What did you find funny when you were twelve?

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I think possibly I had moved on from Kenny Everett and found Monty Python funny. Maybe that was a bit later. Oh I know - the Young Ones.

I think I find more things funny now than I did then. I'm struggling to remember what I found funny in real life then, apart from bad rubber swaps and beef crisps (cheap laughs)

― N. (nickdastoor), Tuesday, 8 October 2002 14:14 (twenty-three years ago)

Carter.

― Graham (graham), Tuesday, 8 October 2002 14:15 (twenty-three years ago)

But Nick D, what are you doing still clinging to this barren chimera called "fun"? Isn't this just a lame-ass excuse to avoid being thirteen 'cause you think a cat will fall on your head? I'm not saying that "fun" ain't funny, like when scanty babes come on and my Kleenex and coleslaw are at the ready, 'cause I can feel that. But I can't feel your fun. I can't feel your "twelve." It's just lame and avoiding the issues of not being twelve. You should listen to some Will Oldham outtakes.

― Cosh, Tuesday, 8 October 2002 14:17 (twenty-three years ago)

I like the idea of EG being Josh's ADD alterego.

― N. (nickdastoor), Tuesday, 8 October 2002 14:21 (twenty-three years ago)

Spaceballs - and i still do!

― katie (katie), Tuesday, 8 October 2002 14:23 (twenty-three years ago)

That was Ally C's favourite film when he was 12, Katie. Sadly, he now finds it lame.

― N. (nickdastoor), Tuesday, 8 October 2002 14:25 (twenty-three years ago)

i was 12 in 1990 so Absolutely and Vic Reeves and his Big Night Out were definitely ruling the world of playground quotation...i dont know how funny i'd find those shows now but they have a place in my heart...i think i was bored of Cheers and Roseanne by that point so on the American side i'm not sure what was big for me on the comedy side at that time - The Simpsons i guess but i hardly saw that until '92/'93. i also found good impressions of famous people funny coupled with basic political satire (Rory Bremner etc.) and i spent a lot of time as a youth mimicking people and different accents...also at school any suggestion that someone might be homosexual or overweight seemed to provoke either amusement or hostility depending on who was around, the usual name-calling and what have you ensued - but i grew out of that pretty sharpish cos i got enough abuse myself..bloody kids eh?

― blueski, Tuesday, 8 October 2002 14:26 (twenty-three years ago)

what're you trying to say, N? ;)

― katie (katie), Tuesday, 8 October 2002 14:27 (twenty-three years ago)

That Ally's lost his joy and you haven't awww?

― Graham (graham), Tuesday, 8 October 2002 14:28 (twenty-three years ago)

Graham has it right.

― N. (nickdastoor), Tuesday, 8 October 2002 14:31 (twenty-three years ago)

I didn't, I was moaning all the time hooray for not changing!

I might have found the word "nob" funny though.

― Sarah (starry), Tuesday, 8 October 2002 14:32 (twenty-three years ago)

why is SPaceballs never on TV?

― blueski, Tuesday, 8 October 2002 14:34 (twenty-three years ago)

it's often on tv blueski!!

― mark s (mark s), Tuesday, 8 October 2002 14:35 (twenty-three years ago)

Airplane

― Jonathan Williams (ex machina), Tuesday, 8 October 2002 14:36 (twenty-three years ago)

Maybe blueski does not have channel 5.

Airplane II - yes.

― N. (nickdastoor), Tuesday, 8 October 2002 14:37 (twenty-three years ago)

why is the Empire Strikes Back never on...ooh its on tonight

i do have channel 5, when was SPaceballs on?

― blueski, Tuesday, 8 October 2002 14:37 (twenty-three years ago)

working in the mines wasn't 'funny' you know.

― Julio Desouza (jdesouza), Tuesday, 8 October 2002 14:37 (twenty-three years ago)

Spaceballs was on very recently wasn't it? at least in the last month.

― Fuzzy (Fuzzy), Tuesday, 8 October 2002 14:39 (twenty-three years ago)

OK...why is Blazing Saddles never on TV? ;)

― blueski, Tuesday, 8 October 2002 15:21 (twenty-three years ago)

Kids In the Hall, Mad magazine, Doonesbury, talking like a Communist propagandist, pseudo-melodramatic poetry, dorky faces, stupid puns, making up smutty notes between made-up 'students' and putting them in desks, probably still Gordon Korman, Royal Canadian Air Farce (when it was still on radio. God, the TV show is awful), Radio Free Vestibule.

― sundar subramanian, Tuesday, 8 October 2002 15:37 (twenty-three years ago)

Derek and Clive.

