Was he using puns? Those usually only work in the native language and are very hard, if not impossible, to translate accurately.
I'm also not very familiar with german comedy. The only german comedian I know is Henning Wehn.

More like tragedy!

I'd say it must be a combination of this, and also the use of 'common places' that you don't get if you aren't German or aren't familiar with the German culture (e.g. he mentions a particular brand of mortadella with a smiling face that I guess must be rather popular in Germany). But on the other hand we've had many German speakers in this thread who didn't think this guy was particularly funny, or funny at all, so I don't know...

Now, forgive me for going slightly off-topic, but I'd like to contribute something that *I do find* extremely funny, just as a little experiment to see how much can be lost in translation (and subtitles). Here's the only video I could find with English subtitles of the (IMO) best comedian in Spain by a wide margin: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ImGfd-pNoXc

Pity that it's only 3 minutes long and it only contains one of the 'ideas' or 'concepts' that make up his shows.

That Miguel Noguera guy seems quite misanthropic...apparently he doesn't like children. But at least he's funnier than horrible Hagen Rether.

I quite liked it. Always loved observational humour and I happen to know spanish which helps (I actually found the subtitles distracting). Kinda wondering if someone who doesn't speak spanish and only had the subtitles as reference would enjoy it.

Well, I sort of did...obviously can't judge the guy's work from that short clip, but he does seem to have a talent for real life observation and creating an entertaining act out of it.

Loriot.

(And Heinz Erhard, of course and, a bit further back, some movies with Heinz Rühmann)

"German humour", as in author-who-makes-me-laugh-and-who-happens-to-be-german-so-I'll-assume-it-incarnates-the-comedic-sensitivity-of -the-whole-population-situated-within-the-germanic-state-borders-demarcations :
http://www.nichtlustig.de/main.html

It's like an out-of-control Gary Larson.

Ja! Beiherhund das Oder die Flipperwaldt gersput!

It's German humour, it's no laughing matter.

Germans; not so good with humor, but GREAT with show tunes!

Don't you know it!

Oh, nice, a thread about comedy -- let's check it out!

"Hagen Rether is a f***ing commie, he's even trivializing the horrible North Korean regime in one of his routines.
He's a prime example of the dumb left that's ruining Germany"

"Have you ever considered going on vacation in North Korea?
I'm sure many in the GOG community would give you money for that trip"

"I would say German politics and their immigrant policies are comedy, but then I'd get booed again."

*insert random pictures of Hitler here*



... noooope.