This is Deidre posting on behalf of a student host scheduling fail (mine).
The New Yorker magazine frequently features a short parody news piece. It’s often brainiac comedy but you might catch something by, say, Steve Martin that’s insightful and hilarious. This recent piece by Andy Borowitz begins with the lead:
“No one in the United States has taken note of the total disappearance of New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, who vanished from view several weeks ago.”
What parts are funny? What isn’t? What do you need to know about Christie for this to work?
If the above link doesn’t work, here’s the URL.
JMC 480 News Parody: Theory and Practice 
I thought this was a very good example of parody based on the world, though not necessarily based on the news. It takes a special mind to not notice something funny, or possibly to notice something not funny, and make a joke of it anyhow. I once heard that comedians don’t make things funny, they just remind you that things are funny, and from this I feel it’s very true. Since his endorsement of Trump, Christie really has gone into hiding. Maybe for good reason.
” “Huh,” she added. ” was what I found funniest.
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It wasn’t laugh out loud humor, but it was solid parody considering the story. It was vague so it doesn’t really go into attacking a public figure like a lot I’ve seen, which I preferred. I liked the residents feedback better then if the reporter were to base the parody off some crude or inappropriate story line. I have to admit I didn’t know about Chris Christie (i know i know I’m a bad journalist), however after I researched him, it made the article more amusing and relevant.
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The educational power of parody!
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I think this quote from the article sums it up pretty well” “To be honest with you, I don’t care.” Hardly anyone cared much about Christie when he was running so it shouldn’t come as too much surprise that he is out of the media now that he is not. There wasn’t anything particularly bad about the article but I honestly didn’t find any of it funny.
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I found this article to be extremely funny. Now, it wasn’t “ROTFL” funny, but it had a nice touch of humor to it to keep the smug little hidden grin on my face. I just find it so funny because I started thinking the same thing when in the middle of reading this article.
…..huh?
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Personally, I really dug this article. Another surprise is the last thing this race needed, yet Christie decided now is the time to come out of left field, and then disappear. After Chris Christies endorsement of Trump, he was dominating the media alongside the candidate. The look of terror upon his face as he stood in Trumps shadow during his rallies, mirrors the way that me, and the way i’m sure many others feel inside in regards to this turn in the Trump campaign. Yet, now that he’s gone, he doesn’t seem to be very missed.
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“Huh,” she added.
I was cracking up in a coffee shop when my eyes skipped ahead to this line before I read the opening graph. This was definitely witty, but not necessarily knee slapping silly. I wouldn’t send it to my room mates and I think the joke only really reach anyone who doesn’t watch a ton of SNL to know who Chris Christie is.
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I thought this was pretty funny and topical, but it definitely didn’t make me laugh out loud. At this point though, I’ll take any election humor that isn’t about Trump.
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The “huh” part seemed to work well with everyone else and it also worked well with me. I think I saw Christie on Fallon last week. But other than that he really has disappeared.
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As others have said, it was solid parody, but it wasn’t really “funny”, I’d say. It requires knowledge of Christie himself and his failed running campaign, which while I had said knowledge, does somewhat isolate this piece, because nothing is ever explained. The most it elicited from me was a sort of brief exhale through the nose. That said, if you do know the situation, it’s pretty solid.
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The key element of comedy in this piece was the indifference held by those quoted and by the author toward Chris Christie. This article was intended to make a statement about both Chris Christie’s disappearance and the public’s lack of interest in that occurring. He came, he lost, he was promised a cabinet seat by Trump, he endorsed the pumpkin, and now he is hiding in shame and regret. This article described how I feel about the situation perfectly. I thought it was funny.
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Exactly. Pumpkin-endorsing can lead to a lifetime of regret. That could be a bit.
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I think that this was funny and interesting. I was expecting to see a poke or two at his endorsement of Donald Trump after dropping out of the election, but It was refreshing not to see more of the Trump name in a media platform whether it be parody or traditional news.
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