When I talk about insults, I don’t mean the bog standard terms you have in your lexical repertoire to respond to stubbed toes and ex wives such as the “fuck you’s” or the “assholes”. I’m talking about witticisms. The carefully crafted, personalaised, almost poetic comment that leaves the victim stunned .
These beauties are a rarity however and even those that do exist are shunned, here is just one:
“Goldie’s autobiography is called “Nine Lives”, which is a stupid title for a man with a dog’s name.”- Frankie Boyle
Perhaps my favourite line of his. I think what is beautiful about it is that the joke lands perfectly without Boyle having to spice it up with a sware or two. I don’t have anything against the use of taboo language in jokes, in fact many of my favourite sets/bits simply wouldn’t work without them. What makes this joke is that it’s in two parts. Boyle could probably get a laugh out of just mentioning a similarity between their name and a dogs. But Boyle adds in the autobiography title to truly top it off. Notice the almost naive voice that the insult is phrased in “which is a stupid title for a man with a dog’s name” he obviously knows it’s not stupid and completely coincidental, however by putting it like this makes it funny as they can secretly have a laugh at Frankie Boyle for perceiving the situation like this. It is a technique used by many comics, often subconsciously.
Have a nice day.
The Comedians Friend 