Greek comedy is weird, though I was surprised at how much I enjoyed these, even to the point of laughing out loud a few times.

I have loved these Ancient works since I was a young adult, maybe fifteen or so. They had stood the test of time, and are in places, incredibly funny. Imagine a veiled-in-black, Greek Chorus, looking severe, making frog noises! I loved it. Always have.

Unstoppably funny. The Clouds is an old favorite and the Frogs a more recent discovery but Aristophanes is definitely my sense of humor; certainly, I find him much funnier than Menander, who is more a chore than anything else for me. How could I forget Lysistrata?!

This edition, in particular, is dear to me. I think that translation is especially good and, since first being exposed to it in college, I've met one of the still-living translators, Douglass Parker. Parker is as funny as you would expect.

kinda cringe

I saw a group (a home theatre group?) perform the Frogs in a back garden one summer. It was really funny.
I've seem Lysistrata as well, that was damn good too.

I like Aristophanes. So many levels in his plays, right from toilet and sexual humour, all the way up to satire and social comment.... good stuff.

Four Plays by Aristophanes / 0-452-00717-8

This edition features wonderful translations of "The Clouds", "The Birds", "Lysistrata", and "The Frogs". The humor and satire is well-managed within the translation, particularly within (my favorite) "Lysistrata". The bantering dialogue within the play is hilarious from the exhortations of the women to their fellow sisters to abstain from sex with their men (regardless of their own strong, womanly desires) to the tongue-in-cheek dialogue between a teasing wife and her impatient husband, to the final division of land to be 'presented' in the form of a nude lady acting as a visual aid.

The four plays are described in this edition as follows:

THE CLOUDS: The most controversial of Aristophanes' plays, it is a brilliant caricature of the philosopher Socrates, seen as a wily sophist who teaches men to cheat through cunning argument.

THE BIRDS: This portrayal of a flawed utopia called Cloudcuckooland is an enchanting escape into the world of free-flying fantasy that explores the eternal dilemmas of man on earth.

LYSISTRATA: In the twenty-first year of the Peloponnesian War, the women of Athens and Sparta, tired of the incessant fighting between their men, resolve to withhold sex from their husbands until peace is settled.

THE FROGS: Visiting the underworld, the god Dionysus seeks the counsel of the dead tragedians Aeschylus and Euripides on how to bring good writing back to Athens. A fierce debate - full of scathing insults and literary satire - ensues between the two dramatists.

~ Ana Mardoll

Out of the four plays contained here, I liked Lysistrata the best. I might read other translations of that particular play too. The Clouds was meh, and The Birds was actually not as bad as I thought from reading the description of it. But The Frogs was lost to me, probably because it's mainly about the technical styles of Euripides and Aeschylus—both of whom I read, like YEARS ago.

I have the two-volume edition, which for some reason isn't on Goodreads. But Arrowsmith's collection is excellent, although you would need another translation to read along with it. One of these days ...

I've never been a fan of broad comedy and low humor and Aristophanes doesn't get a pass from me because he's ancient. But for many years one of the assignments in my AP Lit class was for groups to choose a play from Aristophanes and the three extant tragic playwrights. Usually, the group that chose Aristophanes would do Lysistrata and those groups always had a great time with it. They especially loved that one of the props were the huge phalluses that the men wore. One year the group brought out a big zucchini and put a condom on it. I quipped at that point, "Wait a minute, the Greeks fought the Trojans, they didn't wear them." And I thought to myself, well, you don't ALWAYS think of the right thing to say only later.

I'm not sure I liked this translation very much. The translator took some very interesting liberties with the language, including giving the Spartans a markedly southern hick sort of drawl, and modernizing the language to the point of losing a sense that you're reading a Greek play written hundreds of years ago.
BUT, I loved how that worked with Lysistrata. It's a beautifully funny play to begin with, and the modern touches added an interesting element.
It's particularly relevant to me as I've been reading about the accomplishments of a woman named Leymah Gbowee and the movement she started in Liberia which brought about an end to revolution and the installation of the first female leader that country had seen, following almost the exact same premise as Lysistrata. If you're not familiar with it, look up a documentary called Pray The Devil Back to Hell. It's beautiful, and funny, and incredibly heartwarming.

Lysistrata is my favorite and probably the most well known of these. Greece is at war, and the women make a pact to deny sex until the men are forced to capitulate. Bawdy, topsy-turvy, and fun.

Clouds was also pretty great -- a not-so-generous take on philosophers and education.

I didn't enjoy this too much. It's rather tedious.