I've come to realize that what is funny to the masses these days is far too immature for my tastes too. During the pandemic, we've been trying to watch a movie every night. My wife complained that they were all about people shooting each other, so one night I tried to pick a comedy. Of the many that I hadn't seen and were made in the last 15 years, none of them sounded funny, and too many of them starred actors whose humor I simply don't find funny. So I wasn't interested in those either. I guess I'll go back to TCM and watch something from the '50s or '60s that has no cussing, no sex, and no blood and gore.
It's so cool to see this subject brought up. I always found it ironic that my sense of humor when I was actually joking around with friends in real time was grotesque & off-color... but when it came to the stickers & cards, I found Wackys really cool and funny, and GPK icky and stupid. There was something different about the shock value of "gutter talk" (as my 7th-grade English teacher used to scold us about) and actually putting it in print in the form of snot spilling from the severed nose of a disemboweled human. Not sure why, but it could be related to something that we, as a global society, have very very sadly
lost forever...
ephemeral events (see what I did there with my choice of words?). Because of smart-phones and YouTube... NOTHING is temporary anymore. One joke, one wrong word, one goofball stunt intended just to make your buddies giggle... and it's suddenly immortalized forever with no "opt-out", "undo", or ability to grow as a person 10 years later and rescind your statement about "boogers". So, it seems like that's one reason those of us who grew up before everyone's daily life became searchable on Google tend to enjoy the classics in entertainment more. Because humor that crosses a certain line was always meant to be only for the ears of those in your circle, and only for that one particular moment in time, to be soon forgotten. When it's in print or on screen, it's more visceral and in-you-face. Even the act of putting movies out for rentals & streaming changed things. When we all saw, "Airplane!" for the first time, we laughed our asses off... with almost a sense of bashful guilt that we got to hear and see what we all heard and saw. And we left that laughter at the theater & got back to normal life, chuckling now and then when a scene or line entered our heads. Now, everything ever made or done or said... is downloadable anytime from anywhere. Totally different times. Does that element click with anyone else? Don't get me wrong, I can totally get into movies like The Hangover, and shows like Family Guy if I'm in the right mood. But it gets old, fast. 60's movies & shows (made before my time) I can watch all day long.