Show: The Good Place

Michael, the literal architect of the heavens, helped out a human architect on earth, by gifting him a blueprint of a new building, a dream blueprint. The human’s dream building. He tells Michael, “This is is the most amazing print I’ve ever seen. But…” he scans around, “Where are the bathrooms?” Michael goes on to explain how it was silly of him to forget that, and saying how in the world could he forget that, because “I too love and need bathrooms, and the thing you sit on, and shoot into.”


I want to stick a pin in these from time to time, to understand why I’m laughing, so I can write humor better. Here, there were two laughs for me. The first, caused by a status change: we are picturing this godly blueprint, yet, we learn, it’s missing one of the most fundamental pieces to a bathroom. The second: Michael unintentionally using linguist humor, by describing something in an unexpected yet realistic way.

My mind is trying to understand the two conflicting thoughts, and when realized they’re one and the same, they clash together, releasing the confusion into a laugh.