouth. The smile can be also around the eyes. Among humans, it's customarily an expression of pleasure, happiness, or amusement, but can also be an involuntary expression of anxiety, in which case it can be known as a grimace. There is much evidence that smiling is a normal reaction to certain stimuli and occurs regardless of culture. Happiness is most often the cause of a smile.


Portal:Comedy/Selected picture/4

George W. Bush speaking at podium during press conference
George W. Bush speaking at podium during press conference
Credit: White House photo by Paul Morse

A Bushism is any of a number of peculiar words, phrases, pronunciations, malapropisms, semantic or linguistic errors and gaffes that have occurred in the public speaking of United States President George W. Bush and, before that, of his father George H. W. Bush. The term (a neologism) has become part of popular folklore, and is the basis of a number of websites and published books. It is often used to caricature the two presidents.


Portal:Comedy/Selected picture/5

Lolcat or Cat Macro with white cat on laptop computer
Lolcat or Cat Macro with white cat on laptop computer
Credit: Original: Jerry7171 Modified image: AmosWolfe

Lolcats are images combining photographs of animals, most frequently cats, with a subjectively humorous and idiosyncratic caption in broken English referred to as Kitty Pidgin, Kitteh, or lolspeak. The meme originated in the 4chan imageboards as the Caturday internet phenomenon. The name "lolcat" is a compound word of "lol" and "cat". The phenomenon is also referred to as cat macros. Lolcats are created for photo sharing imageboards and other internet forums.


Portal:Comedy/Selected picture/6

Whoopee cushion
Whoopee cushion
Credit: Grombo

A whoopee cushion, also known as a poo-poo cushion and Razzberry Cushion, is a practical joke device that produces a noise resembling a raspberry or human flatulence. It is made from two sheets of rubber that are glued together at the edges. There is a small opening with a flap at one end for air to enter and leave the cushion. To use it, one must first inflate it with air and then place it on a chair. An unsuspecting victim sits on the whoopee cushion, forcing the air out of the opening, which causes the flap to vibrate and produce its distinctive sound.


Portal:Comedy/Selected picture/7

Statue of angel with yellow, smiley underpants. Prank at the University of Virginia.
Statue of angel with yellow, smiley underpants. Prank at the University of Virginia.
Credit: an iconoclast

A practical joke or prank is a situation set up usually to produce what the perpetrator imagines to be a humorous outcome at the expense of the target. Practical jokes are distinct from slapstick comedy or knockabout, in which the goal is to make physical events appear miscalculated, inept, or stupid. The term practical refers to the fact that the joke consists of someone doing something (a 'practice'), rather than a verbal or written joke.


Portal:Comedy/Selected picture/8

The Lucky Dogs, by Richard Ansdell
The Lucky Dogs, by Richard Ansdell
Credit: Richard Ansdell

A pun (or paronomasia) is a phrase that deliberately exploits confusion between similar words for rhetorical effect, whether humorous or serious. A pun may also exploit confusion between two senses of the same written or spoken word, due to homophony, homography, homonymy, polysemy, or metaphorical usage. For example, in the phrase, "There is nothing punny about bad puns", the pun takes place in the deliberate confusion of the implied word "funny" by the substitution of the word "punny", a heterophone of "funny". By definition, puns must be deliberate; an involuntary substitution of similar words is called a malapropism.


Portal:Comedy/Selected picture/9

Postcard with public domain "me worry?" face that inspired Alfred E. Neuman.
Postcard with public domain "me worry?" face that inspired Alfred E. Neuman.
Credit: Moondyne

Alfred E. Neuman is the fictional mascot of EC Publications' Mad magazine. The face had drifted through American pictography for decades before being claimed by Mad editor Harvey Kurtzman after he spotted it on the bulletin board in the office of Ballantine Books editor Bernard Shir-Cliff, later a contributor to various magazines created by Kurtzman.


