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No Sense of Humor - TV Tropes
Dorothy Gale:
Another one to join us on our journey! And what are you missing?
Batman:
A sense of humor.
A character with No Sense of Humor is incapable of enjoying jokes, comedy, or humor of any sort. Maybe the character is The Stoic, or an otherworldly being with no notion of comedy, a literal thinker, or the victim of a traumatizing accident — whatever it is, this person is unwilling (or unable) to respond to humor, tell jokes, or even recognize when something is funny at all.
Some characters with No Sense of Humor maintain their seriousness by sheer force of will. Others might have a conceptual understanding of humor, but simply treat it as an odd curiosity or with a clinical detachment. Oftentimes, such a character is placed in absurd situations to elicit laughs from the audience.
A common characteristic for The Stoic, The Spock, and the Grande Dame.
Arguably a Sub-Trope of No Social Skills depending on the culture. May overlap with Evil Has a Bad Sense of Humor and Sarcasm-Blind. Also see Late to the Punchline, Don't Explain the Joke and Cannot Tell a Joke. Dude, Not Funny! is a completely different trope, but in-universe, one can be confused for the other depending on the character.
Examples:
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Anime & Manga
- Almost all of the big villains in Berserk.
- Creed Diskenth of Blackcat.
- Light Yagami from Death Note lacks any sort of sense of humor. Although he does make a "joke" about wanting to trade away half his life for shinigami wings.
- Hatori Sohma from Fruits Basket.
- In Fushigi Yuugi, just try to name one of the Seiryu Seishi that had any sort of sense of humor, or even any funny moments. All of them are always dead serious and never find humor in any situation.
- Juubei Kakei from Get Backers. When he is informed of this, he is devastated, because he blames his lack of a sense of humor for the troubles suffered by his friends Kazuki and Makubex, and applies himself to telling bad jokes at every subsequent opportunity in order to make up for such an unforgivable lack.
- Haikyuu!!: Kageyama, due to being a socially awkward and literal thinker. Example?◊
- Chaos from Heaven's Lost Property is a tragic example. While seeking help, she saw a comedy scene where the protagonist says he doesn't want any angeloid. That has... consequences.
- Lithuania from Hetalia: Axis Powers. (Germany is at least a Deadpan Snarker sometimes) This does not mix well with Poland.
- Touya Akira and Touya Majin in Hikaru no Go.
- In Hoshin Engi, the ultimate Big Bad, Joka, has absolutely no sense of humor. Lampshaded by Taikobo at one point.
- Mikael from I'm Gonna Be an Angel! ...if we're not counting the last three or four episodes that is — although in those episodes it's not what one would call "a healthy sense of humor" either.
- Karakuri Circus: Unfortunately for Narumi, the only way to stop his Incurable Cough of Death is to make someone laugh, and he really sucks at it.
- Monster (1994): Lunge is laser-focused on catching Dr. Tenma at all costs — he subsequently has no time for comedy. He does lighten up a bit at the end though.
- No-nonsense badass soldier Giroro of Sgt. Frog, especially in the English dub.
- Reika in Smile PreCure! doesn't even know what the word "joke" means.
Comedy
Comic Books
- Batman himself sometimes falls under this trope, Depending on the Writer.
- Surprisingly enough, the original version of the Joker was this. In his first appearance, he was a permanently smiling psychotic gangster with no sense of humor whatsoever. In his first fight with Batman, Bats is actually the one making puns, while Joker is screaming "I am going to kill you!"
- The Joker was actually able to make Batman laugh at the end of the graphic novel The Killing Joke (even though the story as a whole wasn't funny in the least).
- Moon Knight, also Depending on the Writer. Rather apt given that he's an Expy for Batman.
- Alan Moore's Promethea features a female cop named Lucille Ball in the supporting cast. She frequently has to say, "No relation" and remind people that she has No Sense of Humor.
- Ultra Magnus in The Transformers: More than Meets the Eye takes most of the comic to start making jokes, and even then, they rarely go past being a Deadpan Snarker. A minor plot point in the Annual is that the mechanisms Magnus uses to smile have gone without use in so long that they've started to rust in place.
