Note on organization

This article is not strictly chronological in nature, but the mediums are arranged by the date. Each one began to grow in importance as time went on. Literature appears before cartoons although newspaper cartoons in the modern sense began in the 1840s. Radio and film came out roughly at the same time. Film is covered after radio because it led more directly to the television section. Stand-up comedy began to receive renewed attention in the 1970s which is the reason why it was placed directly after television.

Cultural confusions

American humor is a description of humor from the United States that usually concerns aspects of American culture. The extent to which an individual will personally find something humorous obviously depends on a host of absolute and relative variables, including, but not limited to geographical location, culture, maturity, level of education, and context. People of different countries will therefore find different situations funny. Just as American culture has many aspects which differ from other nations , these cultural differences may be a barrier to how humor translates to other countries. That being said there is evidence that American comedies actually perform better in other English speaking, and also German speaking, nations than American action or science fiction films do.[2] Although the study linked to also shows American comedies did noticeably worse in Spanish speaking nations. Furthermore films such as Shrek 2 and Men in Black are among the top-grossing comedies outside the US

American humor

American humor is the conventions and common threads that tie together humor in the United States.

Unlike British humour, American humor has historically tended a little more towards slapstick. There is less emphasis on understatement, and so the humor tends to be a little more open; rather than satirizing the social system through exaggeration, American humor prefers more observational techniques. Further the United States, unlike Britain or most of Europe or even Japan, does not have any history of a nobility. This is actually of some significance due to British or European humor involving inherited class systems. Humor involving class systems in America does not focus on the monarchy or nobility but making fun of stereotypes based on race and social standing are common in American humor as well.

Furthermore, the United States has many diverse groups from which to draw on for humorous material. The strongest of these influences, during the 20th century at least, has been the influx of Jewish comedians and their corresponding Jewish humor, including some of the most influential: The Three Stooges The Marx Brothers, Rodney Dangerfield, Woody Allen, Jerry Seinfeld, Jon Stewart, and Lewis Black, just to name a few. Also significant is African American humor as it has some differences from Black British humor and a higher percentage of people in the United States are of African descent.