When trying to be funny, on line or in the really real world, you have to remember one thing: Some jokes are just funny to you.

Of course this holds true with a lot of things. Like Horror for instance. Some people are scared of spiders, some aren’t. Some are willing to believe in ghosts for a span, some won’t. You can’t make people feel the terror, you can only try.

Thing is, with Horror, there’s always going to be the other option. That it’s funny when it should be scary. That happens. You might not want it to happen, but it does happen.

Humor doesn’t have that fall back.

Bad humor kills. It even angers.

I have seen many a Comedies I didn’t get. Like Napoleon Dynamite. Well, fair’s fair, I haven’t watched the film, so I’m not speaking out of experience. But what little I’ve seen doesn’t encourage me to see more. I know people who love the film. Maybe I’m missing out.

I don’t think so.

Of late, though, more and more Comedies have been leaving me… irritated.

Family Guy, for instance. Once upon a time, I could watch full episodes of the series and enjoy it. Over time, however, I’ve gotten to the point where if every single main character in the show died of cancer, on fire, covered with bees, with sharp things jabbing under their fingernails I could get behind it. If there are decent characters on the show, they’re few and far between.

Thus I don’t watch the show.

But. I can still see how some people might like it.

I’ve watched small bits of certain episodes and said, “Hey! That’s funny. Be funnier if they all exploded in a ball of green flame, GREEN FLAME! Still, ha ha.”

I understand Family Guy‘s exisitance.

I don’t understand Velma‘s existence. At all.

This is a brand new cartoon that came out this year. Allegedly the “true story” behind the classic Scooby Doo series. Only everybody, and I mean EVERYBODY is to one degree or another a hateful, soul crushing monster.

Again, in fairness, I’ve not sat through a full episode. There may be some bon mot or sight gag I haven’t seen that’s simply hilarious.

What I have seen from clips makes me doubt it.

The main character, Velma, is Evil with a capital E. She is a narcissist who hurts everyone around her. The viewer’s supposed to root for her. Laugh at her antics, nod at every truth bomb she lays out, whether it’s a jab at white people or a stab at men, or whatever is the focus of her ire at the moment. And there seems to be a hell of a lot of ire.

None of these people are even remotely like the characters they’re stealing from.

Remember what I wished on the characters of Family Guy? Well that’s too good for the characters of Velma. They need to be…

Excuse me for a second.

Here it is.

“Hanging’s too good for ’em. Burning’s too good for ’em! They should be torn into little bitsy pieces and buried alive!”

Heavy Metal. Kinda

I’ll bet that the writers simply loved every word they wrote. Thought they had a modern classic on their hands. Trouble is that they were writing stuff only they found funny. And it shows. On Rotten Tomato Velma has a below 50% score with the critics, and around 6% with regular people.

That’s an epic failure right there.