A Sample

The Song of the Seasons

We are waiting for nuclear winter
Once greenhouse-gas summer is through.
Our pesticide spring
Will kill ev'rything
Except for me and you.
In the autumn the leaves will all fall down
And most of the people will, too.
Oh, we're waiting for nuclear winter;
There'll be a new world before it's all through
.—LJC

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THE UNIVERSAL KEY TO HOW ALL JOKES WORK (OR: CHUANG TZU GIVES US THE FINGER AND CHANGES OUR HORSE IN MID-STREAM)

"Instead of using a finger to demonstrate how a finger is no-finger, use no-finger to demonstrate how a finger is no-finger. Instead of using a horse to demonstrate how a horse is no-horse, use no-horse to show how a horse is no-horse. All heaven and earth is one finger, and the ten thousand things are all one horse." --Chuang Tzu, The Inner Chapters (translated by David Hinton).
--Robert G. Margolis

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Did you hear about the court jester and his fiancee who were killed because of their religous beliefs? It's terrible, but you know what they say: "A fool and his honey are soon martyred."
--LJC

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"Cell phones were everywhere."
--Sheldon Reber

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The Trouble With Topical Humor

We've just been watching disk four of the "Looney Tunes Golden Collection, Volume Two," which is a miscellany of cartoons called "Looney Tune All Stars: On Stage and Screen." Three of the cartoons, all directed by Bob Clampett I think, show the limitations of topical humor. Two were set in libraries, the conceit being that the titles of the various books (although he cheated and used titles from plays, movies, magazines, and radio shows as well; his allegiance was to the joke rather than the conceit) come to life after some point in the evening. The third was set in Ciro's nightclub, and showed a gathering of Hollywood's then elite.

As I sat there with my six-year-old son watching these, I wondered what meaning he could be taking from any of the three. "A Corny Concerto" also worked in various and sundry figures associated with Swing, such as Benny Goodman, Gene Krupa, and Frank Sinatra. I doubt that Sam put the image of Harry James together with the person he's seen a couple of times in an episode of "The Lucy-Desi Comedy Hour." If he did, he hid it pretty well.

"Have You Got Any Castles" started with a caricature of Alexander Woolcott stepping from a publication called "The Town Crier" to perform that function. Since I'm probably the only person in the metro area under 80 who got that reference, I wasn't really surprised when Sam thought that it was a caricature of Wayne Knight, famous to him as Officer Don Orville on "Third Rock from the Sun.

"I really should have narrated "Hollywood Steps Out," and at time I did. He asked me whether a caricature of Clark Gable was Groucho. In fact, the only ones he recognized were Groucho, Harpo, and The Three Stooges. (I'm an involved parent.) Ann Sheridan, Sally Rand, and Dorothy Lamour were lost on him. (Give him a break. He's six. The dedicated ogling of girls is still a few years away.)

And this is the limitation of topical humor: It dies sometime later that week when the next story comes along. This is why I attempt (and usually fail) to find the themes under the headlines. Just a thought.
--LJC