Eating poop isn't funny unless there's a funny set up for it. Remember the Austin Powers coffee joke? Austin mistakenly picks up a rather watery stool sample and pours it in his coffee cup, and after adding sugar exclaims "this coffee smells like s--t," to which Basil Exposition responds "it is s--t" since he has seen the mix-up Austin has made (the coffee pot is next to the stool sample). The humour of the joke comes when Austin drinks it anyway (stating "it's a bit nutty") because, after all, we're all used to s--t coffee, especially at the office. Austin doesn't interpret Basil's comment as literal, and goes through with a disgusting act, so we laugh. Now, Austin Powers, especially the second film, may not be the best example, because there are a fair amount of shock-for-the-sake-of-shock scenes in it, but that is one scene that while gross, got it right. Compare it to Stewie basically demanding that Brian eat his poop in Brian And Stewie. It's not funny, it's just there to elicit a response. Stephen King once said that when it comes to writing horror, "I recognize terror as the finest emotion and so I will try to terrorize the reader. But if I find that I cannot terrify, I will try to horrify, and if I find that I cannot horrify, I'll go for the gross-out." What works for horror, however, doesn't work for comedy. Don't try to gross us out. Brian doesn't need Herpes. He doesn't need to give them to Stewie. Go back to jokes that are clever.
Primarily covering the sport of MMA from Ontario, Canada, Jay Anderson has been writing for various publications covering sports, technology, and pop culture since 2001. Jay holds an Honours Bachelor of Arts degree in English from the University of Guelph, and a Certificate in Leadership Skills from Humber College.
