The Laugh Test

 

In a recent Club Random interview, John Cleese and Bill Maher make the important observation that psychopaths have no sense of humour. Nor do sociopaths or narcissists—I suspect it is all the same ball of wax. This is not exactly true; a psychopath will laugh at someone slipping on a banana peel. But they are utterly literal-minded, and so cannot get irony, satire, or even puns.

Then Bill Maher ruins it by citing Donald Trump as an example of this.

It is true that I have never seen Trump laugh in public. But then, try to think of any other prominent politician you have seen laughing. I can’t, with one exception. Kamala Harris.

And she gets raked over the coals for it. People cite it as unlikeable. This may be a perfectly adequate explanation why politicians do not laugh in public. I guess people see it as frivolous, when there are important issues on the table; and perhaps as being out of control of oneself; not wanted in a leader.

Even aside from this, it is reasonably possible to fake a laugh or titter when one really does not get the joke. Accordingly, we cannot use laughing as a measure.

 But there is another, better measure: can they tell a joke, especially extemporaneously? This is a surer test. Even a canned joke, to work, has to have the right timing; being able to judge that shows a sense of humour. And, confounding the original laugh test, the best comedians often do not laugh on stage. It generally spoils the joke, by pointing out the irony and telegraphing it.

By this measure, Trump scores especially high. He can do a two-hour standup routine without notes. Pierre Poilievre seems pretty funny off the cuff.

Those who hate Trump, on the other hand, inevitably do not get his jokes. They always take him absurdly literally. They are the narcissists.

Who is conspicuously not funny, especially off script? I say Justin Trudeau, Joe Biden. Biden’s idea of a joke seems to be a mere insult: “lying dog-faced pony soldier.” And he prefaces every lie with the phrase “not a joke”—implying that he does not understand what a joke is. He thinks it is the same as a lie. 

I cannot picture Trudeau ever attempting a joke. I don’t think he could do it even scripted.

QED.

Narcissists and psychopaths are literal-minded, Cleese and Maher go one to agree, because they are nervous; nervous people are afraid of anything unexpected. They jump at shadows. They will therefore fear, resist, and deny the reversal of expectations that is every joke’s premise and punch line. 

“What an elephant was doing in my pyjamas, I’ll never know.”

That they fear the unexpected disproves the claim of current psychology that a psychopath has no conscience. What else do they fear? Truth being told and being exposed is what they fear; they would not fear it if they did not know they were lying and doing wrong. 

This is a life lesson worth remembering: beware people who do not laugh, except at slapstick, and are not witty.

And definitely do not elect them to high office.

The Perils of Modern Dating

 

It was like in that painting, “Nighthawks.” Al all-night diner near the docks, an oasis of light on a darkened, empty street.

This meant she didn’t want to be seen with me. A woman like that—she was probably cheating on someone. No way she was still single. 

I had my choice of tables—almost no one in the place. I chose a seat with a view of the door. I couldn’t wait: that long black hair, those pale blue eyes. They had haunted my dreams for weeks.

Okay, she was late. Of course. A woman like that has a right to be late.

I checked my phone. No messages. She did not answer at her number.

But finally the door jerked open—first a jerk, then slowly.

Why was he so bundled up? She definitely did not want to be seen with me. I wouldn’t even hve known it was her, had she not walked straight up to my table and said my name.

“Frank?”

“Maryanne?”

“There’s something I haven’t told you, Frank. I guess I need to tell you now.”

“Sit down, Maryanne. I’m a good listener.”

“You don’t have to be.”

She began to take off her wrap. I saw the long black whiskers. I saw the thick lips. I saw the eyes.

They were not blue. They were small and black, like beads embedded in her grey skin.

Her mouth opened and closed convulsively, gasping for breath an she covered the back of my hand with a moist fin.

“Frank, do you understand what this means?”

“Yes, Maryanne. Someone explained it to me at my writers’ group.”

Babylon Bee

 

Laughing out of Both Sides of the 49th Parallel

 

I have been “binge watching” the Canadian sitcom “Corner Gas” in a moderate way: one episode each evening. At the same time, for some reason, episodes of the old American sitcom “WKRP in Cincinnati” have been popping up in my YouTube feed. I remember it as pretty good, so I’ve watched a few of those recently as well.

I think comparing the two illustrates the difference between American and Canadian humour.

WKRP, American, has a mix of sympathetic and unsympathetic characters. Some are there to be laughed at, but disliked, and some are straight, unfunny, and likeable. Herb and Les are unlikeable clowns. Andy or Bailey or Venus Flytrap never put a foot wrong. 

