You will laugh now

Herald Sun ^ | 24JUN05 | N/A

[QwertyKPH]

24jun05

GERMANY has opened its first laughter school in Berlin to teach serious Germans to lighten up.

Standing around in small groups, Germans are seen slapping themselves on the forehead with their mouths open and practising different laughter. Laughter teacher Susanne Maier said: "I am hoping to see laughter schools opening up everywhere.

"Germany will become a land of laughter -- and Berlin the laughter capital of Europe."

[QwertyKPH]

[Frank_Discussion]

SSSSPPRROKKETT!!!

[XEHRpa]

Excellent article title (when said with German accent).

[Abathar]

A can of nitrous oxide and a few ballons will work just as well...

[Old Sarge]

Laughter Nazis?

[pollyannaish]

Get out! LOL.

[LurkedLongEnough]

They have a single classroom visual aid: a portrait of Jacques Chirac.

[wimpycat]

Ve vil learn to laugh in ze proper vay, ja! Because ve are Germans, and ve do everything vit precision und method. Humor is serious business, like machinery und optics!

[KarlInOhio]

Those Germans just need some people around them to suffer some schaden so they can express their freude

[A Balrog of Morgoth]

I am happy like a little girl.

[Bringbackthedraft]

Ja das ist funny, ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho!

[Textide]

WTF? People don't laugh for a reason. It's in a person's nature whether they laugh/giggle/smile or find something funny. How can that be taught?

The prospect of a calculated response, "I should be laughing now, so I will laugh" is pretty damned scary.

[silent_jonny]

Now is the time on Sprockets when we LAUGH!

HA!

HA!

HA!

HA!

HA!

Silence! I grow weary of your mirth and mayhem. Would you like to touch my monkey?

[wimpycat]

Na, they've just never, ever, ever properly learned how to tickle their own funny bones.

Angst is a German word. They're afflicted with angst.

[Grim]

Those Wacky Germans

Patient: Doctor, please help me. I don't know what to do. I talk in my sleep.
Doctor: That's not so bad. You don't need to despair. Does your talking bother your sleeping wife?
Patient: No, but in the office the Jews laugh at me.
Doctor: Heil Hitler!

No wonder they need help.

[Cyber Ninja]

Vee havve vays off makking you laughff.

CB^))

[ElkGroveDan]

Next they'll open the ministry of silly walks.

[Grim]

"Springtime for Hitler and Germany... Goose-step's the new step today!"

[Textide]

Na, they've just never, ever, ever properly learned how to tickle their own funny bones.

Not to take this too seriously, but that's what I was getting at. Germans are notoriously humorless.

I picture a group of 50 Germans seated in a classroom in five rows of ten being taught in unison the proper techniques and timing of the full-bellied laugh, the mouth-covered giggle, the uncontrolled guffaw, the evil chortle, etc...

[Bloody Sam Roberts]

Laughter Nazis?

Voice Over:
This man is Ernest Scribbler... writer of jokes.
In a few moments, he will have written the funniest joke in the world... and, as a consequence, he will die... laughing.

Ernest stops writing, pauses to look at what he has written... a smile slowly spreads across his face, turning very, very slowly to uncontrolled hysterical laughter... he staggers to his feet and reels across room helpless with mounting mirth and eventually collapses and dies on the floor.

Voice Over:
It was obvious that this joke was lethal...
no one could read it and live...

.

.

.

.

Commanding NCO:
Tell the... joke.

Joke Brigade:
(together)
Wenn ist das Nunstruck git und Slotermeyer? Ja!...
Beiherhund das Oder die Flipperwaldt gersput!

Pan out of the British trench across war-torn landscape and come to rest where presumably the German trench is. There is a pause and then a group of Germans rear up in hysterics.

Voice Over:
It was a fantastic success. Over sixty thousand times as powerful as Britain's great pre-war joke...