- X-Men: Professor X and Magneto are frequently flanderized as no-nonsense extremists. Charles does occasionally make a joke, but by and large the two tend to stick to very dry humor. James Mac Avoy's performance is the first attempt to move away from this, although one might simply assume that as he gets older, he will get more serious. Also, Ian McKellen gave Magneto a deadpan, cynical sense of humor which was expanded on by Michael Fassbender.
Comic Strips
- Barney & Clyde: Harold has the fact that he has no sense of humor as his sole character trait, as seen in the May 30, 2012 strip.
Fan Works
- Idol Hooves in The Changeling of the Guard. Having been banished from the hive by Queen Chrysalis, he travels Equestria, seeing the outside world for the first time. His first exposure to humor is met with a lot of confusion, but he eventually comes to find the concept fascinating, though he doesn't really understand Wasta's jokes.
Film — Animation
Film — Live-Action
- Howard from 10 Cloverfield Lane has absolutely no sense of humor and treats everything extremely seriously. Unlike most examples, this is very much Played for Drama as a sign of his mental instability and total lack of social skills; he often interprets any humor or sarcasm from Michelle and Emmett as insults, threats, or disrespect due to being very Literal-Minded, something that combines very badly with his Hair-Trigger Temper.
- Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania: Kang the Conqueror, unlike most MCU villains, is completely stone-cold serious, not even making a sarcastic quip, which in a World of Snark (and against a protagonist as light-hearted as Scott Lang) makes his cold-blooded villainy stand out even more.
- Blade: Trinity: Blade considers Hannibal King a constant annoyance due to King's sense of humor. In the comic books, King is a much more serious character; in fact more serious than Blade is in the comics. King's portrayal as a nonstop joke machine in the movie could be due to casting Ryan Reynolds.
- Agent Hanratty from Catch Me If You Can.
- Good Morning, Vietnam:
- From Happy-Go-Lucky, Scott the driving instructor, and Poppy's older sister Helen.
- In Highlander, The Kurgan accuses nuns of being this when they don't appreciate him waggling his tongue at them.
- In Hot Fuzz Nicholas Angel's devotion to his job above everything else has made him a first-class police officer. It's also rendered him a completely humourless, pedantic and uptight prick. When the movie starts he has just been dumped and Reassigned to Antarctica, neither of which does anything to improve his personality (which, while not entirely humorless, was already pretty damned abrasive).
- This, and attempts to develop a sense of humor, are the focus of Sha Wujing's character arc in The Lost Empire (a sort of unofficial sequel to Journey to the West.) He's eventually told that it's better to have no sense of humor than to have the sense of humor that the villains have, and he laughs for the first time at the realization that he was worried over nothing.
- The Comically Serious Agent K in Men in Black, who isn't exactly this, but does this make this very relevant quip about his cover story: Beatrice:
You here to
make fun of me, too?
K:
No ma'am, we at the FBI do not have a sense of humor we are aware of.
- Daniel's caseworker Mrs. Sellner in Mrs. Doubtfire. To elaborate on his talent for "doing voices" (as a VO actor), Daniel unleashes one of Robin Williams' trademark rapid-fire strings of comical impressions and impersonations that would have most audiences at least tittering, if not bursting into laughter. Mrs. Sellner doesn't even crack a smile:
Mrs. Sellner: ...Mr. Hillard, do you consider yourself humorous?
Daniel: I used to. There was a time when I found myself to be quite funny, but today you have certainly proven me wrong. Thank you.
- Ninotchka is a cold-hearted Russian envoy who seems unmoved by any of the jokes of her potential love interest Leon. Until he accidentally slips and falls, which makes her burst out loud.
- In No Country for Old Men, according to Carson Wells the big problem with Anton Chighurh isn't that he is batshit insane, but that he lacks a sense of humor.
- The film Rat Race features a character who tragically was born without a personality.
- Colonel O'Neil of Stargate. Used for a joke in the television series (see below).
- The various Terminators exhibit this behavior, being emotionless robots.
