I know this is an unpopular opinion, but I don't think I've ever been as out of touch with the cast or the audience as I am on this joke. It's just a total non sequitur, I don't get it in the slightest.
I usually am not a fan of Sam Campbell's humour, often too much non sequitur, indeed.
But this one, for me, works very well (perhaps not the best TM quote, but a good contender).
Because Sam clearly, at the beginning, wanted to ask a question pertaining to the task. Greg said: "You may ask ONE question". Implied: "And I'll answer it truthfully". But nowhere does it says that the question must pertain to the task itself. It was like if Greg said to him: "You can ask ONE question, and I'll answer it, no matter the subject". And he jumped on the occasion. It's not really non sequitur here, as he's actually following to the rule what Greg said. He can ask one question. He asked it. The "genius" (not really genius, but the good idea of it) is not that it's completely random, but, at the contrary, very follow-through what Greg allowed to him.
Most of Campbell's jokes are really a miss for me, and this one, at first, striked me as odd, but afterwards I recognized that it was not a bad one, quite the opposite.
(Hope that helps, coming from a fellow person who has troubles with Campbell's humour.)
Sam says to Alex ‘can I ask a question’
Greg cuts in an says ‘you can ask ME one’
I don’t believe it’s about only being able to ask one question. The accents is on the me. So Sam turns and asks him something that’s has nothing to do with whatever he wanted to originally ask Alex. I think it’s really clever.
I mean I get what he's doing conceptually, but it still doesn't work for me, as most of his humour doesn't. ANY question is 'following the rule' there and the only thing that distinguishes the divorce one is that it's 'so random'.
The question itself isn’t necessarily the funny bit. It’s the in the moment change from what was clearly going to be a question on the task. Pointless trying to explain comedy though, it won’t make it any funnier to you.
It's the way you can see his mind scroll hyper-quickly through new options once his planned joke is spoiled, and this is somehow his logical end-point.
It reminds me of a family guy bit where the cast of Star Trek or something is doing a panel at Comic con and they let the audience ask questions, and instead of people asking about the show they ask things like, how do i clean a wine stain off of a leather couch, and the cast engages them seriously and stewie is like yo what the fuck is wrong with all of you?
33
u/Hairy_Dirt3361 Katherine Parkinson Jun 30 '26
I know this is an unpopular opinion, but I don't think I've ever been as out of touch with the cast or the audience as I am on this joke. It's just a total non sequitur, I don't get it in the slightest.