What's So &%#@ Funny ? (Humor and How it Gets That Way)

Why smile? Why laugh? Why chuckle? Because it is so darn important.

We all enjoy joy. This book talks about how friendly humor can be and how good it tastes. There’s a place for humor in a wide and diverse range of the human experience. We take a look at humor from the perspective of how exciting it is. For example, kids are naturally fun. Writers, parents, instructors, salespeople, business types and curious intellectuals, and just ordinary folk get an important lift out of a good chuckle. It can be a life saver, not just fun.

Here we are, let’s examine the exploitation, adventures and fun humor has experienced over time.

Funny stuff just happens. There’s the classic where an unaware guy slips on a banana peel. There’s a bit of trickster in most of us. No necessarily nastiness, but young-at-heart playfulness. “You will live—but not long,” a veiled threat that usually passes as a joke.

So much of our communication is colored with witty stuff that innocently strays into conversations, writing, and our thoughts. These sixteen chapters address most of those topics, rather than follow fun chronologically through the decades. Gallows Humor, Clowns, How High is School, Kids, Show Biz, Words, Business, and lots of Sarcasm and Satire. We dig deeply into sarcasm, that beloved form of satire that graduates from snobbery.

We also look at the black side of things. Why hesitate to show friends and family how completely we’re surrounded by evil and deceit, lousy crooks and grumpy salespeople? Do something about it. Why not lighten up? We can tell a joke, play a prank or sing a funny song left over from elementary school. “My old sneakers are friends of mine, You can’t trust any shoes that shine….” Just like Sandra Boynton, humorist, songwriter etc., tells kids. Making jokes and witty pleasantries is an excellent way to spread happiness and make friends. Unfortunately, not everyone has the knack.

There’s water cooler wit, that’s where there’s some insight into how business tension is dispelled with a light or even dark, nasty touch of humor. Everyone is a specialist and supposedly hates The Boss, so some pretty scathing steam gets blown off right there. Not every working person has a desk, or even a water cooler. Take the rodeo clown who diverts the bull from injuring the bull riders as well as clown around to entertain the crowd. There are many well-trained and often over-educated, bartenders with good ears, a ready smile, and off-all color jokes.

"What’s So &%#@ Funny?" examines the adventures and fun humor has undergone over time. From “Knock, knock” through back stage burlesque to Bob Hope’s USO tours, and bankable comedy club performers. What does go on between the actor and the audience, anyway? What is funny on one side of the mountain is not necessarily funny on the other side. Same darn thing from one part of town to the other or from one social level to another.

Puns have a short lifetime and are a one-time thing. Jokes can be retold. Cemeteries are places where literary humor can become eternal. Written in stone, as in gravestones. Humorist Erma Bombeck started her humorist career working as a newspaper obituary writer. We’ve heard that she also wrote her own epitaph, “I told you I was sick.”

Wit wins when people simply surrender with a good laugh. Witty folks do their best to bring the audience to its knees. Humor can also calm tempers, soothes jagged nerves, break the gloom of growing old and achey.

The writer has seen the pains of people buffered and soothed by a lighthearted remark or twinkle in the eyes of a stranger. She’s experienced a great deal of anger diminished through a witty retort or a heavenward roll of the eyes along with a tiny, gentle smile. This sort of thing has been used since the beginning of time. That’s why this book has been written.