I won’t bury the lede here: I don’t get them. I just don’t understand The Minions and their appeal. 

When “Despicable Me” by Illumination Entertainment hit theaters in 2010, I loved it. I thought the movie was funny and told a heartwarming story. Watching the film again as an adult, I thought it held up pretty well.

Steve Carrell, who plays the main character Gru, and the rest of the cast do a good job of juggling the emotional and the comedic. My favorite scene then and now will always be when Gru realizes how much he loves the girls and goes to rescue them from Vector.

I think I’ll always remember him saying, “I will catch you, and I will never let you go again,” to Miranda Cosgrove’s character Margo. 

The movie wasn’t anything revolutionary, but it did well enough for itself. It performed well at the box office, earning over $250 million, and generally received positive reviews. But the cultural revolution this movie triggered could not have been predicted by even Nostradamus.

The Minions require no introduction. It would be like explaining who Isaac Newton or Jesus is. These little yellow abominations, recognizable from these movies and your mom’s Facebook page, have conquered the mainstream zeitgeist like Alexander the Great. 

Most movies that average a 8/10 review score usually end up being remembered fondly, but not much else. The lucky ones become cult classics. But Despicable Me did neither, instead spawning a cultural phenomenon and a string of middling sequels. 

First off, what is their appeal? Why are The Minions so popular? I feel that any type of humor that The Minions attempt is done vastly better in countless other places.

For example, slapstick. Some say that it is the lowest form of humor, while others claim there’s nothing like it. Regardless, The Minions are not the place where I personally get my fix of physical humor. 

The grandfathers of slapstick, “The Three Stooges,” have stood the test of time. Most slapstick routines, at the very least, draw inspiration from this trio (which actually had a total of six members throughout their run time). 

The Stooges are another group that needs no introduction. Their cartoonish reactions to moments like getting hit with a giant rubber mallet live on in our collective subconscious, whether we want them to or not. 

But to be fair to The Minions, they are animated. Animated slapstick is much different than live-action slapstick, so it would be fair to say that the comparison doesn’t work as well as I would hope. 

Unfortunately for these yellow stains, shows like “Looney Tunes” have been outdoing The Minions since 1936. 

Who could forget “Rabbit Season,” one of the most iconic gags from any piece of media in the last century? In fact, the Looney Tunes and their lasting legacy propose a more interesting question for The Minions: where will they be in 100 years? 

Comparatively, I don’t feel like the yellow army has an “iconic” scene or gag. Will The Minions leave the same lasting legacy? Will we inevitably end up with a sitcom about Minions living the suburban life in 2097? Only time will tell. 

Anyway, beyond the slapstick, what is the actual joke with these guys? They have a very limited vocabulary (save “banana,” for some reason) and they fart a lot. They fart on each other and they fire a fart gun. 

In the interest of total transparency, toilet humor has never appealed to me. I’ve always found it gross as opposed to genuinely funny. So I think it’s fair for me to concede that there is, at the very least, an aspect of these guys that was doomed from the start in my view. 

But “banana?” What is the joke? It was kind of funny the first time it happened in the original movie, but Illumination ran with it. Their lexicons are generally limited to gibberish and that single word.

I repeat, what is the joke? Where is the humor here? The last time a Minion saying “banana” was funny to me was when “Family Guy” made a euphemistic joke. And honestly, that joke wasn’t even that funny. I just wanted the “banana” punchline to be subverted. 

Maybe I’d like The Minions better if they were a species of Pokémon. That would at least explain their predictable behaviors and small vocabularies. 

These guys are everywhere, and I can’t get away from them no matter how hard I try. They’re on toys, video games, clothes, kitchenware and who knows what else?

Ultimately, if someone enjoys The Minions, more power to them. As I’ve said a hundred times before and will say again, art is subjective. But I do not understand how they got so big, and I really don’t get what their appeal is. 

Tolbert can be contacted at [email protected]. He will be upset if you send him minion memes.