- Who Framed Roger Rabbit:
- Judge Doom. A very serious case, considering he's a toon.
- And Eddie Valiant, due to his brother being murdered by a toon. That toon happens to be Judge Doom. He gets better.
Literature
- In 1066 and All That, Queen Victoria "remained obdurately plural and not amused" throughout her reign despite the best efforts of her subjects to amuse her.
- All Hands! has Mrs. Cousins.
- From Animorphs, Andalites. All of them besides Ax and Arbron.
- Colonel Lieutenant after promotion Brendig in David Edding's Belgariad. Also Ortzel from the Elenium. The two never smile. Ortzel does later, albeit it looking unnatural on him. Brendig does show some humour, but since this is a work of Edding's, compared to the others, his humour is close to, if not, nil.
Ce'Nedra: Don't you ever smile?
Brendig: [perfectly straight face] I am smiling.
- Brothers of the Snake:
'A corn-doll.’ Mabuse told them, holding it up for them to see. 'A votive object, common on so many rustic and agricultural worlds.
[...]
He lifted another from the table. There was something hideous and twisted about this one, even though it was only a doll woven from straw.
'I found this... and six more like it. Khorne-dolls, if you will. I see the pun is lost on you Marines too.
- The narrator of The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time has an ambiguous disorder (the blurb says Asperger's, the book doesn't), and explains there will be no jokes in the book because he doesn't understand them. He can understand the concept of a pun, if it's explained to him, but if he tries to keep multiple meanings in his head at the same time, it's like trying to follow multiple conversations.
- Roland from The Dark Tower freely admits that his sense of humor was "shot off in some war somewhere." He gets somewhat better the more time he spends with his True Companions.
- In The Deed of Paksenarrion, gnomes are absolute Lawful Neutral with no humor, believing that only they know and follow the true laws laid down at creation by the High Lord.
- Discworld:
- Granny Weatherwax understands humor on a conceptual level, but has absolutely no sense of humor and has no understanding of how or why jokes work. Illustrated well in Witches Abroad, where she repeatedly tries to tell the "alligator sandwich" joke but always bungles the punchline with something like "And be quick about it!"Actual punchline"And make it snappy!"
- Death also has no sense of humor, being an anthropomorphic personification who doesn't understand human emotions. His brief attempts to inject humor into his work failed spectacularly.
- In Going Postal, Adora Belle Dearheart tells Moist Von Lipwig that she has no sense of humour due to her embarrassing name.
- In Making Money, the head bank clerk, Mavolio Bent, has "no sense of humour whatsoever. It has been proven by phrenology." It becomes more apparent when one considers his background as the child of a clown, being laughed out of the arena during his first performance (which failed), fleeing from the circus and vowing never to laugh again.
- Archchancellor Ridcully has a similar lack as Granny, with the result that his jokes are one of many aspects of his personality that grate on the Bursar, who also has no sense of humour, but at least understands how jokes are supposed to work. In fact, when Ridcully first appears in Moving Pictures, the Bursar (who has not yet been driven completely insane by the man) attempts a joke himself:
The Archchancellor gave him a look so old-fashioned it might have belonged to an ammonite.
"That a joke?" he said, in the suspicious tones of someone who wouldn't really understand the term "sense of humour" even if you sat down for an hour and explained it to him with diagrams.
- Dwarves are known for their sense of humour. In a way. People point them out and say "Those little buggers haven't got a sense of humour."
- Sergeant Detritus, a troll on the A-M City Watch, "treats humour as a human aberration" to be overcome by talking slowly and patiently.
- The Fools' Guild was founded by a man with no measurable sense of humor who of course prided himself on his sense of humor.
Creativity and wit were the death of funniness, as far as Pune was concerned; progress through the Guild ranks was (and is) achieved through hours of rote memorization of the seventy-three approved subclasses of pun, the listed pratfalls and the accepted jokes, which must go through a twenty-year approval process before they are passed by the Council of Fun.
- Harry Potter: Percy Weasley "wouldn't recognize a joke if it danced naked in front of him wearing Dobby's tea cozy." He does have a bit of a harshly sarcastic moment in Deathly Hallows, though, which is remarked upon with astonishment by his siblings, one of whom is tragically killed seconds later.
