Response to Lead Blog Post #1

When talking about humor, countless people bring up The Office as a prime example. Having only seen one or two episodes myself, I do not completely understand why it is so popular. However, as my friends and other acquaintances have seen it and attempted to explain the humor, I have begun to understand why exactly The Office is so popular. Some of the main characters such as Michael Scott and Dwight Schrute provide instances for comedic relief. Dwight embodies the comedic theory of superiority humor, as he believes himself better than the rest of his coworkers and pulls shenanigans to prove his superiority, which instead backfires and provides comedic relief to the viewers. One instance that I have actually seen was when their company was learning how to perform CPR in case of an emergency. Michael was making a fool of himself which I will talk about later, but once the rest of the coworkers got off track, Dwight stepped in to show everyone, including the instructor what to do. He then started talking about how since he was dead they would need to harvest organs, proceeds to pull out a knife from his pocket, and then starts cutting into the dummy. The rest of the workforce was shocked, and even more so when Dwight turns around with the face of the dummy on his face. Everyone in the room was so shocked it was comical. Michael, before this happened, continued to question the dummy's quality of life, since the dummy had no arms and legs. He then related it to one of the coworkers, saying that is basically how he lives. He then starts singing "Staying Alive," and some of the other coworkers start dancing, therefore distracting everyone from the task at hand. While Michael attempts superiority humor, in my opinion, he is the perfect embodiment of relief humor. It is instances like this and many others which I have yet to see that prove The Office as a comedic masterpiece.