It was in the marbled thinking chamber that we were reading both Playboy and the New Yorker at once. A theory resulted: That the rate of humor found in New Yorker cartoons is the exact same as naturally occurring humor in the world. That is to say, in the case of any decent drawing set-up, one could pair a drawing with any caption and reasonably expect to laugh the same amount. We decided to test our theory of stochastic humor by mashing-up Playboy cartoons with New Yorker captions and vice versa.
Is "'New Yorker' Humor" Purely Random?
6:20 PM on Wed Aug 22 2007
By Joshua Stein
5,917 views
27 comments








Comments
This is why I love you.
I like the one where Eustace Tilley says, "You're the Venus Butterfly? My wife will be so pleased."
I am at once confused, amused, and aroused.
One more theory, shot to hell.
I had always wondered why D Radosh limits himself to the uncaptioned New Yawker cartoons being as it's some of the captioned ones that need the help. And now we know where to turn, to Josh and the marbled thinking chamber.
Process of elimination must have dictated the placement of "Is it just me or are the balls livelier this season?" since naturally it works with everything.
Chicks who read New Yorker will give head but not ass because they are smart enough to rationalize it as not really giving it up
Josh, like Doree is very smart.
swoon
New Yorker is to funny as
Playboy is to sexy.
That's the kind of standardized test we could have all succeeded on.
Missing dialog from the Nick Lachey/Vanessa Minninlelllo outside hottub Mexican tryst?
Un-freakin'-canny!
Oh, wait. You said you were on the can, didn't you?
Sumbitch.
I've worked with economists for seven years, and this is how I finally get to learn what "stochastic" means.
The last one might be the best, with the guy in the trashcan. But this is brilliant.
Number five is perfect in every way. Thank you.
But it doesn't even need to be contrasted like the NYer and Pboy. As a kid I used to razor-blade out the Marmadukes and the Family Circuses and switch them around. Always an improvement, sometimes hilarious, usually arousing. Dolly walks into the kitchen and says to her carrot-peeling imbecile mother "But I'm supposed to be the master!" Marmaduke's owner says to Marmaduke, who is sitting in a proper human chair, "What does the tooth fairy do during the day?" Good times.
Q: How does a word that starts out from the Greek meaning "skillful at aiming" end up meaning "random"?
A: Um...Balk's Cock?
Seriously, I'm kind of blown away by this because, man, not only have I never heard the world "stochastic", but I couldn't even think up a post to leave at Foxy Brown.
I want uni credit for stochastic. Probably a good word to use in SLC entrance essays.
Genius. And, in so doing, captures in a nutshell (!) the spirit of what we've accomplished at least this many times in the Foxy Brown post.
It appears the jocular ejaculation of nyplayboy7's main character may have inadvertantly besmirched the old lady in nyplayboy8 mid-switch.
The appearance of Chester the Molester in The New Yorker could be simultaneously the funniest and scariest thing ever to appear there.
Nice shot o' laughter. Thanks.
My favorite came from a Penthouse magazine. It was an office fille with people screwing. There is a business man on the phone and he is screaming; "Deloris! Get these fucking people out of my office!"
We've already had the use of boatswain on the Foxy thread, why not stochastic?
Number four made me laugh out loud. This is a perfect setup for a movie.
@earlytimezone: Which is confusingly labeled nyplayboy5.
Dude, that elephant cartoon is TOTALLY a Far Side ripoff (assuming I correctly guessed the original caption).
So not only are NYer cartoons generally unfunny, they're also plagiarized? Awesome.
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