Some things are just funny regardless of context. A few examples: birds riding dogs, dogs excitedly running over small children, really most dog gifs in general, actually. Also on the list, though: professional athletes in disguise making fools out of unwitting mortals.
The peak of that genre is probably Kyrie Irving’s series of Pepsi ads as Uncle Drew, but those always feel a bit staged. Irving is still excellent, of course, but the comedic potential for these scenarios is high, and it’d be better for everyone if more athletes got involved.
Baseball players have dabbled, of course. Here’s Kris Bryant pretending to be a junior college transfer and just mashing bombs to the amazement of his new “teammates”; a premise that likely wouldn’t work as well now that Bryant’s Q-Score is higher than ever.
Los Angeles Dodgers pitcher Kenta Maeda combined this genre with another always-funny thing: crazy Japanese television shows. Maeda put on the old man makeup and went to work on some unsuspecting local children:
Here’s the entire segment, if you’re itching to watch nearly fifteen minutes of weird Japanese television:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OdtkdnP6RD0
But the money segment is right here, as Maeda gets called in from the old folks bullpen:
https://youtu.be/OdtkdnP6RD0?t=9m47s
The best part is the kid immediately choking up Maeda threw the first pitch by him, as though that’s going to help him fend off junk balls. The second best part is that they were junk balls! The baseball equivalent of old-man game. Now, though, I’m mostly just sad that we can’t get old man Kenta to face off with Kris Bryant. I think that’s the matchup the world wants to see.
[h/t Deadspin]