In Corner Gas, all the characters are sometimes sympathetic, sometimes unsympathetic. All have flaws and sometimes look foolish; all are fundamentally likeable. Even Oscar, who comes closest to being a villain. He is too much like a bratty child to dislike. Nobody is above getting ribbed, including the show itself, which often breaks the “fourth wall.” 

This is consistent in Canadian humour. There are no heroes or villains in Leacock’s Sunshine Sketches either. 

I think it is an expression of a religious difference between Canada and the USA. The USA was founded largely on Calvinist principles: the Reformed tradition of the Puritans in the north, the Baptists in the South, the Dutch Reformed in the Mid-Atlantic. Calvinists see people as either damned or elect; all good or all evil.

Canada was founded largely by Catholics, Anglicans, and Methodists. Catholics, Anglicans, and Methodists believe that all of us are sinners, but that all of us are capable of redemption at any moment.

And that pretty much accounts for the difference between the American and Canadian character overall.

Twelve Rules for Life

Do not invade Russia.

Do not invest large sums in tulips.

If God tells you not to eat a fruit, don’t.

Urinate only with the wind at your back.

Do not rely on French troops to guard your left flank.

Never bet on the villain in a Disney film.

Never marry a woman whose family nickname is “Princess.”

Avoid staff picnics during a zombie apocalypse.

In the event of a nuclear holocaust, get under your desk and put your hands behind your head

.
Avoid land wars in Asia.

Do not lick doorknobs during a coronavirus outbreak.

Never take life advice from a psychologist.

The Week in Pictures

Always a few laughs out loud here.

Canadian Culture

Anne attacks Gilbert.

Canadian culture is fundamentally unserious.

Seriously.

Humor and kidlit are the two Canadian specialties. There is a reason for this.

It has to do with our democratic instincts. You start getting serious about things, and the Canadian instinct is to say “Get off your high horse!”

I recall that the rather good British 1960s series The Avengers tried to reboot as a British-Canadian co-production, featuring the intrepid Bond-like agents of Interpol operating from the environs of Toronto.

Perhaps it played well to a UK audience, but to a Canadian, it was unintentionally wildly comic. High intrigue in Mariposa? Get off your high horse!

Canadian culture is always about ordinary people in their ordinary lives, for the good and simple reason that this is all that really matters. Anything else is comic in its pretension.

And the most important events in life, as any sane person knows, take place in childhood.

Monty Python's Dive Bombing Circus

Have recently been re-watching old Monty Python Flying Circus episodes. Just about everything seems to be available online through YouTube.

I still find them funny. I love absurdist humour, and that is what they mostly were. You can’t beat the fish slapping dance.

Each of the six Pythons seemed to bring something special to the show:

John Cleese was the comic genius. He could write brilliantly and perform brilliantly. He could do complex verbal humour, and striking physical humour, both at the highest level.

Graham Chapman was the acting talent. He was always completely the person he was acting. This made him fantastic as a deadpan comic or straight man: no matter how absurd the situation, he seemed real and believable and vaguely troubled by it all.

Michael Palin had what can be a comic’s greatest gift: he was intrinsically likable. This is the complete package for some great comics: Jimmy Durante, for example, was not really funny, just consistently lovable. Charlie Chaplin was mostly lovable, not funny. Palin was like that—always an eager puppy. Great comic persona.

Eric Idle’s talent was as a lyricist. His songs are some of the most memorable things from the series. He wrote in the tradition of W.S. Gilbert or Flanders and Swan. He was also probably, next to Cleese, the best comic writer.

Terry Gilliam had the visual imagination. Idle provided the sound track, Gilliam provided the scenery. Without it, Python would not be Python. It was the most distinctive element.

Gilliam has made a name for himself as a major director since the series ended. Yet the best director in the group was Terry Jones. That suggests how good Jones is. When the group did their own movies, they always chose Jones, not Gilliam, to direct. They knew both best; they knew what they were doing. If you re-watch Life of Brian, as I just did, with an eye for the cinematic element, it is astounding how good Jones is. He simply chose not to pursue this path after the series ended. He’s been spending his time on Medieval history—doing what he likes, not needing to worry about money.

I also recently re-watched the famous debate between Palin and Cleese, on one side, and Malcolm Muggeridge and the Anglican bishop of Southwark, on the other, on Life of Brian—supposedly the late Douglas Adams’s favorite bit of television. Muggeridge and the bishop hated the movie.

