*Barty's on his heels with all the needy sincerity of a puppy, the same keen sense of kinship and mischief allowing him to disregard tension and push the subject. It's an earnest sort of obnoxiousness, a want of affection and recognition and most of all a steadfast inability to simply let it go.*

That wasn't a joke. That was a fact. Of course lots of people joke about facts but funny-because-it's-true is just lazy comedy if you ask me.