― Andrew L (Andrew L), Tuesday, 8 October 2002 16:20 (twenty-three years ago)

Like Blueski, it was Big Night Out and Absolutely, as well as Monty Python, Mad Magazine, Amiga Power and Your Sinclair (the last two may have been computer games mages but they printed some of the funniest stuff ever). Later on it was Digitiser (again, a computer mag but filled chock full of incredible, bizarre humour - Americans just don't know how much they miss Teletext), Inside Victor Lewis-Smith and The Day Today.

I later saw BNO and Absolutely on cable (around about 1999 - 2000) and was pleasantly suprised at how good it still was (BNO in particular warmed my heart).

― Chriddof (Chriddof), Tuesday, 8 October 2002 16:30 (twenty-three years ago)

"computer games mages"

Mags, obv.

― Chriddof (Chriddof), Tuesday, 8 October 2002 16:31 (twenty-three years ago)

"Living Doll" by Cliff Richard and The Young Ones.

Blackadder.

Molesworth books.

― Tom (Groke), Tuesday, 8 October 2002 16:34 (twenty-three years ago)

I watched Spaceballs the other day, and yes, I found my attention span wandering. Sadly enough, though, at age 12 I think I found "The Naked Gun" series way hilarious.

― Mandee, Tuesday, 8 October 2002 16:37 (twenty-three years ago)

Blackadder! Airplane!

― sundar subramanian, Tuesday, 8 October 2002 16:43 (twenty-three years ago)

I wish you'd asked about 11 or 13, but I suppose I'll be honest, and then I will explain :)

When I was 12, my group of friends all went through this phase where the funniest damn thing in the world was those Truly Tasteless Jokes books -- the racist jokes especially. Everyone would repeat them constantly. It was a phase that lasted for maybe three months, and then everyone just sort of stopped, and I don't know any of those guys now (I'm 27), but I didn't actually turn out to be a racist adult (so far as I know), and I don't expect they did, either.

I grew up in the whitest place I've ever encountered -- I mean, literally, I knew one black man at the time, and he used to be a Harlem Globetrotter. I only know of two Jewish families who lived in town at the time -- there may have been more, without kids. Even Catholics were a minuscule minority -- I can't think of more than five Catholic kids I knew, and three of them were brothers.

So although I knew racism was bad, obviously, it somehow didn't occur to me that the jokes were promoting it, cause I didn't connect them to anything in the real world.

One of the myriad of reasons I'm glad I don't still live in New Hampshire.

Oh, but I thought John Belushi was the funniest damn thing ever, too.

― Tep (ktepi), Tuesday, 8 October 2002 17:04 (twenty-three years ago)

unless i am victim of subtlety spaceballs was last on itv about a month ago and has never been on 5. blazing saddles was on bbc1 about 3 months back

― bob zemko (bob), Tuesday, 8 October 2002 18:04 (twenty-three years ago)

Stephen Pile's Heroic Failures books. The Radio 1 comedy slots, especially Alan Parker... and Red Dwarf, probably.

― Mr Swygart (mrswygart), Tuesday, 8 October 2002 18:33 (twenty-three years ago)

thinking back, i dont recall finding much funny at all. life was ok etc i just dont remember finding anything in particular that funny. i spent a lot of time on my own out of choice, -reading, drawing, growing plants from seed, feeding my chickens....in hindsight i am amazed really at how i was so quietly happy.

― donna (donna), Tuesday, 8 October 2002 19:06 (twenty-three years ago)

12 years old, 1983 -- Monty Python was just discovered by me, I was already a Muppets fan by default, all those tasteless jokes books Tep mentions were everywhere...

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Tuesday, 8 October 2002 21:36 (twenty-three years ago)

probably the mary whitehouse experience..."you see that, that's your mum that is".

― jel -- (jel), Tuesday, 8 October 2002 21:59 (twenty-three years ago)

stirring up fights between my sisters

― unknown or illegal user (doorag), Tuesday, 8 October 2002 22:09 (twenty-three years ago)

Frankie Howerd

― Ray M (rdmanston), Tuesday, 8 October 2002 23:15 (twenty-three years ago)

"rosencrantz and guildenstern are dead", and most of tom stoppard really.

"cold comfort farm"

signing people up for sports teams or afterschool activities

emptying people's clothing from their lockers and using them to dress up the statues of saints at school

firecrackers

"bloom county"

robyn hitchcock

― mike (ro)bott, Tuesday, 8 October 2002 23:34 (twenty-three years ago)

I moaned a lot too but in between the moaning I found time to find, well, almost everything funny. I had not yet seen Monty Python and the Holy Grail far too many times, so I thought it was the funniest thing ever. Also Red Dwarf, Brittas Empire, every other crap sitcom that was on in 1992... oh dear.

