Having Children
Happy ‘ween, Jazz Pickles! Have fun, be safe, and if you’re wearing a mask tonight, do not use Crazy Glue to hold it in place.
A person might logically assume that the reason the gag above is funny (if it is) is because it is shocking, but that’s not really it. The real key to humor is surprise and if you think about it, “shock” is really just a specific type of surprise; if the thing said wasn’t a surprising thing to say, it would not have been shocking. This subtle distinction is what leads to the misconception that all you need to do to be funny is to say something shocking. Amateur comics make this mistake all the time.
That’s not to say that all surprise is funny or that anything funny is also surprising. Humor is a complex and elusive art that comes in an infinite number of forms and is very difficult to deconstruct and describe, though many have tried. And yet, almost every human being knows humor when they experience it and can’t be fooled into laughing if it isn’t funny. You can even get good at creating it without knowing how to describe it or where it comes from.
When I was a stand-up comic years ago, I used to sometimes say, “My wife and I had a baby this week…” (cue predictable round of applause) “…and it was delicious.” The punchline always got a laugh (and a few groans from people who could not help imagining it outside the realm of comedy) but it was the surprise that created the laugh, not the shock.
In the cartoon above, we start with the shock of eating children but that’s not the laugh. The laugh is in comparing the cannibalistic diet of fairytale witches to a currently popular fad diet, which is a surprising comparison one might not come to on one’s own.
But this joke also begs the question (I am invariably told by one or more commenters that I’m using that expression incorrectly—sorry!) why disgusting, wrong, evil things like eating the young of your own species can be funny. (To some people is most definitely is not.) Now, I’ve not read up on this at all and am just shooting from the hip here, so be prepared to discard as bullshit whatever I say next.
Like it or not, we inhabit the realm of opposites: dark and light, good and evil, pleasure and pain, soft and hard, hot and cold, life and death, etc. The things we consider “bad” are as necessary to the way things work as the things we consider “good”. There simply is no changing the entire universe to contain only pleasurable things, and so we all must occasionally endure the dark and the painful. Our ability to laugh at it makes it easier but our emotions are often too raw during a painful event to laugh, so we do it later, when we’re feeling strong and safe again. How often have you said something like, “It’s funny now, but at the time…” after telling a story about the time your dog climbed into your lap while you were driving and you veered into a patrol car. The laugh later is really a way of celebrating the fact that you made it through a tough time and now it’s over. Phew! In the case of children-eating witches, it’s a similar dynamic but in the opposite chronological direction—at least I’m not being eaten by witches! No one would say that, but you get the idea. It’s actually similar to the reasons we embrace the dark and scary parts of life each Halloween, too, I think.
Whether the tool of humor was given to us by a higher intelligence or developed in us via evolution (which one could also call a higher intelligence) doesn’t matter, we have it and we can use it to keep moving forward and not let the occasional unpleasantness of life sink us permanently. For this reason, I think of humor as a divine gift. If you’re in the habit of reading this far into my weekly blog posts, you probably do, too.
The above gag was a collaboration with my good friend, Michael Capozzola, who is a stand-up comic and actor in London these days. We stay in touch but I’ve not seen him since he moved across the pond so if you London readers happen to catch his act, tell him I sent you!
Now let’s find out which of Wayno’s Bizarro cartoons this week make us smile, and try to figure out why…
I count myself among those who object to all things pumpkin-spicy and so my laugh here comes with an “at least it isn’t me!”
Fun party game: who would win if Zeus and the real God had a fight? (hint: it's a trick question)
In Wayno’s blog post this week, he calls that thing she’s riding an SUB. There are several fun extras in his post the week so do yourself a fave and have a look. And extra points for anyone who can make it through the entire song that he posts at the end. I could not.
To screw or not to screw. Always a dilemma.
A nice lady wrote to me asking what this cartoon meant and in making sure I got the answer correct, I looked up the lyrics to “Pop Goes the Weasel”. To my surprise (but not the kind that makes me laugh) I found out that this is a very old song with a LOT of different versions. In 20th-century America, it was most commonly, “All around the mulberry bush,” but in past iterations, it was, “Half a pound of tuppenny rice,” “All around the cobbler’s house,” “Witches eating a couple of kids,” as well as others.
That last one is fake. It’s what comedians refer to as a “callback,” and the surprise of seeing/hearing something again that you’d just seen/heard not long ago makes you chuckle.
I feel inspired to mention Wayno’s weekly blog post again because he created a cool GIF showing the progression of the art on this vampire cartoon and it’s really fun.
That concludes this week’s comedy costume party, Jazz Pickles. Thanks for staying until all of the apples have been bobbed and the punch has been vomited. If you enjoy what we do and want to help us keep this free and clear of ads and other crap, have a look at the links below. We have NEW SECRET SYMBOL STICKERS in the shop and a couple from Peyote Cowboy!
Until next time, save me a Butterfinger.
BIZARRO SHOP Fun and cheap!
… Bizarro TIP JAR One-time or repeating. Your choice!
…Signed, numbered, limited edition prints and original Bizarro panels