Buffy The Vampire Slayer

Unexpected Comedy: 5 Funniest Buffy Episodes

Buffydvd We live in a golden age of comedy. Every aspect of the culture—print, internet, film and television, seems saturated with the funny, or at least attempted comedy. Sounds good, of course, but it doesn’t always work out. If everything’s funny (or supposed to be) the shock’s gone and the jokes are no longer jokes. In the immortal words of Ben Katz, the secret of comedy is "location, location, location." I laugh harder and longer when the comedy is in an unexpected context, or surrounded by something entirely unfunny. I’m talking real comedy, not the nervous laughter produced when someone gets a fork in the eye or an idiot gets humiliated. It’s what happens when a nervous 7th-grader thinks he has to spell "numbnuts" on national television. Location, location, location.

To me, the ability to make comedy of scenarios and situations that others would treat with po-faced seriousness is the ultimate achievement. By the way, according to Merriam-Webster’s, the word po-faced is derived "perhaps from po chamber pot, toilet, from French pot pot." And that’s what I’m trying to do in this column: defeat the toilet-faces of the world. So, without further adieu, the first installment...

The Five Funniest Buffy, The Vampire Slayer Episodes

I came late to Buffy, and I’ll admit that I never saw an episode of its original run on the WB and UPN. I had no resistance, but no real attraction either. My wife’s collection of DVD’s and her own fanaticism convinced me to give the show a serious try. It’s hard to imagine a better example of the seamless intermingling of comic conceits, absurdist story lines and witty one-liners with compelling drama and character development. Plus, demons! Joss Whedon and his writers don’t so much write jokes as invent language and motifs that are highly recognizable (even when totally phantasmagoric) yet completely fresh and original. If you’ve never seen Buffy, ignore the existence of the awful movie and put aside your prejudice about funny, horny and occasionally undead teenagers (and why exactly are you so damned prejudiced anyway?) and start with these five episodes, the funniest and probably also the greatest, according to me.

The Zeppo (Season 3, Episode 13):

Looking at it now, Xander was the quintessential 90’s guy, though not necessarily the archetype. That distinction would belong to his almost namesake, Chandler Bing. Jokey, self-deprecating, sensitive, awkward, bad-childhood, defensive and only a fully-formed adult after grueling, protracted second adolescence. Throughout the series, Xander rebelled verbally against his comic foil status—declaring that he was not going to be Dracula’s "butt-monkey" and that he was sick of getting the "funny syphilis"—but in The Zeppo he stumbles into transcendence, conjuring up his true self years before he’s ready to become that guy permanently. Xander scores a cool car, is tormented by un-dead greasers, loses his virginity to Faith and finally proves he’s capable of something more than simple courage. The comedy is not incidental as it often is in Buffy. "The Zeppo" is possibly the best illustration of Buffy’s greatness—apocalyptic panic mixed with teen comedy. Yet, many fans were baffled by the episode’s "meta" choice to focus on Xander’s attempts at becoming cool while Buffy, Giles and the rest of crew are fighting a apocalypse craving baddie trying to open up the hell-mouth. It’s about Xander, of course, but it’s about the show itself. All of the furrowed brows and whispered warnings about the Hellmouth are pompous hot-air without the wisecracks. Xander isn’t Zeppo Marx. He’s Groucho.

Beer Bad (Season 4, Episode 5):

Slayer spurned by player. Even the strongest among us can moon over a pretty face and rebound into the arms of apparently genius frat boys (including Kal Penn) bearing pitchers of beer. Beer—nice, foamy, comforting. Until it turns you into a cave-slayer, along with your newly minted cavemen friends. It would be easy to have made Buffy into nothing but a model of female strength—a robotic, humorless, perfect fighting machine. Joss Whedon knew that’s a narrative dead end, as boring as it is ludicrous. No one doubts a girl can save the world, but this guy Parker was so damn yummy. I mean come on. It’s also easy to miss, or at least forget, how incredible Sarah Michelle Gellar is in the role. If she played it a shade dumber, as Kristi Swanson did in the movie, it’s just a stupid joke. If she’s less vulnerable, or funny, or relatable, she’s just a male action hero sans testicles. She’ s a girl and without her we’d all be eaten by baddies.

The moral of the episode is summed up nicely in this bit of dialogue between Xander and Buffy:

"Is there a lesson to all this? What did we learn about beer?"

"Foamy!"

"Good, as long as that’s clear."

Beer foamy, guys bad. Take that, with your Nietzsche and your Wittgenstein.

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