- In Lewis Carroll's The Hunting of the Snark, one of the notable traits of a Snark is its bad sense of humor. The third is its slowness in taking a jest
If you happen to venture on one
It will sigh like a thing that is deeply distressed
And it always looks grave at a pun.
- Kam Fong in jPod is mentally incapable of understanding humour due to being mildly autistic.
- Thomas from Malevil. He even notes that he's known for not having a sense of humor but doesn't argue the point.
- Merton Of The Movies: Merton, despite his love of movies overall, cannot understand the appeal of comedies as he does not understand the concept of humor. This works to his advantage a little bit as he can't tell when people are making jokes at his expense or being sarcastic, but he struggles in Hollywood until someone realizes he's The Comically Serious and perfect as the straight man as long as you don't tell Merton he's starring in a comedy.
- Alec Lightwood from The Mortal Instruments, possibly because he tries too hard to be the mature one of the group.
- Old Man's War: The woman in the army recruiting office doesn't respond to the narrator's attempts to make jokes. She claims that her sense of humour was surgically removed when she was a child.
- In Psy Changeling, as a result of the Silence Protocol, this is a defining trait of the Psy race.
- Don Tillman, the protagonist of The Rosie Project doesn't make or understand many jokes due to his ambiguous disorder.
- In The Screwtape Letters, the devils' inability to understand humor is played for laughs.
- From Mercedes Lackey's SERRAted Edge novels, Unseleighe psychics have absolutely No Sense of Humor, along with little comprehension of allegory and the imaginations of bricks. In one novel, they were driven insane trying to comprehend the lyrics of They Might Be Giants.
- In a series full of deadpan snarkers, Baron Vengeous from Skulduggery Pleasant has no sense of humour and an aversion to humour in general. Skulduggery's constant wisecracking is one of the things he hates about him. Interestingly though, in the second book Vengeous does crack a joke, saying "Forgive the expression but you and and what army" and at one point almost laughs at one of Skulduggery's jokes. Generally though, he's dour and humourless.
- A Song of Ice and Fire: Stannis Baratheon is perceived as this by the people of Westeros. The reality is that he has an extremely dry and subtle sense of humor which is lost on the average Westerosi who is accustomed to bawdy and/or toilet humor.
- Victarion and Aeron Greyjoy both seem to have this lack. Victarion isn't very bright and dislikes jokes because he's always worried that they'll be at his expense and he won't be able to tell. Aeron used to have a sense of humor until he found religion, at which point he lost it.
- Nico of The Spirit Thief tries to act like she has no sense of humour as part of her Emotionless Girl persona, but Eli's jokes manage to crack her up every once in a while.
- In Warrior Cats, Rainflower begins scolding Crookedjaw and Oakheart for telling friendly jokes about the queens, making a (quite) boring lecture about how the queens "enjoy helping their Clan". Crookedjaw and Oakheart just roll their eyes at this.
Live-Action TV
- Sheldon from The Big Bang Theory. He understands the concept of humor, he just doesn't get humor. When he's told that something is a joke, he forces the most fake laugh ever heard on television. And the things he does find humorous are usually beyond the scope of "mere mortals" like the remainder of the cast. Not until the end of the fourth season does he tell any jokes that get laughs (although that's partly due to Tough Room) and when he did so, he wasn't even aware he was doing it.
- Brad Chase from Boston Legal.
- Wesley on Buffy the Vampire Slayer started out this way, but later became a more rounded character as he transitioned to Angel. Angel has Illyria, justified by the fact that she's an Ancient One. In After The Fall, she finally gets one of Spike's jokes. Lampshade Hanging ensues.
- Lampshaded on Criminal Minds: Reid (falsely) calls Aaron Hotchner a narcissist as clue to where he is taken hostage. While figuring this out, Hotch asks the team what they consider his greatest folly. Spontanous answer by Prentiss: "You have no sense of humor!" Actually something of a subversion. Hotch does have a sense of humour; it's just so dry the Sahara looks like a swamp by comparison, and at this point Prentiss hasn't caught on to it yet.
