Why Michael Scott-humor is unique

I don't think many people realize what creates Michael's unique style of humor, on the surface, it just looks like it's another stupid character doing silly things because they're brainless fools.

But Michael is not dumb. Please note the difference between 'dumb', 'stupid' and 'ignorant'. Michael falls into the last category, but that's not enough to make it unique or funny.

We've all seen all kinds of goofballs being funny, because they're just silly, stupid, dumb, ignorant or whatnot, and end up in wacky, slapsticky situations. You can think of Mr. Bean, Jim Carrey's comedy characters and such.

Then there's intelligent wordplay-based comedy, Black Adder, Robin Williams, etc. I could go on, but let's just examine what makes Michael unique.

It's not that the character is dumb, ignorant or stupid. That's not it.

It's not that he says 'silly things' or doesn't quite understand certain phrases or idioms.

It's that he's actually right, and he IS actually being logical. He just doesn't have the surplus information needed to complete his understanding of something. His viewpoint to things is usually as a newborn visitor or someone that doesn't have any experience in living in this world.

He looks at things, forms an ACTUALLY LOGICAL conclusion about it, then forms his thought/phrase/conclusion based on that. He's often wrong, but surprisingly, he's actually RIGHT many times.

What makes it all funny is not Michael himself, in the end. It's that this world is crazy, this world is SO WRONG on so many levels, this world is full of hypocrisies and unspoken rules, unwritten traps, social conformism and norms that if you don't know them, people can react wildly.

Michael is funny exactly because he's _NOT_ that wrong, it's funny exactly because he's actually making LOGICAL conclusions in an ABSURD world, that doesn't want you to do that. It's the kind of 'skyscrapers do not scrape the sky'-logic - without knowing what this word ACTUALLY means, someone like Michael could easily think there's some actual scraping happening.

This might be 'realistically wrong', but at the same time, it IS a very logical thought to form, if you don't know any better.

Michael is INNOCENT, so he doesn't see all the murky intrique and sneaky network of lies that permeate social conduct, words, meanings and idioms in this world, he takes things at 'face value', for the lack of better term.

Through this innocent characters, the writers are able to funnily point out many of the real hypocrisies of this mad, mad world without triggering people or making them angry. If a child points out that a diver is not really 'under the water' (water is under the atmosphere, so under the water there should be rock or whatever the seabed consists of, or perhaps pool bricks or a glass bottom(, but actually 'inside of the water', no one gets angry at them. If an adult, that SHOULD KNOW BETTER, does the same, people can get very triggered indeed.

You never see Michael-style comedy, because it's so unique, it requires a keen eye and capability of viewing things from an innocent perspective, and enough intelligence and writing ability to turn something crazy that people accept as normal into a funny thing when looked from a different perspective.

In this sense, Michael is similar to the movie 'Koyaanisqatsi', as that movie also shows our normal, regular world (albeit decades ago), but from such a perspective that it's BOUND to make the viewer think how insane it all really is. (I just don't like that they include classic, great arcade games into 'insanity', they should've left video games alone!)

Michael also shows that this world actually IS insane, when you wake up from your 'social stupor' and take a step back and really look at things. Michael forces you to look at things you think are normal and everyone should know about, and makes you realize just how crazy that very thing is, or how hypocritical certain groups/attitudes can be.

For example, Michael correctly points out many femin.. oh, we're not allowed to question that crap anymore? Oh well, thank goodness for Michael.