Portal:Comedy/Selected picture/10

Michael Ian Black
Michael Ian Black
Credit: Alex Erde

Michael Ian Black performing stand-up comedy. Stand-up comedy is a style of comedy where the performer speaks directly to the audience, with the absence of the theatrical fourth wall. A person who performs stand-up comedy is known as a stand-up comic, stand-up comedian or more informally stand up. It is usually performed by a single comedian, with the aid of a hand-held microphone. The comedian usually recites a fast-paced succession of humorous stories, short jokes (called "bits"), and one-liners, which comprise what is typically called a monologue, routine or act. Some stand-up comedians use props, music or magic tricks to enhance their acts.


Portal:Comedy/Selected picture/11

Buster Keaton
Buster Keaton
Credit: Bain News Service

Buster Keaton (born Joseph Frank Keaton, October 4, 1895 – February 1, 1966) was an American silent film comic actor and filmmaker. His trademark was physical comedy with a stoic, deadpan expression on his face.


Portal:Comedy/Selected picture/12

Richard D'Oyly Carte, W. S. Gibert, and Arthur Sullivan
Richard D'Oyly Carte, W. S. Gibert, and Arthur Sullivan
Credit: Alfred Bryan (1852-99)

Gilbert and Sullivan refers to the Victorian era partnership of librettist W. S. Gilbert (1836–1911) and composer Arthur Sullivan (1842–1900). Together, they wrote fourteen comic operas between 1871 and 1896, of which H.M.S. Pinafore, The Pirates of Penzance, and The Mikado are among the best known.


Portal:Comedy/Selected picture/13

Falstaff, by Eduard von Grützner
Falstaff, by Eduard von Grützner
Credit: Eduard von Grützner

Sir John Falstaff is a fictional character who appears in three plays by William Shakespeare as a companion to Prince Hal, the future King Henry V. A fat, vainglorious, and cowardly knight, Falstaff leads the apparently wayward Prince Hal into trouble, but he is ultimately repudiated after Hal becomes king. Though primarily a comic figure, Falstaff still embodies a kind of depth common to Shakespeare's tricky comedy.


Portal:Comedy/Selected picture/14

Stańczyk by Jan Matejko
Stańczyk by Jan Matejko
Credit: Jan Matejko

A jester, joker, fool, or buffoon is a specific type of entertainer (but not always) associated with the Middle Ages. Jesters typically wore brightly colored clothing in a motley pattern. Their hats, sometimes called the cap ’n bells, cockscomb (obsolete coxcomb), were especially distinctive; made of cloth, they were floppy with three points (liliripes) each of which had a jingle bell at the end. The three points of the hat represent the asses ears and tail worn by jesters in earlier times. Other things distinctive about the jester were his incessant laughter and his mock scepter, known as a bauble or maharoof.


Portal:Comedy/Selected picture/15

Clown participating in a Memorial Day parade, 2004, by Rick Dikeman
Clown participating in a Memorial Day parade, 2004, by Rick Dikeman
Credit: Rick Dikeman

Clowns are comic performers, stereotypically characterized by their colored wigs, stylistic makeup, outlandish costumes, and unusually large footwear. Clowning, in its most basic form, can be described as one form of drama without a fourth wall, however there are other types of drama that are lacking the element of a fourth wall as well. In other words, a clown acknowledges his audience. The clown's humor today is often visual and includes many elements of physical comedy or slapstick humor.


Portal:Comedy/Selected picture/16

Three Stooges in 'Disorder in the Court'
Three Stooges in 'Disorder in the Court'
Credit: From Disorder in the Court

The Three Stooges were an American vaudeville and comedy act of the early to mid 20th century best known for their numerous short subject films. They were commonly known by their first names: 'Moe, Larry, & Curly', and 'Moe, Larry, & Shemp', among other lineups. The Stooges' hallmark was extremely physical slapstick comedy punctuated by one-liners, within outrageous storylines.