- A common trait for the villains on Doctor Who. And some non-villains, like the Ood.
- Fraggle Rock: Subverted. The World's Oldest Fraggle explains to Red that they're supposed to hate the Cave Fraggles because they have no sense of humor. He says that the Cave Fraggles think the best part of getting a pie in the face is cleaning up afterward. In reality, their sense of humor is different from that of the Rock Fraggles. They tell Mokey about their sense of humor in the song "Ho Ho Ho (What a Funny World It Is)."
- Game of Thrones: Stannis Baratheon, though in reality, a lot of his lines end up becoming humorous simply because of just how immaculately deadpan he delivers basically everything.
Stannis: ...Then we ate the cats; Never liked cats, so fine. I do like dogs, good animals, loyal. But we ate them...
- Margo Leadbetter in The Good Life. She's capable of acid-tipped Deadpan Snarker moments, but when Goods and the Leadbetters get drunk together, she tearfully admits that she's never been able to understand anybody's jokes.
- From Les Guignols de l'Info, Eva Joly, a French-Norwegian ecologist and former judge.
- Teddy Lindsey in JAG:
Admiral Brovo: Don't worry, Teddy. Junior officers get thrown to the sharks first. And lieutenant Rabb is the one who's sailing into harm's way.
Commander Lindsey: Yes, sir.
Admiral Brovo: Harm's way? Lieutenant Rabb's first name is Harm.
Commander Lindsey: Oh! Oh, yes, sir.
Admiral Brovo: You need a sense of humor, Teddy, otherwise people are gonna think you're a lawyer.
Commander Lindsey: I am a lawyer, sir.
- In early episodes of Mork & Mindy, Mork identifies people making In-Universe jokes by saying "Oh, humor — Ar-Ar!" And almost as often he does that when people aren't joking.
- The Colonel in episode 8 of Monty Python's Flying Circus who stopped sketches for being "too silly":
Colonel: Now, nobody likes a good laugh more than I do... except perhaps my wife and some of her friends... oh yes and Captain Johnston. Come to think of it most people likes a good laugh more than I do.
- Sam the American Eagle from The Muppet Show.
- In one of the Muppet's "at the ball" sketches, a female dancer asked her partner, "Do you know who is the most humorless man in the world?" When he said no, she replied, "You are, Fathead!" He, of course, responded, "I don't get it."
- Major Neuheim of Private Schulz is a Pointy-Haired Boss, not to mention a Nazi, who is totally lacking in warmth and anything resembling a sense of humor. However, his humorlessness is itself a source of comedy.
- Stargate SG-1:
- Played with: Colonel O'Neill has very specifically stated that his name is spelled with two Ls on several occasions; this is because there's another Colonel Jack O'Neil in the fictional version of the USAF, one with No Sense of Humor. This is an in-joke and lampshading of the fact that Kurt Russell's version of the character in the movie (spelled with one L in the credits) was significantly less funny.
- Teal'c almost never tells a joke or laughs (unless you count his occasional plays on Earth idioms), with one exception. It turns out the Jaffa sense of humor just doesn't translate through cultures well.
- Stargate villains in general tend to be this way. Exceptions include the System Lord Ba'al and Todd the Wraith who, unlike the rest of their respective races, are Deadpan Snarkers.
- Star Trek:
- Castiel on Supernatural has a lot of difficulty appreciating human humor, particularly sarcasm, although he has slowly improved with time, once even working out a sexual innuendo on his own, albeit with some prompting. He also occasionally laughs at things only he finds amusing, such as a confusing angel joke which he insisted was "funnier in Enochian." Dean: [referring to Uriel]
You know, I'm starting to think junkless has a better sense of humor than you do.
Castiel: [utterly serious]
Uriel's the funniest angel in the garrison. Ask anyone.
Podcasts
- The John Dredge Nothing To Do With Anything Show's version of Hans Keller:
Hans Keller: Before we continue further, I must give a special mention to Radio 3's very own "Smiley Miley", who buried my car in ze sand yesterday as a so called "prank". Needless to say, I immediately contacted ze police und expect ze subsequent court proceedings to result in a custodial sentence. I bet he isn't smiling now.
