Slapstick: physical humor, as in humor found from physical stimuli or physical reactions. Ex: farts, sex, AFV, pie to the face, Three Stooges.
Sarcastic: double-entente humor, as in humor based off of the ironic difference between literal and intended meaning. Ex: Bert and Ernie, Squidward, 9th Doctor, Sam Winchester
Subtle: dry or deadpan humor, as in humor which is found by an unaffected delivery of emotional or radical subject material. Ex: Mikasa, Jeff Dunham, Sheldon, Phil Coulson, Castiel
Satirical: ridiculing humor, as in humor which seeks to mock faults in the status quos or belief systems. Ex: Deadpool, SNL, Monty Python, Springtime with Hitler
Sardonic: dark humor, as in humor which plays off of tragic events to create a grim irony. Ex: Cruel Irony, “Laugh to keep from crying”, Shakespeare, Olaf the Snowman
-Now, keep in mind that people can have one or many of these types of humors, and often can appreciate one or many types of humor. Its good to give a character some funny aspects to them, and hopefully this little cheat sheet will help you decide what kind of aspects that might be.-
for future reference of everyone who might be interested in this information:
I do not find Type 1, aka Slapstick, funny. All the others – very much, though there’s a limit to my appreciation of dark humor, like everyone’s, I guess
but Slapstick is not funny for me, period
I don’t care how classical and widely accepted the piece you want me to see/read/whatever is. It won’t be funny. I’ll cringe and at best, wait patiently until there’s something I can remotely sympathize with; at worst, I’ll just abandon it altogether.
I sympathize with fictional characters way too much. I can’t find humor based on their humiliation/pain funny, period. I have had my own pain laughed at way too many times to even persuade myself to turn off my empathy and try to appreciate the humor after all.
The list of famous comedies that are not in the least bit funny to me as the result is too long to list. Pretty much all of them. There are few actual comedies that rely on sarcasm/deadpan to deliver jokes, and believe me, I treasure them. But a slapstick bit in the work I like, when I feel the scene is presented to me so that I’m supposed to laugh, makes me flip pages in a book/skip scenes in movies/leave the room where everyone’s watching. I can’t. I won’t. It’s almost physically painful.
There are exceptions, though; for example, the beautiful Sweet Bro and Hella Jeff. It’s impossible to empathize with characters there: it’s too over the top and absurd. I guess its humor is not actually slapstick; point is, characters being hurt for humorous value there doesn’t make me feel hurt because the characters are too obviously made up specifically for that joke. “So bad it’s good” works for me.
Slapstick does not. Does not. Does not.
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