Portal:Comedy/Selected picture/17

Promotional poster for The Lucky Dog, 1921
Promotional poster for The Lucky Dog, 1921
Credit: The Lucky Dog

Laurel and Hardy were the American-based comedy team of thin, British-born Stan Laurel (1890-1965) and heavy, American-born Oliver Hardy (1892-1957). They became famous during the early half of the 20th century for their work in motion pictures, and also appeared on stage throughout America and Europe. The team is considered one of the most famous and finest double acts in motion-picture history.


Portal:Comedy/Selected picture/18

Top to bottom: Chico, Harpo, Groucho and Zeppo (1931)
Top to bottom: Chico, Harpo, Groucho and Zeppo (1931)
Credit: Ralph F. Stitt

The Marx Brothers were a popular team of sibling comedians who appeared in vaudeville, stage plays, film, and television.


Portal:Comedy/Selected picture/19

Belarusian skomorokhs as they appear on the 1555 German etching
Belarusian skomorokhs as they appear on the 1555 German etching
Credit: Olayus Magnus etching from 1555

The skomorokhs (Sing. скоморох in Russian, скоморохъ in Old East Slavic, скоморaхъ in Church Slavonic) were medieval East Slavic harlequins, i.e., actors, who could also sing, dance, play musical instruments, and compose most of the scores for their oral/musical and dramatic performances. The etymology of the word is not totally clear. There are hypotheses that the word is derived from the Greek σκώμμαρχος (cf. σκῶμμα, "joke"); from the Italian scaramuccia ("joker", cf. English scaramouch); from the Arabic masẋara; and many others.


Portal:Comedy/Selected picture/20

A Party of Charlatans in an Italian Landscape, 1657
A Party of Charlatans in an Italian Landscape, 1657
Credit: Karel Dujardin

Commedia dell'arte (Italian: "play of professional artists") was a popular form of improvisational theatre that began in Italy in the 16th century and maintained its popularity through to the 18th century, although it is still performed today. All of their performances were outside with few props, unscripted, and were free to watch, funded by donations. A troupe consisted of ten people: seven men and three women. Outside Italy, it was also known as "Italian Comedy".


Portal:Comedy/Selected picture/21

Vitus, the patron saint of comedians
Vitus, the patron saint of comedians
Credit: Nuremberg Chronicle (1493)

Saint Vitus was a Christian saint from Sicily. He died as a martyr during the persecution of Christians by co-ruling Roman Emperors Diocletian and Maximian in 303. St Vitus is counted as one of the Fourteen Holy Helpers of the Roman Catholic Church. St. Vitus is considered the patron saint of actors, comedians, dancers, and epileptics.


Portal:Comedy/Selected picture/22

Double entendre
Double entendre
Credit: Artist: Charles Williams; Restoration: Lise Broer

An 1814 engraved cartoon of a double entendre, a figure of speech in which a spoken phrase is devised to be understood in either of two ways. Often the first meaning is straightforward, while the second meaning is less so: often risqué, inappropriate, or ironic. In this cartoon, the man says to the woman, "My sweet honey, I hope you are to be let with the Lodgins!" To this, she replies "No, sir, I am to be let alone." Here, the word "let" can mean either "to leave" or "to rent", so her response can be read to mean either that she wants the man to stop bothering her, or that she is available for a separate fee from the lodging.


Portal:Comedy/Selected picture/23

Tameing a Shrew
Tameing a Shrew
Credit: Cartoon: Charles Williams; Restoration: Adam Cuerden

Tameing a Shrew; or, Petruchio's Patent Family Bedstead, Gags & Thumscrews, an 1815 caricature based on William Shakespeare's 1623 play The Taming of the Shrew. The main plot depicts the courtship of Petruchio, a gentleman of Verona, and Kate, the headstrong, obdurate shrew. Initially, Kate is an unwilling participant in the relationship, but Petruchio tempers her with various psychological torments—the "taming"—until she is an obedient bride. In this cartoon, the husband engages in systematic spousal abuse, going far beyond what was considered acceptable at the time it was published.


