Sometimes to celebrate comedy, you have to kill it.
Nothing defeats the purpose of humor like examining why something is funny.
Funny is just funny and it wouldnt be funny if you had to explain it.
Having said that: some comedies deserve to be examined.
Veepis one of those comedies.
Its astonishing how quickly and effortlessly the jokes come inVeep.
The White House is the perfect atmosphere for Iannuccis styling and his casts talents.
Then I divided that by total number of minutes in an episode.
TV sabermetrics are pretty easy.
As for what constitutes a joke?
Thankfully, the vast majority ofVeepshumor is dialogue-based.
For the most part, spoken lines are easy to keep track of as jokes.
And since a lot of the dialogue is insult-based, the characters are aware theyre being funny.
And then there are the jokes that seem uncategorizable but are too funny to be ignored.
The vast majority of these usually involve Garys facial expressions or uncomfortable laughs.
Below are the final statistics, along with some commentary for each episode.
To which Kent responds curtly Nine.
Its not necessarily Whos On First?
Kent Davison (Gary Cole)
Not three minutes into the episode, Selina says Middle-East?
Thats the lowest accepted humor that can be counted towards this episodes JPM.
A pretty excellent conceptual joke is the fact that Catherine Meyers popularity index is so low.
And it has the added benefit of leading to so many great jokes on top of it.
This show is so great at taking one funny concept and building upon it.
Kent is this episodes big winner with jokes like Catherine, America doesnt like you.
Dan Egan (Reid Scott)
Data features the second highest JPM of the season.
Does that mean its necessarily the second funniest?
An argument could certainly be made.
I think some guy fucked a monkey.
It burns your hand even through the corrugated sleeve as he passes a coffee to Jonah.
If we broke down JPM per character, Jonah and Richard would likely be in the leaderboard early on.
Then, Gary and Mikes increasingly frantic reactions also count as jokes of their own.
Thats not even to mention the jokes that get generated from other characters regarding Gary and Mikes plight.
Man up, Gary.
Or at least lady down a bit, and Wonderful.
Black Hawk Down with Laurel and Hardy are both great.
And that goes double for fondling Jonah!
Its counted as one joke, but is technically one joke that is 20 minutes long.
A number of tall women were molested and Mr. Ryan was one of them.
Jonah, in general is just on fire in this episode.
You know what you do with lame animals?
Jonah
Care for them.- Richard
You shoot them dead.
Gary Walsh (Tony Hale).
Gary, every room youre in is a panic room.
like dont make me go to work today.
Hey Sue, get Mike to draft a statement.
Hes got a thoughts and prayers template.
Mike, youre a spokesman, youre not supposed to say anything.
Your face kind of looks like a sad egg.
Dan Egan (Reid Scott).
Oh, I got out of there like I had a fucking map.
Its like something from a political cartoon.
is a clear favorite.
Lee Patterson (Jessie Ennis)
Weve previously discussed howVeepis at its best when its talking amongst itself.
Head over to the Urban Dictionary or watchClerksfor more information.
We sure did, and here they all are: J-rock, Jizzy Galespie.
Jack and the Giant Jack-off.
What can we conclude for this raw data?
Little as to my knowledge nobody actually calculates jokes per minutes for TV comedies because thats insane.
Season JPM:4.28
Highest JPM Episode:Testimony (4.92)
Lowest JPM Episode:East Wing (3.81)
