There's few pop culture experiences as unsettling as tuning into a comedy series or movie that everyone assures you will be the funniest thing you've ever seen in your entire life, only to find that it's...just not doing it for you. (Equally unsettling is being the person who recommends the comedy masterpiece, only for your companion to stare blankly at the screen while glancing over at their phone every few seconds.) So, there were plenty of responses when redditor u/CatsAreTheBest2 asked the folks of AskReddit, "What beloved comedy TV show or movie do you find painfully unfunny?" Here are 24 of the supposedly funny movies and TV shows that people simply don't "get."
Responses may have been edited for length and/or clarity.
1. "Sex and the City. How Carrie’s friends put up with her is beyond me."
2. "Like many of the other comments: The Big Bang Theory. I hold a special disdain for it whenever I tell someone I’m a physicist and their response is, 'Oh, like Sheldon.' To clarify, I’m not mad that the show makes fun of scientists. If anything, I think they don’t make fun of scientists enough — nobody talks shit about physicists like physicists. The show just isn’t funny (I take issue especially with all the sexism), and being called Sheldon gets old after a while."
3. "I loved Full House as a kid, but man, is it hard to get through Fuller House..."
4. "I used to tell my kids about an old show that was hilarious: Get a Life, from back in the early '90s. Found a VHS, popped it in, and silence ensues. It did not age well."
5. "Any sitcom with rapid-fire one-liners between the characters. Two Broke Girls comes to mind immediately."
6. "Okay, the earlier seasons are good, but we need to have an honest conversation about the later seasons of SpongeBob SquarePants and The Simpsons. Just painful. So unfortunate."
7. "Any of the Madea movies. To me, it looks like he's just perpetuating a very cruel and outdated stereotype, and I just cringe when watching it."
8. "Everybody Loves Raymond. It was a staple of my childhood in the '90s, but I saw a couple episodes recently, and it did not age well. The intergenerational 'I have my wife' jokes, yeesh."
9. "I loathe Will & Grace with a passion! The main characters are so self-centered and unlikeable. And the slapstick humor and 'clever quips' are just plain obnoxious."
10. "Bob's Burgers. I didn't laugh once."
11. "Big Mouth makes me cringe with nearly every line. It always feels like it's overtly trying too hard to be raunchy. And I generally like raunchy shows...but fuck, dude, it's for sure a one-trick pony. Has nothing else going for it."
12. "Rick and Morty. I watched a whole season all at once. I get the humor, but outside of that one day to see what it was about, I never had the itch to watch it again."
13. "Mrs. Brown’s Boys. It makes me want to sandpaper my eyes and pour molten lava into my ears."
14. "Step Brothers. It came out when I was in high school, and all my friends thought it was the funniest movie they had ever seen. That style of humor definitely isn't for me, and people constantly quoting it made it really easy to get sick of super fast."
15. "I absolutely HATE Family Feud. This is because in literally every episode, if any contestant says something even a little weird or unusual, Steve Harvey sits there with his jaw on the floor, absolutely gobsmacked that somebody would say something like that. It may have been funny the first few episodes, but by Episode 977, it gets pretty fucking old."
16. "I tried so hard with Community. … I really did. The only ones who kept me going were Troy and Abed."
17. "I can't stand Elf. Everyone always wants to watch it during the holiday season, but I get such bad secondhand embarrassment from it that I can't watch it."
18. "Friends. I saw about five episodes and didn't laugh once."
19. "Family Guy. It’s so cheesy and repetitive, and don’t get me started on the pop culture references that no one knows except the writers."
20. "Home Improvement. I will never forget the awful feeling it gave me."
21. "I’m sorry, but The Mask and Ace Ventura: Pet Detective. I have respect and an appreciation for Jim Carrey, but holy shit, those movies blow."
22. "I tried watching Animal House, which everyone swears by. I couldn’t make it 15 minutes before turning it off."
23. "How I Met Your Mother. I find nothing about that show funny. And the entire story is just a filler with a stupid ending. How did that show get so big...?"
24. And finally: "The last two Thor movies. The latest is unwatchable, and I wish I could erase it from my memory."
What popular comedies have you tried, only to find they didn't even make you smile, let alone laugh? Tell us about them in the comments!
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