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PHONE CALL. RING, RING ETC…

DCI JONES: Hello, is that Kate?

KATE: Speaking

JONES: Hello, Kate. It’s DCI Jones here, your family liaison officer. Look Kate, I’m going to cut straight to the chaste. We’ve had some amazing news.

KATE (EXCITED): Really.

JONES: You won’t believe it. Are you sitting down? We’ve found your Maddie. She’s alive and well.

KATE: Oh my. Oh I, I. I just can’t believe it. Where was she?

JONES: Turns out she was in the spare bedroom at the villa all along. The police were so busy checking outside they forgot to look there.

KATE: Oh my goodness. Oh thank you so much for all your work. You don’t know.

JONES: (INTERRUPTING): Kate, Kate. (STARTS CHUCKLING). Kate, I know you’re excited, but have you checked the date?

KATE: (PONDERING): The date no, why… (TWIGS). Oh (LAUGHS) Oh you utter bar… You cu… Oh, you rotter.

JONES: April Fool

I hope I never get THIS desperate to hear some stranger tell me I'm funny. A new low.

Outraged of Tonbridge Wells has spoken.

Well it's a funny joke, unfortunately the intent is so warped (e.g. mocking the suffering of a family who lost their child), that it's a bit like a nice pret sandwich on a dung heap.

You'd never get this performed anywhere (oddly enough I think alot of places would view a skit on the parents be guilty as acceptable, but not as tragic victims).

I think as I've said Maddy jokes that are about police buffoonery, media reporting, and sentimentality are ok. This just feels a bit mean,

Now Heather Mills going into hiding, so she could become the next Maddy could work.

It wasn't one I was thinking of sending anywhere!

If it's funny it's funny, if it isn't it isn't, but I hate the false sanctimony that attaches itself to comedy. Comedy is the one forum where you can say pretty much anything, the only bad comedy is the stuff which doesn't make anyone laugh. But people who are offended by something always assume their viewpoint is the right one.

Now, I'm not saying this is a particularly funny joke - it took 30 seconds to think up and write. But is it really offensive, or is it just a bit playful. Would I tell it to Kate McCann, of course not? So why should people who will never meet her get offended by it? But being offended gives the moral majority something to do.

I suppose I always view stuff in critique as in some way being commercially oriented.

Ultimately the more offensive, the harder it is for a joke to be funny. In this case the ratio is just off, it's not funny enough to justify the offence.

Monkey Dust of which I'm a great fan, did a runner on a predatory paedophile, and a man who'd murdered his daughter doing a police appeal. These were both hugely offensive, and hugely funny at the same time.

This joke could work if, it was much funnier. At the moment it's mildly amusing, and highly offensive.

your own outrage seems to run counterpoint to your thesis old bean.

My outrage?

It's my old hobby horse of intent over content,

I did think it worked and I laughed despite myself, although you must have known you'd get crucified for posting this.

Technically, I'd say you shouldn't have Kate laughing at the end, it's simply not credible.

I'd cut from: (TWIGS) Oh!

to:

April Fool!

By the way, I've met hundreds of police officers, and although they wouldn't do anything like this, they do have a very black kind of gallows humour about the kind of things the rest of society is incredibly sensitive about.

Mais non mon ami. L'outrage de le original poster.

I think he means my outrage. Not that I am in any way outraged. I'm sanguine about the whole thing.

I thought about sticking it in the April Fool thread elsewhere, but that would have given it away before you'd even started reading.

Thanks John - will tweak and send to Tilt ;-)

I don't think there's such a thing as a guilty laugh, just like there are no guilty tastes in music. We like what we like and can't help what we find funny. Best not to try avoiding it.

I worked as a journalist for years, covering murders etc... Like the police, you get a certain gallows humour. It's what happens when you're forced to live in the real world!

Now that is offensive, assuming I can only understand stuff in French

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=m1TcuijzN7Y

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=Q1n9u4LTjtI&feature=related

now thats how you do dark humour

as an aprils fool joke intriguing

It's what happens when you're forced to live in the real world!

I live in Norfolk so... fair point.

You'll love my Stephen Wright joke.

Here's a joke that also makes light of child abduction:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MJP4dr_mioA

It's absurd and it's funny, as is yours. The difference is that this joke is about no one in particular.

So my question is, if you wrote this knowing you couldn't send it anywhere because (presumably) it's a 'sick' Maddy joke, why have it be about the McCanns at all? Why not de-personalise it and have it be a 'gallows humour' gag?

PS. and the expression is, 'cut to the CHASE'