A retraction about the Turning the Bass up to11 post that I made

A while back I made a blog entry about the scene in the movie, "This is Spinal Tap" in which a member of a heavy metal band says that his amplifier is louder that most amplifiers because most amplifiers have a label that goes from 0 to 10 and his went to 11.

Now first of all, I had been misinformed —which character the writers were implying was right;— I thought that the writers were saying that the band member was right in thinking that —just writing a different number on an amplifier— would make it louder.  That is why I thought the joke was stupid.

The truth of the matter is that the movie's writers were saying that the band member is stupid for thinking that —the text on the amplifier's label— somehow magically affected the overall volume.  Knowing that, I do think it's a good joke, but I don't think it was executed well enough.

I think the joke would've worked better if:

• There was a backstory that the that the band used to have —a humongous amplifier that only went up to 10— and then traded that amplifier with —a smaller one that went up to 11— and there were a whole bunch of pictures to back it up including —a picture of the person who they traded the bigger amplifier to.—
• —The first and only exposition for said backstory— was in a dialogue in which —the band member— showed the aforementioned pictures to —the interviewer— and said something to the affect of, "we traded this amplifier to this sucker for this amplifier, which is clearly louder because it goes to 11."

You see I feel like the joke works better that way because —the band member— in my opinion is annoyingly blissfully ignorant, not just blissfully ignorant and I feel that —the only way to effectively parody an annoying character— is to have —his annoying characteristic— cause him to end up screwing himself over.  I don't think it works if you just present —a character's off putting characteristic(s)— to an audience; in my opinion, the character has to suffer for said annoying characteristic(s.) to be entertaining from a comedic standpoint if he's the butt of the joke.