Filipinos and Humor

Filipinos have a rather distinct sense of humor. I have seen tv variety shows from Mexico and Italy, and I have noticed certain similarities. But maybe because of the hardships and sometimes seeming hopelessness of everyday life in the Philippines, Filipinos have evolved what seems to me an unapologetic, self-deprecating, and naturally politically incorrect brand of humor. Influenced primarily by Spanish culture, mixed in with Japanese slapstick (look at their anime) and Chinese gags, and brought together by the Filipino’s creative mind, this unique expression of culture can be seen in movies, television and sometimes even clothes.

There’s this one-of-a-kind store in the Philippines that sells printed shirts. The shirts themselves don’t possess any special traits, but they are of good quality. What’s special about these shirts is what’s printed on each one. “Spoofs Unlimited”, which sells the shirts, prints logos of famous and easily-recognizable brands, but modifies them so that they end up having a humorous meaning.

For example, it has spoofs of New Balance and Western Union, where the New Balance becomes No Balance and Western Union becomes Wasted Union:

Another example is a replica of the famous carmaker Hummer, but with a picture of the car missing its wheels and the name changed to Bummer:

Sometimes the spoof can be the total opposite of what the original brand stood for, like in the case of Fitness First, which became Fatness First:

Sometimes the spoof is not that close-sounding to the original, but because of the way they make the resulting logo still look like the original, it still works. This is the case for FedEx, which became FedUp:

In this group, you may also notice a few adult-oriented spoofs such as that for CSI–which is now BSI, Bed Scene Investigation, and Havaianas (a famous brand of Brazilian sandals), now Havanaisass, which when read, sounds like “have a nice ass.” Sometimes you will need to understand Tagalog to get the joke, as is the case above with Bose, now Boso, which is the Tagalog word for peeping. Same goes with Yahoo!, now Bahoo!, a variation of Baho, the Tagalog word for stinky.

Even superheroes are not spared. A spoof of Daredevil became Beerdevil, and one of my favorites, Batman, became (what else?) Fatman: