Cross-Cultural Humor: A Comparative Analysis of 'Love Apartment' and 'Friends'

Both China's 'Love Apartment' and America's 'Friends' are sitcoms set against the backdrop of urban men and women's lives, with similar story protagonists, living environments, and themes that reflect the cultural characteristics and connotations of China and the United States. Therefore, this paper aims to explore the similarities and differences between Chinese and American humor from the perspective of cross-cultural communication by collecting, classifying, and comparing humorous cases in the two comedies, and deeply exploring the cultural and social roots to deepen people's understanding and cognition of Chinese and American cultures, and promote cross-cultural communication and integration among different countries and races. This will enable more people to experience the joy and pleasure brought by humor, and contribute to the smooth progress of cross-cultural communication.