When does dark and edgy humor become offensive. A lot of humor is based on breaking taboos and poking fun at serious material, but when does it cease to become daring and funny and become offensive?

I think the answer lies in two areas: one, if it gets a laugh, and two, if it deals with the material in a respectful way.

One: If a joke succeeds in getting a laugh, it's done its job. The gag successfully got us to see the humor in something serious and made us laugh.

Two: Maybe I worded this one wrong, because making fun of something is disrespectful. But I think the intention has to be good. Take for example a joke in Family Guy. Peter was making a joke about how he wasn't good at staying quiet, and there was a cutaway about Anne Frank. It was funny because he didn't exploit the situation and understood the humor in it. NOTE I AM NOT SAYING THAT THE HOLOCAUST WAS FUNNY.

I know I'm not doing a good job of explaining it, but perhaps someone else can.

I think you explained it pretty well actually, Family Guy is a pretty good example of what you're saying.

One thing I'm sure of is that it isn't enough just to say or do the most offensive thing you can think of. It takes effort and intelligence to forge humor out of something terrible.

Yep. In order for something like that to work, it has to be executed with at least some sense of irony behind it. Unfortunately, this seems to be lost on a lot of writers/performers of mainstream comedies these days.

An example that immediately sprung to mind was a scene from "Monty Python's The Meaning of Life": in the first, 'Death' segment, a narrator informs us that the man we see onscreen is about to die and has chosen his method of execution. It is soon revealed that his execution is currently being carried out by being chased by about a dozen women wearing nothing but shoes, thongs, helmets, kneepads, and elbowpads (who will eventually chase him off a cliff and will fall into his grave at the bottom). The average mainstream comedy would've stopped there and expected it to be really funny just as it was, without ever acknowledging how extraneous and sexist it also was. But the Pythons then cut to the clergyman at his funeral, which is occurring simultaneously, and he says 'For you, Arthur Jarrett, have been found guilty of the first-degree making of gratuitous, sexist jokes in a moving picture.' And suddenly we know that they're in on the joke, too.

Funny AND tasteless CAN by mutually exclusive, but few have the skill to pull it off.

I personally think it depends on each individual's sense of humor. There are things that many people find funny that others find offensive. I can't think of any specific examples offhand, but I think you get the idea.

You mean like this epic clip? I lol'd !!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4S8NmHadEko

Or this epic prank? (I laughed but don't know if it's real or not)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hn73SyKBMio

And this is the all time greatest funny vs offensive clip in the history of funny vs offensive skits...by none other than the best at it: Dave Chappelle

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

Family Guy offends me by being stupid, shallow, and broad in its attempts to be funny.

I could say the same thing about South Park.

If anything, South Park is occasionally too smart for its own good. It takes great pains to make its subject matter as esoteric and up-to-date as possible and skewer all sides of every debate, to the point where it sometimes forgets to do anything else.

The only time I can think of that South Park struck me as particularly ignorant and broad was the episode they did about Inception. I think Trey Parker admitted afterward that they hadn't seen the movie and were only going by what they'd heard, which explains it.

The first year I did the SUNY Oneonta Undergrad. Philosophy Conf. one presenter submitted a paper with the thesis that all humor is offensive in some way. I don't recall him taking this premise to it's logical conclusion that the more likely humor is going to offend, the funnier it will be. But anyways, I wanted to put that out there.
-Jeremy

There was also the episode where they pretty much bash New Jersey for Jersey Shore, but Stone and Parker were apparently ignorant of the fact that most of the people on Jersey Shore are from New York, so it was just needless and undeserved bashing.

Your point about intentions, IMO, hits on the main thing that differentiates humorous from offensive: context. The context of a comment or gag or sketch or whatever determines whether it is funny or offensive for me.

For example: One can play a blackface character of the type that was a part of minstrel shows from the early 1900's as a way to generate humor. Blackface characters are widely considered to be a racist caricature of African-American people, so right away one needs to present this in a context that makes it clear to people that it's not meant as such. How to do this? One way could be to have AA actors portraying blackface minstrel troupe members as a way to parody such shows to poke fun at how Caucasians stereotyped AA people in outlandish ways. Sometimes, getting something into the right context for it to be taken humorously is walking a very thin tightrope, therefore I think it takes someone with a keen wit to pull it off.

Exactly. South Park is a good example. Every episode has something that could offend someone but many people find it completely hilarious.

I think it has a lot to do with the spirit of the humour/joke. I actually find Jonah Hill's "humour" unfunny and a little offensive because he comes across as being so mean-spirited. Ditto for Kimmel or Letterman.

I feel the same way about Tracy Morgan, it's easy to see why people were so offended by his gay jokes, even if he didn't really mean them, he said them in such a condescending way that it came across as extremely offensive.

On the subject: Michael Richards.

He wasn't even trying to be funny, he was just being a complete asshole.

Ya but the South Park episode on this incident was fucking hilarious!!!

Wheel of Fortune: People who annoy you.

N _ G G E R S

Randy: oooohhhhhh "C'mon...everybody was thinking it right?"

here you go http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SwKO3XOuzcQ

It was pretty deserved. I spent the first 20+ years of my life in New Jersey, and I can say with plenty of knowledge that Jersey Shore is actually a halfway decent representation of North Jersey.