Attack of the What's So Funny impersonators
Dear Yahoo,
My name is Adam Cayton-Holland. Don’t remember me? That’s cool. Perhaps you know me better by the e-mail account I have with you guys that I never use anymore. It’s euromonkuin. As in a European monkuin. What’s a monkuin, you ask? It’s a cross between a monkey and a penguin; way back when I found those to be the two funniest animals in existence. But then when I went to set up an e-mail account under that name, someone already had it. I nearly shit my pants, Yahoo! So I just made it euromonkuin instead because I was living in Spain at the time. Then a monkey and a penguin murdered my father, and I didn’t find them all that funny anymore, so I pretty much abandoned that account never to return. And, yes, I did notice how you recently copied Gmail’s format wholesale, but I’m still not going back to euromonkuin, Yahoo. Those days are over for me.
Still doesn’t ring a bell? Well, how about this one: Round here, a lot of people know me as What’s So Funny? It’s the name of the humor column that I write for The A.V. Club. Some people love it, some people hate it, but everyone can agree that I’m a hipster douchebag, remarking on it at least once a week in the comments section. It’s been a long, strange run with this column, but I like to think I pretty much have a brand going here, Yahoo. Kind of like the brand you’re trying to create with your new Yahoo web show entitled, What’s So Funny?
Or did you not think I’d find out about this, Yahoo?
I’m well aware of your efforts. I know all about your little show wherein a fat guy and a sporadically attractive woman recap what was so funny on television from the night before. I decided to give your Funny a shot, Yahoo. I figured I’d tune in and we’d let the humor decide. If your show was funnier than my illmatic song-and-dance, so be it. I wouldn’t raise a stink. But then you showed a clip from The Office, and your hostess explained, for those of us who didn’t fully understand the clip we had just seen, “Everyone’s looking at him, like, ‘What are you doing, Dwight?’” And it was true! It was totally true! Everyone was looking at him, like, what are you doing, Dwight?
I may be a hipster douchebag, but I don’t think I’ve ever written a line as asinine as that. African grey parrots are more insightful. And don’t think I didn’t notice how ConAgra sponsors your entire venture and that it demands you whorishly pimp its products throughout the show, thereby tainting any substance you might have had. Like during the segment entitled “Ingredients for good comedy” (brought to us by ConAgra’s Marie Callendar’s), wherein your unfunny windbags explain what “ingredients” help make a television program funny, much in the same way that Marie Callender’s—you ready for it?—uses ingredients! Because nothing says comedy like chunky marinara in a frozen stuffed pasta medley.
So it would appear we have come to an impasse, Yahoo. You blatantly ripped off the title of my column for a show, because you know how insanely popular and widely read it is around the entire world, and you figured you could capitalize on my good name and The A.V. Club won’t pay for the lawyers for me to stop you. Stalemate. And while I realize that other people have used the phrase “What’s so funny?” before—most often when talking about peace, love, and understanding—I also understand that what you are doing is not so funny. It’s just, what? As in, the fuck.
Regardless, my hope is that you’ll do the gentlemanly thing and change the name of your program. I worked too long and too hard for you to run the good What’s So Funny? name through the muck of your web banality. In lieu of that, however, I will be happy to accept a sizable portion of your ConAgra cash. In exchange, I’ll begin listing the ingredients that go into every column.
