ABSTRACT
Despite the grim contents of crime drama series, their popular appeal is often based not only on suspenseful and thrilling plot lines but also on the strategic occurrence of verbal humor with the typical functions of satirical mockery or comic relief. The present chapter examines the jocular potential of the first 13 episodes of each of the highly acclaimed U.S.-American TV series Dexter, Breaking Bad, and House of Cards. It adopts a cognitive-linguistic approach to humor, employing Blending Theory (BT), the Semantic Script Theory of Humor (SSTH), and the General Theory of Verbal Humor (GTVH). According to the fundamental principle of incongruity, humor in fictional dialogs can be triggered at the levels of individual lexemes, conversational sequences, or participation frameworks, including the distinction between the inter-character and the producer-recipient planes. A qualitative and exemplary investigation of key scenes underscores the tremendous relevance of humor in televisual pop culture entertainment.
