PSA: Please note, this article can be reviewed just for the writing, or for the humor, or both. You decide. If you know a good joke, leave it in the comments. I am always looking for new materials.
If careful calculation is correct, this is the third time I have written about humor, the power, the majesty, and the gut-splitting good times humor provides. Oddly enough, I am a big fan of dad jokes, but not a dad. I prefer humor that is funny for the fun, not the shocking or profane, merely a good laugh. Of the funniest songs I have ever heard, Arthur Freed and Nacio Herb Brown take the top billing with the song, “Make ‘em Laugh.” Cole Porter also tickled my funny bone with a similar song, “Be a Clown.” However, since I detest clowns, I cannot like this song very much. Both songs are linked for your listening and watching pleasure. Do you find clowns creepy in the Stephen King kind of creepy?
One of the truths about humor is embedded in the lyrics of Make ‘em laugh:
Cosmo:
Though the world is so full of a number of things,
I know we should all be as happy as
But are we?
No, definitely no, positively no.
Decidedly no. Mm mm.
Short people have long faces and
Long people have short faces.
Big people have little humor
And little people have no humor at all!
And in the words of that immortal buddy
Samuel J. Snodgrass, as he was about to be lead
To the guillotine:
Make ’em laugh
Make ’em laugh
Don’t you know everyone wants to laugh?
(Ha ha!)
My dad said, “Be an actor, my son
But be a comical one
They’ll be standing in lines
For those old honky tonk monkeyshines.”
Now you could study Shakespeare and be quite elite
And you can charm the critics and have nothin’ to eat
Just slip on a banana peel
The world’s at your feet
Make ’em laugh
Make ’em laugh
Make ’em laugh
Make ’em…
Make ’em laugh
Don’t you know everyone wants to laugh
My grandpa said go out and tell ’em a joke
But give it plenty of hoke
Make ’em roar
Make ’em scream
Take a fall
But a wall
Split a seam
You start off by pretending
You’re a dancer with grace
You wiggle ‘till they’re
Giggling all over the place
And then you get a great big custard pie in the face
Make ’em laugh
Make ’em laugh
Make ’em laugh
Make ’em laugh
Make ’em laugh
Don’t you know… all the…wants..?
My dad…
They’ll be standing in lines
For those old honky tonk monkeyshines
Make ’em laugh
Make ’em laugh
Don’t you know everyone wants to laugh?
Ah ha ha ha ha ha há
Ah ha ha ha ha ha
Ah ha ha ha ha ha ha
Ah ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha
Make ’em laugh, ah ah!
Make ’em laugh, ah ah!
Make ’em laugh, ah ah!
Make ’em laugh
Make ’em laugh
Make ’em laugh!
“Don’t you know that everyone wants to laugh?” There is much truth in this line, but laughing is a choice. We choose what to laugh at, decide when to laugh, and choose, with the resulting consequences, what is found humorous. The first time I saw the movie “Singing in the Rain,” from whence the song “Make ‘em laugh” originated, I thought this song was ridiculous. Recently I saw the movie again, and this song was hilariously funny and laughed so hard I cried. What changed; certainly wasn’t the movie which was made in 1952; the acting had not changed, the actors are dead; I changed. The first time I saw this movie, I was exhausted after prepping for a holiday meal, I was strung out from too much work, and nothing was funny. This last time, I had changed mentally and physically, which made all the difference.
What is the lie in the song “Make ‘em Laugh?” Simply put, nobody can make you emote if you choose not to, a powerful lesson indeed. I grew up in a big family, and there are seven of us kids; my uncle brought his four and then had a couple more, aunts, uncles, cousins, and more if you took the Salisbury family, those still living could still essentially fill a couple of venues. My older brother was always trying to “make you laugh.” He failed for many reasons; the first was I never thought he was funny.
My older brother could take a joke I laughed at and kill the joke in the retelling. I never met another person so anxious to make people laugh and like him, who failed so completely and miserably. Take the funniest joke you know, put that joke in my older brother’s mouth, and that joke will fall flat, and you will wonder why it was funnier previously. It never ceases to amaze me how this person can kill a joke, especially when he is such a joke himself.
Long have I maintained the following formula:
[(Dark Humor + Intelligent Humor + a Warped sense of Humor) (Shaken not stirred)] = Me laughing hysterically!
I like to laugh. I need to laugh, or the depression and anxiety become too great and I am angry. This last week has been no picnic with the continuing crush from the VA-OIG, add the IRS and several state departments of revenue, and I needed to find humor. Combined with the ongoing dissertation pains and the need for a good chuckle was mandatory! Without further ado, here are things that leave me laughing in the aisles. If repeats are found from previous posts, you have my apologies!
May you choose to enjoy!
© Copyright 2022 – M. Dave Salisbury
The author holds no claims for the art used herein, the pictures were obtained in the public domain, and the intellectual property belongs to those who created the images. Quoted materials remain the property of the original author.
DNC-Consulting 