I am not a comedian or a writer, but I am a comedy watcher and a comedy reader, and I prefer a deadpan approach to comedy. I like having jokes explained to me less than anyone on this planet. In fact, I don't even like characters acknowledging jokes. There is a part of me that would like to see incredulous looks abolished from every straight man's repertoire.
But when I thought about it more, I realized that what constitutes explaining a joke is open to a surprising lot of interpretation. People will frequently find explanations in the jokes they dislike while ignoring those in the jokes that they enjoyed.
I'm going to give you two examples to demonstrate what I'm talking about. For the first, I'll draw on the works of those notorious auteurs, Aaron Seltzer and Jason Friedberg. Few filmmakers in the history of Hollywood have earned more scorn. Since a part of their signature style is introducing characters from another movie, and then saying who those characters are, they've developed a reputation for dissecting a lot of frogs.
But honestly, I'd call this one a grey area. I'm not going to say that having Iron Man appear and announce that he's Iron Man is funny, even by the vaguest definitions of the word, but I wouldn't say that its unfunniness stems from excessive explanations, either. (As a side note, Iron Man appearing but avoiding verbal introductions wouldn't be much of a funny-bone-tickler, either.) If I may dissect a predeceased frog for educational purposes: the "joke" isn't that he's Iron Man, it's that he's a familiar character from a different movie. If he said, "I am Iron Man, I am from the movie Iron Man, and this is a different movie altogether," then yes, that would be explaining the joke. But just name-dropping the title or character isn't.
At least in my opinion, but you are welcome to disagree.
Now I'm going to pick on a more popular movie: Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy. Remember the scene in Anchorman where an argument between the rival news teams escalates into a violent gang war? And remember how Ron later points out that things "escalated quickly?" And remember how this second scene has gone on to become one of the most popular in the entire movie, and no one seems to care that it's basically just an extended explanation of the previous scene?
Seriously. The fight scene was funny because it escalated quickly. But, because so many fans loved the following scene, and were too busy laughing to analyse it, they never had time (or reason) to complain that the joke was being explained to them.
And I'm not complaining about this. That's how it should go. Comedians and humorists want their audiences to enjoy their jokes. And if a scene that "shouldn't" work still does, why complain?
So, what conclusion can we come to? Well, I think that this just proves that comedy is an art, and not a science. "Don't explain the joke" does still seem like a good, solid piece of advice to me. If a joke isn't funny on its own, it's not going to grow funnier when you explain it. And, as any writer will tell you, something that's tight and lean is generally better than something with a lot of unnecessary words and scenes. Explanations tend to add padding to a joke, but nothing else.
But padding isn't poison, and a good comic scene can survive and prosper, smuggling joke-explanations by in trench-coats and sunglasses as they introduce themselves as humble lampshade-hangers. For most people, "don't explain the joke" seems to be more a matter of comic theory than practice, useful only for dismissing unwanted comedians. It's like a firearm that you keep in a box under your bed and don't think about until you need it to scare off your daughter's boyfriend.
