Joey de Leon Strikes Again with His Own Brand of Ill Humor

He is known as one of the trio who hosted Eat Bulaga for more than 30 years now. He started as an anchorman or DJ in a musical show with the old ABS CBN (pre-Martial law era.) He became a member of the Tito, Vic and Joey group that is known for singing spoofs of famous hit songs during the time when they were still active in the recording industry.  Over the years, Joey de Leon is no stranger to controversies and headlines. The most famous headline was when he and other members of Tito Vic and Joey were accused of raping Pepsi Paloma, a bold starlet during the late eighties. 

Image from Star File

Being embroiled with that kind of scandal, it is indeed embarrassing but for Joey de Leon, he doesn’t care as he still continues to get the ire of netizens. His latest shenanigan was tweeting a joke with reference to the earthquake in Nepal. Apparently, Netizens appreciated his comedic talents but find him insensitive with his Mount Everest Joke. This is the joke that he tweeted:

Photo from Zeibiz.com

Pinoy netizens were not too happy with the tweet and asked Mr. de Leon to give respect to the victims of Nepal earthquake who died.  Joey de Leon responded to the request by saying that people did not get his tweet; he was not only joking with his tweet but was also paying respect for those who died.  However, one can say that many Pinoys were just overreacting with his tweet.  He may have a point as his tweet is categorized as a pun. 

What is a pun? 

Because a majority of Filipinos are fond of slapstick humor, they probably cannot appreciate this kind of humor which somehow and sometimes require mental analysis and a high level of knowledge and maturity to appreciate.  A pun is a joke that plays around with words and meaning. 

Joey de Leon was right when he stated that he paid respect to those who died in Nepal by playing the words “Everest in Freeze” to actually mean “rest in peace.”  He was somehow right when he tweeted back that those who cannot get his joke were “bobo” (idiots). 

On screen capture

The reaction of countless netizens is quite selective; they over reacted with de Leon’s tweet but they laugh at Vice Ganda’s antics. This could be an indication that Pinoys would prefer to humiliate the living and respect the dead if we are to analyze this latest controversy Joey de Leon got into recently. 

Did this Eat Bulaga showcase his own brand of ill humor again? The verdict is that his play with words was quite intelligent but he should have deferred telling this joke some other time when people have moved on to another tragedy so that it will no longer be offensive to many people.