Portal:Comedy/Selected picture/24

The Plumb-pudding in danger
The Plumb-pudding in danger
Credit: James Gilray

James Gillray's The Plumb-pudding in danger (1805), which caricatured Pitt and Napoleon, was voted the most famous of all UK political cartoons.


Portal:Comedy/Selected picture/25

Reconstruction political cartoon
Reconstruction political cartoon
Credit: Joseph E. Baker

A political cartoon of Andrew Johnson and Abraham Lincoln from 1865, during the Reconstruction era of the United States, the period between 1863 and 1877 during and after the American Civil War, when the government attempted to "reconstruct" both the South and the Constitution. The cartoon is entitled "The Rail Splitter At Work Repairing the Union."


Portal:Comedy/Selected picture/26

Punch magazine, example of satire
Punch magazine, example of satire
Credit: Punch magazine, 1867

1867 edition of Punch, a ground-breaking British magazine of popular humour, including a great deal of satire of the contemporary, social, and political scene.


Portal:Comedy/Selected picture/27

Parody
Parody
Credit: The Great Dictator (1940)

Comedian Charlie Chaplin impersonating Hitler for in form of parody for comic effect in the satirical film The Great Dictator (1940)


Portal:Comedy/Selected picture/28

Truthiness
Truthiness
Credit: ReignMan

A church sign stating, "Truthiness and Consequences", taken March 10, 2007, in Cape Coral, Florida. Truthiness is a quality characterizing a "truth" that a person making an argument or assertion claims to know intuitively "from the gut" or because it "feels right" without regard to evidence, logic, intellectual examination, or facts. American television comedian Stephen Colbert coined the word in this meaning as the subject of a segment called "The Wørd" during the pilot episode of his political satire program The Colbert Report on October 17, 2005. By using this as part of his routine, Colbert satirized the misuse of appeal to emotion and "gut feeling" as a rhetorical device in contemporaneous socio-political discourse.


Portal:Comedy/Selected picture/29

News satire
News satire
Credit: Chad J. McNeeley

News satire, also called fake news, is a type of parody presented in a format typical of mainstream journalism, and called a satire because of its content. News satire has been around almost as long as journalism itself, but it is particularly popular on the web,for example on websites like Onion News or Faking News, where it is relatively easy to mimic a credible news source and stories may achieve wide distribution from nearly any site. News satire relies heavily on irony and deadpan humor.


Portal:Comedy/Selected picture/30

Irony
Irony
Credit: Scheinwerfermann

A stop sign ironically defaced with a plea not to deface stop signs. Irony (from Ancient Greek εἰρωνεία (eirōneía) 'dissimulation, feigned ignorance'), in its broadest sense, is a rhetorical device, literary technique, or event in which what appears, on the surface, to be the case, differs radically from what is actually the case. Irony may be divided into categories such as verbal, dramatic, and situational.


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Thalia, muse of comedy
Thalia, muse of comedy
Credit: Jastrow

Thalia, muse of comedy, holding a comic mask - detail of “Muses Sarcophagus”, the nine Muses and their attributes; marble, early second century AD, Via Ostiense - Louvre


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'"Hopscotch to oblivion", Barcelona, Spain
'"Hopscotch to oblivion", Barcelona, Spain
Credit: Andy Wright

A black comedy (or dark comedy) is a comic work that makes light of serious and/or taboo subject matter. Black comedy corresponds to the earlier concept of gallows humor.