Who won? I think it was a split decision. Palin was crushed by the archbishop, and pretty much knocked out of the debate. But Cleese got in the best line, against Muggeridge. Muggeridge and the bishop lost sympathy by being openly insulting towards the film, not acknowledging its value as humour. And, worse, by not discussing the theology, but dismissing it out of hand. They came across as grumpy old men. I suspect they were at a disadvantage from only having seen the movie for the first time a few hours before. These were only first impressions, they had not had time to compose any substantial arguments, and no doubt they were shocked.

On the other hand, Cleese loses sympathy today by characterising the bishop’s and Muggeridge’s position as simply unintelligent. Which comes across as disrespectful and even as a backhanded admission that they were right.

Cleese justified the film in debate, and gave its central message as, “Don’t just believe what you are told. Decide for yourself.” Good advice, but not illustrated by the film. In reality, in Britain or throughout the developed world, either when the film came out, or now, sincerely believing in the Christian message is a minority position. It is the subversive and independent position. Going along with the herd in these days or those meant mocking Christianity, chasing worldly success instead, and enjoying Monty Python.

If you want something that makes the point Cleese claims to have been making, Ibsen’s An Enemy of the People might have qualified. But, tellingly, it is not funny. Another piece that makes the point, even more dramatically, is the New Testament. Which, as Cleese admitted, they could not find a way to make funny. You probably cannot really make this point and still be funny.

The more fundamental problem or issue, to my mind, is that Python was straying here from what was best about them: absurdism. Like too many other celebrities once they find an audience, they began exploiting their platform to promote their personal opinions on this, that, and the other thing: on religion, on Christianity, on politics, on The Meaning of Life. Meaning. Note that word. Being funny was no longer enough for them.

I can’t really fault them for this—it is exactly what I do here, albeit without the audience. But in the case of Python, it goes uniquely against the essence of what made them great. This explains, I suspect, why they themselves found their comic muses drying up, and found they could no longer do the series. And they turned out, I think, as is most likely to be the case for celebrities who speak outside their own expertise, not to have any particular great or interesting insights on things like the Meaning of Life.

Why would they, any more than the next guy?

Funny

Who are the greatest English-language humourists of all time?

A matter of taste. But here’s mine.

Jonathan Swift: the greatest satirist. Not just “A Modest Proposal,” maybe the greatest essay in English, but also Gulliver’s Travels. Not laugh-out-loud funny, but in the grand tradition of satire: you do not know he’s cut off your head until the next time you go to bow.

Stephen Leacock. Humour often does not wear well—mostly because it depends on the element of surprise. But Leacock wears as well as he ever did. I loved him as a kid, and read everything then. I reread some a few years ago, and it was still as good. “He flung himself on his horse and rode madly off in all directions.” He made people funny yet never stooped to making anyone a pure object of fun. As comedy traditionally does, with its grotesques. Nothing cruel, no painting anyone as only a buffoon. His characters were never two-dimensional humours; you always sympathized with them.

Buster Keaton. Overshadowed in his day by Chaplin, and even Harold Lloyd. But he has better stood the test of time. Chaplin was sometimes guilty of special pleading, of jerking tears. Keaton was Gibraltar in his integrity. If the joke did not work on its own, it did not get any help. There was a purity to it, an almost mathematical quality.

Jack Benny. I have only in lengthening years fully appreciated the greatness of his art. He could take a line that would not be funny if anyone else said it, a line that had no visible punch line, and make you laugh, just about for as long as he wanted. He could say “Well,” and it was screamingly funny. And without any obvious mugging or broad gestures. He was the master of timing. He was the master of minimalism.

It is harder to judge more recent humourists; we cannot yet tell how they will wear. Among the ultimate greats may be Bob Newhart, Steve Martin, Eddie Murphy, Robin Williams, Michael Myers, John Belushi. More recent than that, it gets even trickier.

Overrated: Groucho Marx. Too easy to imitate, and he got his shtick in the first place from George S. Kaufman. Often not funny so much as obnoxious. Anyone can be obnoxious.

Mark Twain. Tiresomely predictable in his cynicism.

Mel Brooks. Too desperate for a laugh.

Lucille Ball. I could never watch her as a kid. I did not find it funny to constantly see someone messing up. It required an utter lack of sympathy with the character.

Thomas Aquinas Tells a Joke

Via First Thoughts.

Does God Have a Sense of Humour?

The great debate ensues...