Anti-Climax

This page provides examples of unintentionally humorous anti-climax, collected from Marshall Brown's The Humor of Bulls and Blunders.  The extracts are reproduced for readers in countries where the book is in the public domain, which, to the best of our knowledge, includes Australia. For other countries, please check your local copyright laws.

An advertisement in a London newspaper:

If this should meet the eye of Emma D, who absented herself last Wednesday from her father's house, she is implored to return, when she will be received with undiminished affection by her almost heart-broken parents. If nothing can persuade her to listen to their joint appeal, should she be determined to bring their grey hairs with sorrow to the grave, should she never mean to revisit a home where she has passed so many happy years, it is at least expected, if she is not totally lost with all sense of propriety, that she will, without a moment's further delay, send back the key to the tea-caddy.

A description of a storm by a tourist on board a ship:

In spite of the most earnest solicitations to the contrary, in which the captain eagerly joined, I firmly persisted in remaining upon deck, although the tempest had now increased to such a frightful hurricane that it was not without great difficulty I could hold up my parasol!

Unnamed source:

The enemy is now hovering upon our borders, preparing to press the knife to our throats, to devastate our fields, to quarter themselves in our houses, and to devour our poultry

A newspaper, describing the effects of a hurricane:

It shattered mountains, tore up oaks by the roots, dismantled churches, laid villages waste, and overturned a hay-stack

A judge in passing sentence:

Prisoner, not only have you committed murder, but you have run a bayonet through the breeches of one of Her Majesty's uniforms

A Justice of the Peace:

Prisoner, a bountiful Providence has endowed you with health and strength, instead of which you go about the country stealing hens

Unnamed source:

...who murder our wives and children, plunder our dwellings, steal our sheep, and rob our potato patches

The rapturous exclamation of a Frenchman:

Superbe! Magnifique! In short, pretty well!