I’ve seen this clip a hundred times and it still gets a laugh from me. I’ve always been a big fan of British humor (Monty Python, Fawlty Towers, Eddie Izzard, Rowan Atkinson, Fry & Laurie), much more so than American humor, but I don’t really know why? It’s not that much more clever or witty or ironic than most of the American stuff, and yet it’s got that certain something, the equivalent in cooking of “umami”. Examples:

“Do you own a pocket calculator?”

“No, I’ve always known how many pockets I’ve got.”

–

“Last year I contracted an extremely rare tropical disease.”

“Something like the chikungunya virus?”

“No… frostbite.”

What’s the difference between American and British humor? Can it be explained?