I have always thought that my sense of humor was, at least, O.K. But I’m beginning to wonder about everybody else, especially in the public prints and commercially-produced correspondence, i.e., cards of various sorts. Whole bunches of TV commercials too, fail to make it to contact my funny bone. Ditto for a lot of the programming. Too many laugh tracks. Too many smart-mouth kids. Too much talk about poop. Why is being just rude and uncouth as a steady diet of attempted humor the standard nowadays? What ever happened to wit? Even Archie Bunker (or his writers) could do zingers once-in-a-while(e.g. “Anybody who goes to see a psychiatrist ought to have his head examined.”).
I started thinking about this after reading the most recent Sunday edition of the Akron Beacon Journal (Monday is only on-line–Rats). Anyway, there were several comics that tickled my fancy(You tickle my fancy and I’ll tickle yours.) and made me chuckle, not having to think about them for too long to determine why they were supposed to be humorous. One of them, named “Rhymes with Orange”…and, of course, nothing does…showed a dog sitting in a chair facing a wall with a canine eye chart on it. And how do we know that it’s a canine eye chart, you say. Well, it features three rows of doggie derrieres of diminishing sizes and the dog being tested is saying, “Husky, Collie, Beagle…Afghan, Poodle, Pug…Yorkie, Shihtzu, Corgi.” And the Pet Optometrist standing behind says, “Your hindsight is 20/20.” That strikes me as funny…and clever; I laughed, which I don’t always do at some of the regular strips. And how do we know how dogs speak English?
Another one, “Mother Goose & Grimm” had the family dog standing at the top of the stairs looking down into darkness and saying,” It’s midnight. I really should go down and check out the basement for prowlers…(Then he thinks a bit, looks down into blackness and continues)…Maybe I’ll wait until noon when the light’s better.” Doesn’t that rate at least a chuckle?
How about Homer Simpson on the phone, “Operator ! Give me the number for 9-1-1 ! “
Way too often, I am left wondering what it is about some comic or commercial that is supposed to be funny, or even what the point is, what is the relation to the product being promoted. The one that says, “Only pay for what you need.” with the birds, particularly. What does that have to do with anything? I have been putting it down to just not being up on pop culture–movies, TV programs, music–such as it is, what’s on Facebook or Twitter, or whatever. This is surely part of the problem–and something that I’m not likely to work very hard at remedying–but some of this stuff is just plain dumb. Being dumb doesn’t keep one of these presentations from being funny, sorta, but it doesn’t help much either. The commercial featuring the Manning brothers–at least that’s who I think they are– is at least mildly humorous, so’s the “bath bomb” one with the KC QB…and what’s with the sax guy? I really like the one with the faux Martha Stewart who whacks off the top of a pineapple with a sword.
All this kinda reminds me of the summer that I worked as a server (We were just “waitresses” back then) at the Chippewa Lake amusement park–gone now, alas. Jungle Larry and wife Safari Jane used to have their animal show there and they would frequently come in for meals, especially breakfast, with one of their chimpanzees–bananas were available–sometimes a parrot. These critters were not particularly amusing–more like a pain in the neck when they threw things from off their plates (or actual people’s plates), but the kitchen crew was something else.
See, the owner, Parker Beach, had a regular bunch of women from West Virginia who used to come up to the wilds of Ohio to work in the restaurant for the summer…and likely to keep an eye on us college kid servers who were there for the summer too. These ladies knew their business in the kitchen and in the dining room. They also knew the most incredibly varied collection of “dirty jokes” ever. I used to laugh along when somebody came to a punch line, then go off to my corner of wherever and figure out just why the tale had been a joke. Took some figuring too; I wasn’t real smart about that sort of thing at the time. I have since advanced, it doesn’t take as long to get the point; sometimes it’s not as funny either. The one thing that I remember came from Wilma the Waitress–I have since learned that was not original with her, it was, “Better ‘n a poke in the eye with a sharp stick.” True, but not particularly funny, when it comes right down to it.
