Mickey’s Theory of Comedy

It was as a young boy traveling with heroes in spaceships across time and space that I first realized that comedy is one of the greatest powers in the galaxy. Being able to laugh at things that so cosmically clash with what you want to do and where you want to go in life makes it possible to play the idiot and not get your head actually bitten off by the giant purple moon duck that thought your spaceship was an egg and crushed it by trying to hatch it. Comedy rewrites the script of life into something you can live through and learn from and laugh about instead of getting wounded from and scarred by and made to die from.

And how do you tell if something that happens is a comedy or a tragedy?

Well, if you go by the examples of Shakespeare’s plays, it is relatively easy. A comedy may suffer from terrible mixups and conflicts that are potentially life-threatening. But the problems get sorted out and solved. And then somebody… or even everybody gets married at the end. Plus the soliloquies are mostly wordplay and ridiculous metaphors, often including bawdy and ribald humor to titillate the peasants in the pit of the theater.

Tragedies are the opposite. The conflicts, though clearly foreshadowed, are relentlessly played out… unstoppable. Characters, especially heroes, have some tragic flaw that makes their downfall inescapable. And everybody dies at the end. The stage in the concluding scenes of Hamlet runs red with imaginary blood. Simple.

‘There are many theories of humor. But of the three most common ones, let us start with Incongruous Juxtaposition Theory. That’s the one where things that don’t fit with other things are forced together. Like the giant moon duck back in the introduction that wrecked my spaceship because it thought it was an egg to hatch. Or the seven pond frogs in Hollywood who see a Frank Sinatra movie on the local drive-in’s outdoor screen, and then decide that they can sing better than Frankie, so they form a barbershop quartet and become a huge hit by singing outside the local radio station.

A second common theory is the Superiority Theory. This says we like to laugh at the clowns because they show us things to make us feel like we are better than they are. So, we laugh when they fail at the things that they try, especially if they fall and get hurt in funny ways. I am not fond of this kind of humor since it is most commonly enjoyed by bullies, jackasses, and stupid people… you know, the people that even I can feel superior to. But I have to admit that this kind of humor is funny when the clown makes the same mistakes that I have made, and I am suddenly standing in his clown shoes.

A third theory, the one most relied on by Mickey, is the Relief Theory, the one that allows us to suddenly realize how silly some of our greatest fears truly are. My fear of being chased in my dreams by a duck with teeth becomes laughable when I stop quaking long enough to realize ducks don’t have teeth… not in real life… only in dreams and Warner Brothers’ cartoons.

So, Mickey’s Theory of Comedy barely rates a thought when stacked up against the comedic products of Charlie Chaplin, the Marx Brothers, Mr. Bean, and George Carlin. But at least it’s simple.

Good comedy stories not only make you laugh a lot, but they make you cry a little too. Good comedy lets you climb inside the clown character’s skin, see the funny from the inside, and it all has a happy ending.

Good tragedy is the opposite. It makes you laugh a little, but it makes you cry a lot. You get inside the tragic heroes’ skin to suffer with them and deeply experience heartfelt hurt from the inside. And you probably get a sad or terribly earned ending.

So, there you have it. Mickey’s theory of comedy. It’s a real joke. A hootable, tootable, rhymie-timie joke. And how to make more.