Tabletop Games
- Any being with the disadvantage "No Sense of Humor" in GURPS.
- Similarly, any character with the "Morose" flaw in Ironclaw tends towards being a sullen miseryguts and reacts poorly to more lively or humorous characters. They also suffer penalties for dealing with other people because as it turns out, being a constant sad-sack doesn't make you very popular with strangers.
Video Games
Web Animation
Webcomics
Western Animation
- Lemongrab of Adventure Time. He tries, though. He really does try... but he fails horribly.
Lemongrab: Ha. Ha ha ha! HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA! Twelve years Dungeon! All of you! Dungeon! Seven years, no trial!
- Prince Zuko from Avatar: The Last Airbender. Well, he does have a sense of humor, it's just one he's really bad at using.
- Batman in Batman: The Animated Series is thought by many to have no sense of humor, but that's a false perception influenced by his extremely introverted personality. Then again, it's a good thing that he usually doesn't laugh, because Harley Quinn considers his laughter to be the creepiest thing she's ever heard.
- Adult Ben in the Ben 10 episode "Ben 10,000". He gets better though.
- At the start of the Danger Mouse episode "Planet of the Cats," DM and Penfold escape from General Rom-Mole's artillery.
Rom-Mole: Ober-lieutenant Bangum...why were you so slow mit the cannon, heim?
Bangum: It is der caterpillar tanks, mein General.
Rom-Mole: Vat is wrong mit der caterpillar tanks?
Bangum: They keep getting off to eat ze cabbages.
Rom-Mole: Oh, Bangum-poo...(fires cannon at Bangum) You're fired! Ha-ha! Dat is ein good Britisher joke, ja?
Bangum: (to us, singed) Hmph. And you wonder why we have no sense of humor.
- Agent Powers from the season two premiere of Gravity Falls claims to be "physically incapable of experiencing humor".
- The Grim Adventures of Billy & Mandy: Mandy, full stop. She never smiles, much less laugh, but is capable of snark.
- In one episode of King of the Hill, Bobby attends a comedy class taught by a pretentious professor who looks down on anything that could actually be considered funny by normal people and indoctrinates Bobby into doing bizarre modern art performances rather than actual comedy.
- Princess Luna in the My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic episode "Luna Eclipsed" is unable to comprehend the merriment of Nightmare Night until she learns to have some fun.
- Zane in Ninjago is noted in the early seasons for trying and failing to understand humor. The reason for this is that he is a Ridiculously Human Robot that normally has all of his emotions switched off, including humor. Once he switches it back on, he becomes more sillier.
- Roger Ramjet: One episode features a villain who's Evil Plan is to use a device that makes a comedian's jokes so funny it renders everyone who hears them helpless with laughter. Roger, it turns out, is immune to the effect because he lacks a sense of humor and doesn't understand any of the punchlines.
- The Simpsons: Rex Banner never laughs. When he tries to do so, in "Homer vs. the Eightheenth Amendment" (due to him finding the idea of a beer baron operating under his nose without getting caught "laughable"), he fails miserably.
- Temporarily happens to Cartman in the South Park episode "How to Eat With Your Butt". Cartman "blows a funny fuse" after a particularly hilarious prank leads to a couple with butts for faces showing up in town, and he becomes unable to laugh at anything.
- Optimus Prime in Transformers: Prime. It's stated that all Primes are like this — the Matrix of Leadership, which contains the accumulated wisdom of all past Primes, gives them a sense of responsibility, dignity and gravitas that leaves little room for goofing around. Optimus notably wasn't like this in the original series. While usually serious he was not above playing a game of basketball with his men, or cracking a joke or two, or mocking Megatron. However as the years and series went on his characterisation became more and more about being a no-nonsense messiah type figure.
- In The Venture Bros., The Monarch claims that a lab accident that turned Phantom Limb evil(er) did two things. First, it gave Phantom Limb the power to kill a man by touching him. Second, is that he "became a humorless dick."
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