At school we would mostly play Consequences in lessons and find it hilarious, quote Monty Python and Bill and Ted at each other, laugh at the school bus drivers' sexist and homophobic jokes because everyone else did and then feel bad about it, and get insecure about what the popular/outgoing/pretty kids were talking loudly about having done at parties at the weekend. God, being 12 was horrible. I might even feel better about this year now.

― Rebecca (reb), Tuesday, 8 October 2002 23:40 (twenty-three years ago)

farts

― ron (ron), Tuesday, 8 October 2002 23:49 (twenty-three years ago)

I can't work out if Mike R wins.. or ron.

It's my contention that there's a lot more funny stuff on British TV now to watch than there was in 1985. You kids are spoiled. Which shows might have been too 'sophisticated' or 'adult' for me to find funny in 1985? None! People were so simple then..

― N. (nickdastoor), Wednesday, 9 October 2002 08:54 (twenty-three years ago)

Allo Allo.

This is an answer to the thread question not N's latest one sadly.

― Tom (Groke), Wednesday, 9 October 2002 10:40 (twenty-three years ago)

Douglas Adams. 2000AD. Jasper Carrott. And what was the name of that Northern comedian/folk singer bloke, Mike something? Harding?

― Jerry the Nipper (Jerrynipper), Wednesday, 9 October 2002 10:53 (twenty-three years ago)

11 year olds

― Mckenzie (Mckenzie), Wednesday, 9 October 2002 11:04 (twenty-three years ago)

i don't remember.

― michael wells (michael w.), Wednesday, 9 October 2002 11:11 (twenty-three years ago)

Yes, Mike Harding.

As for the main question, how can you expect me to think back over thirty years? At my age I can barely remember what I was doing last night.

― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Wednesday, 9 October 2002 20:11 (twenty-three years ago)

Victor Borge & Joann Worley, doing that pigface thing where you pull up your nose with your thumbs and pull down around your eyes with your index fingers.

― Arthur (Arthur), Wednesday, 9 October 2002 20:18 (twenty-three years ago)

As for the main question, how can you expect me to think back over thirty years? At my age I can barely remember what I was doing last night.
I thought with senile dementia one could usually remember the events of ones childhood with great clarity while forgetting who the prime minister is?

― N. (nickdastoor), Thursday, 10 October 2002 10:33 (twenty-three years ago)

"Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy" I think. And a lot of stuff that's still funny now, like Ren and Stimpy.

― Andrew Thames (Andrew Thames), Thursday, 10 October 2002 11:12 (twenty-three years ago)

anything, as long as it had a healthy dose of dick & fart jokes.

― g-kit (g-kit), Thursday, 10 October 2002 11:22 (twenty-three years ago)

1988 - Bros, I thought they were hysterical. Bill and Ted (that's where my Keanu infatuation started - and don't start I was 12 OK?). Oh yeah and Harry Enfield got quoted a lot at school.

― Plinky (Plinky), Thursday, 10 October 2002 11:34 (twenty-three years ago)

I used to like Mike Harding too. The Rochdale Cowboy. Always came from Buxton Opera House. Always did a nice song.

But what I really used to like was 'The Phantom Raspberry Blower of Old London Town'.

(I think I may have been younger than twelve though.)

― PJ Miller (PJ Miller), Thursday, 10 October 2002 11:35 (twenty-three years ago)

(This thread is making me feel OLD.)

― Dan Perry (Dan Perry), Thursday, 10 October 2002 12:34 (twenty-three years ago)

'Goon Show' scripts. I hadn't heard the tapes of the radio show but I thought Spike Milligan was funny so I bought some books of Goon scripts from a market stall. I thought they were wonderful, very very funny. When I did finally get to hear the tapes of the shows I was quite disappointed, it never quite lived up to my imagination/the voices didn't match the voices in my head.

― DavidM (DavidM), Thursday, 10 October 2002 17:53 (twenty-three years ago)

Mad Magazine

― Tracer Hand (tracerhand), Thursday, 10 October 2002 18:01 (twenty-three years ago)

12 years old - 1989 - I loved UHF, any movie with Chevy Chase, & The Naked Gun.

― Sarah McLusky (coco), Thursday, 10 October 2002 18:05 (twenty-three years ago)

I liked breaking windows.

― bnw (bnw), Thursday, 10 October 2002 18:12 (twenty-three years ago)

Twelve was a sort of non-humorous time for me, I think. Douglas Adams, maybe: beyond that I can't think of anything that amused me during middle school. By the time I was 14, though, pretty much everything was hilarious -- especially King Missile.

― nabisco (nabisco), Thursday, 10 October 2002 18:43 (twenty-three years ago)

The fact that I still like so many things on this thread is annoying.

― Vinnie (vprabhu), Thursday, 10 October 2002 19:35 (twenty-three years ago)

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