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Detail, side A from a Sicilian red-figured calyx-krater (c. 350 BC – 340 BC).
Detail, side A from a Sicilian red-figured calyx-krater (c. 350 BC – 340 BC).
Credit: Jastrow

Ancient Greek comedy was one of the final three principal dramatic forms in the theatre of classical Greece (the others being tragedy and the satyr play). Athenian comedy is conventionally divided into three periods, Old Comedy, Middle Comedy, and New Comedy. Old Comedy survives today largely in the form of the eleven surviving plays of Aristophanes, while Middle Comedy is largely lost, i.e. preserved only in relatively short fragments by authors such as Athenaeus of Naucratis. New Comedy is known primarily from the substantial papyrus fragments of Menander.


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An April Fools' Day hoax marking the construction of the Copenhagen Metro in 2001
An April Fools' Day hoax marking the construction of the Copenhagen Metro in 2001
Credit: Lars Andersen

April Fools' Day (sometimes called All Fools' Day) is celebrated every year on 1 April by playing practical jokes and spreading hoaxes. The jokes and their victims are called April fools. People playing April Fool jokes expose their prank by shouting April Fool. Some newspapers, magazines, and other published media report fake stories, which are usually explained the next day or below the news section in small letters. Although popular since the 19th century, the day is not a public holiday in any country.


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Mary Astor and Joel McCrea in The Palm Beach Story, a screwball romantic comedy
Mary Astor and Joel McCrea in The Palm Beach Story, a screwball romantic comedy
Credit: The Seven Year Itch trailer

Romantic comedy films are films with light-hearted, humorous plotlines, centered on romantic ideals such as that true love is able to surmount most obstacles. One dictionary definition is "a funny movie, play, or television program about a love story that ends happily". Another definition states that its "primary distinguishing feature is a love plot in which two sympathetic and well-matched lovers are united or reconciled".


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Fart lighting
Fart lighting
Credit: A Kingdom for a Donkey

Fart lighting, also known as pyroflatulence or flatus ignition, is the practice of igniting the gases produced by human flatulence, often producing a flame of a blue hue, hence the act being known colloquially as a "blue angel", "blue dart", or in Australia, a "blue flame". The fact that flatus is flammable, and the actual combustion of it through this practice, gives rise to much humorous derivation.


Portal:Comedy/Selected picture/37

Credit: Henrik Schröder auf de.Wikipedia.org from Berlin, Germany

Off-color humor (also known as vulgar humor or crude humor) is humor that deals with topics that may be considered to be in poor taste or overly vulgar. Many comedic genres (including jokes, prose, poems, black comedy, blue comedy, insult comedy, cringe comedy and skits) can incorporate vulgar elements.


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Restoration comedy
Restoration comedy
Credit: William Hogarth

Restoration comedy refers to English comedies written and performed in the Restoration period from 1660 to 1710. Comedy of manners is used as a synonym of Restoration comedy. After public stage performances had been banned for 18 years by the Puritan regime, the re-opening of the theatres in 1660 signalled a renaissance of English drama.


Portal:Comedy/Selected picture/39

Fake nail polish
Fake nail polish
Credit: Kungfuman

A practical joke device is a manufactured prop or toy intended to confuse, frighten, or amuse individuals as a prank. Often, these objects are harmless facsimiles of disgusting or terrifying objects, such as vomit or spilled nail polish. In other instances, they are created as seemingly harmless items designed to humorously malfunction in such a way as to confuse or harm the target of a prank. The devices are frequently sold in magic or specialty shops, purchased over the Internet, or crafted for oneself. Perhaps the most notable such device is the Whoopee cushion.


Portal:Comedy/Selected picture/40

The Elephant Celebes
The Elephant Celebes
Credit: Max Ernst

The Elephant Celebes (or Celebes) is a 1921 painting by the German Dadaist and surrealist Max Ernst. It is among the most famous of Ernst's early surrealist works and "undoubtedly the first masterpiece of Surrealist painting in the De Chirico tradition." It combines the vivid dreamlike atmosphere of Surrealism with the collage aspects of Dada.


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Feel free to add related featured pictures to the above list. Other pictures may be nominated here.

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