Now For Something Completely Different.

“Waldorf: That seemed like something very different.
Statler: Did you like it?
Waldorf: No.
Statler: Then it wasn't different.”

Where did we get our senses of humor, anyway? I don’t know why one person falls out of their chair laughing over a hairy penis joke, and the person next to them merely quirks a brow and sips their Rosso della Congiura.

E. B. White said it best:
“Humor can be dissected as a frog can, but the thing dies in the process and the innards are discouraging to any but the pure scientific mind.”

So, even trying is pointless.

(long pause)

Why am I here, again?

Well, I thought reminiscing over what I grew up laughing at would be fun, and heck, maybe even illuminating. But not in a dead frog kind of way.

First sits the king of all Saturday morning cartoon fests, The Bugs Bunny /Road Runner Comedy Show. Ninety minutes of sheer golden perfection, loaded with cartoon violence so sublime I’d levitate from the potent combination of belly laughs and cocoa puffs. The tragedy of censorship found the Looney Tunes, however, and the wacky abandon of the old days was lost in the face of a more political correctness. No longer would an impressionable child witness medieval Yosemite Sam’s incineration by his galoot of a dragon, or the transcendent thwang of that anvil once again pounding Wile E Coyote into the rocky desert. And what a loss. Cartoon violence is without boundaries, reckless, ignorant of the laws of physics. It's freedom of spirit defined.

Bugs Bunny wasn’t just about violence, though. He championed the ideal of brains and courage beating out simple brawn any day, and of doing it with panache. He wouldn’t just mock Elmer Fudd from afar, safe in his burrow. He leaned on the barrel of Elmer’s rifle, he ruffled Elmer’s cap. He gave Elmer more wet smooches on the noggin than Simone de Beauvoir gave Sartre. Now, that’s cheek.

Bugs taught me about speaking up, about not just accepting what I was told, but asking myself if what I was told was right, and just. And Bugs opened up to me the world of the smartass. God love ‘im.

Second, witness The Muppet Show and Sesame Street. Jim Henson gave me an appreciation of purity of heart, of the ability to find a laugh without stooping to meanness. He was silly, and generous, and he gave us joyful moments and iconic characters so flawed, we identified with them more closely than with some ‘real’ people. He taught me to laugh at what people do, not who they are.

Last, I have to give props to Monty Python’s Flying Circus. Broadcast on late-night PBS, these skits opened me up to the possibilities of the absurd. So what if defending yourself against attackers with a banana made no sense? Or the Ministry of Silly Walks? Or the Twit Olympics? I learned how to be ridiculous, how being funny didn’t always have to make sense. And that a British accent always makes something funnier.

Today, I maintain secret altars to several geniuses of comedy: Eddie Izzard, Bill Hicks, Jon Stewart, Lewis Black, George Carlin. (More lurk out there, but I only have so much room in my closet.) All of these men are talented, intelligent, outrageous in their own way. What I’ve learned from them is to be observant. To put anger to good use. To understand the bigger picture, and how we all fit into it, how we affect the world. That we’re responsible for what we say and do, and we should stand behind our words and actions.

So here I am, thirty-five years later, still learning from comedy.

What I'd like to know is:
What qualities did you develop from humor, growing up?
And at what secret altars do you worship, late at night, with that rubber chicken?
Don't worry, I'll leave the formaldehyde at home.